The Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Education, Early Years and Skills, which sought approval for the acceptance of the Restart contract extension for a further three years, from July 2024 to 30th June 2027, which would maintain Get Oldham Working’s delivery to a further thousand Oldham residents, supporting them back into work and sustainable employment.
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had announced in November 2023 that they were planning on extending the National Restart scheme for a further two years to support another 500’s people. Negotiations had, subsequently, taken place with both DWP and the Primes and most recently with Primes and a sub-contractor for a new allocation of volumes and monetary value for each contract area.
Oldham Council had been offered a further £2.6m for a new contract to continue with Restart from 1st July 2024 to 30th June 2027, to work with approx. 1,000+ Oldham residents with an expectation that at least 455 Oldham residents will secure sustainable employment.
The contract commitments were mostly the same as the existing contract, apart from a 1% uplift in job outcome expectations. Due diligence was already in place regarding governance, data security and information management. Staff, who were likely to be affected, had remained consulted throughout this process. However if Option 2 was not to be approved then some staff maybe at risk of redundancy. In that eventuality, formal consultation will take place in accordance with council policies and procedures. The extension to the contract of the DWP Restart contract as a subcontract to Ingeus would provide opportunities to residents of Oldham in line with the Council’s priorities and objectives.
Options and Alternatives considered:
Option 1 - not accept the new contract. This wasn’t the preferred option, as it could jeopardise the existing high performance, plus the Get Oldham Working service would be hit with an extensive funding gap for staffing and require making redundancies. It would also put the funding coming into Oldham at risk, as this would have to be re-tendered/commissioned to another provider.
Option 2 – to agree to accept the new contract through GOW to deliver the services. This will support our residents first approach, enable GOW and the council to not make redundancies for exiting staff working on other contracts coming to an end and ensure we can work towards exceeding on contractual volumes and get more for Oldham residents across the National programme.
Resolved:
To agree to approve Option 2 – authorising the Council via GOW to accept and act in the role of sub-contractor to Ingeus to deliver the Restart contract extension from July 2024 to 30th June 2027.