National Care Service: Procurement - Co-design Partnership Programme report

Introduction

Co-design Partnership Programme

We have been working with organisations who support groups and communities that have been less involved in co-design or consultations. We have been engaging with these communities through our Co-design Partnership Programme.

This work will help us make sure we are co-designing social care support services in a way that will help everyone across Scotland. The findings from this work will be shared with government officials working on improving social care support.

The findings will also be shared with the National Care Service Advisory Board. The board uses information we have learned from co-design to inform its advice about social care, social work and community health across Scotland. The board’s advice helps make sure services are consistent, fair, and high-quality across Scotland. The board membership is diverse, and this was also informed by co-design findings.

About Social Care Procurement policy

In Scotland, it is usually councils who are responsible for buying social care services. They buy services from businesses or third sector organisations. There are rules councils must follow when they do this. These rules are set out in laws like the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 and Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

Our team writes the national guidance that local authorities and other public bodies use when buying social care services. Our aim is for all public bodies to ethically procure social care services, and we are updating our guidance to deliver this aim.

Ethical procurement means buying goods and services in a way that is fair, good for the environment and good for people. It should mean when they buy social care services, they are high quality and meet the needs of people.

We want to improve procurement across Scotland, so it leads to better services for people.