Freedom of information response
Health and social care contracts and complaints
The following questions relate to the duties outlined in the Health and Social Care Act (2012) which require each local authority to make such arrangements as it considers appropriate for the provision of independent advocacy services in relation to its area.
I would like to request the following information.
1. The value of the contract your local authority awarded for independent NHS complaints advocacy services in the following financial years:
a. 2019/20 (1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020)
b. 2010/21 (1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021)
c. 2021/22 (1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022)
d. 2022/23 (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023)
e. 2023/24 (1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024)
2. Does your local authority currently provide or commission a dedicated complaints advocacy service to support people to make complaints about adult social care?
3. If so, how much funding was allocated to this service in the following financial years:
a. 2019/20 (1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020)
b. 2020/21 (1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021)
c. 2021/22 (1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022)
d. 2022/23 (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023)
e. 2023/24 (1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024)
1. The value of the contract your local authority awarded for independent NHS complaints advocacy services in the following financial years:
-
- 2019/20 (1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020)
- 2010/21 (1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021)
- 2021/22 (1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022)
- 2022/23 (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023)
- 2023/24 (1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024)
To answer question 1, all information on contract award and values can be found on our contracts register - Current contracts | Our contracts | Thurrock Council
Q2. Thurrock council do not currently commission a dedicated complaints advocacy service to support people to make complaints about adult social care, this function is undertaken on a spot purchase basis when the need for an advocate’s support is identified/ requested.
Q3. The collation of the data for this question would need to be manually gathered with several previous provider contracts pulled and therefore would take more than 18 hours to produce.
In issuing our response the council have applied S12 of the Freedom of Information Act.
This means that the council does not have to comply with your request if the cost of doing so exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’, which for local authorities is 18 hours. This applies to the time taken spent locating and collating the requested information.
If you wish to narrow the scope of your request and resubmit this to the council then of course we may be able to provide this information.