Press Release 3 January 2015 The Children’s Centre - A Conflict of Interest There has been a lot of speculation recently about the awarding of contracts for three service areas - Residential Children’s Homes, Leaving Care Services and Wraparound (Therapeutic Services) for Looked After Children. The first two were existing services carried out by the Isle of Man Childrens Centre and the third is a new service. St Christophers and The Children’s Centre were amongst those who took part in the tender process and St Christophers were awarded all three contracts. There was also a tender process for the provision of Family Services and it is this that has sparked the controversy. We understand that John Richards who was employed by the Department ( member of the procurement interview panel and co-author of all the service level specifications) was at the time of the procurement a registered director of the UK charity (Family Action) that was shortlisted and interviewed for this service. Once this conflict of interest was exposed, the service that his charity was involved in was removed from the tender process by the Department. Maire Booth, LibVan spokesperson for Social Care stated “This shows that the Department has acknowledged that there was a conflict of interest in respect of one of the contracts but, as Mr Richards has been instrumental in the specification of all four service areas and been a member of the interview panel, we believe that the process has been tainted in its entirety and the full tender process has been severely compromised.” It is not known whether any other possible conflicts of interest exist but LibVan believe that, when one conflict of interest was discovered, that should have been sufficient to give enough cause for concern for the whole process to have been stopped. As it stands, there can be no confidence in the integrity of the three contract awarded to St Christopher’s. “ENDS” Maire Booth LibVan spokesperson for Social Care Word Count: 337
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 11:10:36 +0000
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