22119 Cambridgeshire County Council - Direct Payment Support Service (DPSS)

Cambridgeshire County Council invites potential providers of Direct Payment Support Services to complete this soft market test questionnaire.

A Direct Payment Support Service (DPSS) provides information and advice to people who receive a personal budget through the form of a Direct Payment from the Council. A Direct Payment enables people with eligible care needs to have greater choice and control over the care they receive.

The activities covered under the current contractual arrangements include drop-ins for social work practitioners and other partner professionals, information sessions for professionals as well as responding to referrals to support service users. The DPSS will support service users to set-up their direct payments, recruit personal assistants and support with payroll through provision of information or undertaking their payroll for an additional fee.

Direct Payments support people to lead more independent lives and exercise choice and control over the services they receive. This promotes support that is flexible and tailor-made, giving people greater choice over the mix of support they receive. These principles promote independent living and direct payments should be available to all eligible people.

Additional information:

The Authority is issuing this request for information only. Any provider invited to present to the Authority is doing so to support market research only and to help make any potential procurement process more focused and efficient. No supplier selection or supplier preference is implied.

Confidentiality and Freedom of Information (FOI)

Please note: all information included in this Soft Market Testing is confidential and only for the recipients' knowledge. No information included in this document or in discussions connected to it may be disclosed to any other party without prior written authorisation.

All responses will be treated confidentially. However, please be aware that we are subject to the disclosure requirements of the FOI Act and that potentially any information we hold is liable to disclosure under that Act. For this reason, we strongly advise that any information you consider to be confidential is labelled as such. In the event that a request is subsequently made for disclosure under FOI the request will be dealt with in accordance with the legislation.

The Authority is utlising the ProContract e-tendering portal which is located at https://procontract@due-north.com/Login

Potential providers who experience technical difficulties when using ProContract should contact the support desk Mon-Fri, 9:00 to 17:30: