A CHARITABLE home care provider spent over £4,000 preparing bids for contracts which were subsequently withdrawn by Scottish Borders Council.

Selkirk-based Borders Caring Services (BCS) was among a number of interested parties when, in July, 2012, the council published its intention to set up a four-year framework agreement to deliver home care services to 650 elderly and vulnerable individuals.

The contracts, according to that original notice, would be worth between £8million and £9million.

In September of that year, SBC issued an “invitation to tender”, explaining that the work would be split into lots and envisaging that between 19 and 30 suppliers would submit bids. A deadline of October 3, 2012, was set.

But as BCS and other aspirant providers waited patiently, the contracts remained un-awarded.

And it was not until seven months later – in June last year – that the hopefuls were shocked to receive a letter from SBC explaining that it was scrapping the procurement process.

The letter from Jane Douglas, group manager for social care and health, said the decision had been “influenced by a number of factors” without specifying what the factors were.

“I would like to apologise for any incovenenience the decision to discontinue may cause,” she added.

The council later confirmed that the contracts of the existing providers – ILS in the central Borders and Peeblesshire and Allied Healthcare in Roxburghshire and Berwickshire – had been extended by a year.

Before and just after these extensions were granted, both organisations had been heavily criticised by the Care Commission.

In May, that watchdog highlighted how the firms had missed regular appointments leaving frail pensioners without medication, food or hygiene help.

Val Robson, a director of BCS, told the Peeblesshire News that she had questioned the decision to abandon the procurement process at the time. “I was basically told that none of the bids were up to the mark which I find astonishing given our experience in the field of home care and the reported performance of the existing operators.

“BCS spent over £4,000 preparing its bids and I reckon the other bidders must have lost tens of thousands between them for what turned out to be a waste of time.

“Of course, it’s the nature of bidding for public contracts that there are winners and losers and you have to accept that, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that a race never actually took place. I was left to conclude that a lot of public money must have been spent by the council on an abortive and protracted tendering process.” Mrs Robson, a former chair of SBC’s housing committee, filed a request under Freedom of Information legislation to discover how much the council had actually spent on the abandoned procurement process. She was told: “The tender process was led and facilitated by various staff all with a specific contribution to make…therefore the process was delivered within existing resources as part of core duties.” Dissatisfied Mrs Robson sought a review of the response, but the council insisted that its social work department did not keep “records of individual projects”.

In April, this year, Ms Robson took her case to the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) which, last week, delivered its verdict in favour of the council. “In this case, the commissioner accepts the council submission that it did not record the staff time taken up by the tendering exercise…and, on the balance of probabilities, does not hold any information falling within the scope of Ms Robson’s request.

The commissioner cannot comment on whether a public authority should have recorded any, or more, information about a particular event or process.” Ms Robson said she was disappointed at the verdict. “This lack of ability to trace and ascribe costs for the process of procurement of services worth millions of pounds of tax payers’ money, raises serious questions about SBC’s budget control systems. It is all very worrying.”