A previous mentioned, the project led by Georgia Dedman in 2015 looked specifically at how well ECC engaged with care providers. It concluded that messages being sent to the market were inconsistent; that there was a lack of clear direction and leadership for provider engagement activities; and there was no joined up approach to engagement work. The project concluded that this had resulted in providers being confused and frustrated which, in turn, adversely affected relationships.

In a survey conducted as part of the 2015 project, providers highlighted a desire to have quarterly face-to-face meetings, wanted engagement events to give feedback and for these events to be tailored more to care provider issues. A clear message from providers at that time was they did not know whom to contact when they had a query and didn't know when/if they would ever receive a response.  These themes have emerged again in the research undertaken as part of this project.

The 2015 project identified and recommended that ECC should focus on the following key 'contact points' with providers to try and improve relationships:

• Provider events;
• Provider newsletter;
• Contract management enquiries; and
• Councillor engagement.

At the time each of these activities were reviewed and improvements made with a follow-up survey suggesting things had got better.

Having re-examined the outcomes of this project, and taking into consideration comments from our workshops, it is recommended that some of the areas from the 2015 project could be usefully revisited - see Parts 3 and 4, pages 16 and 27.

Further research undertaken as part of our project, suggests that ECC has remarkably few formal meeting points with providers given the size of the authority and the number of providers it contracts with - see Appendix F. Furthermore, of these, the provider forums are still relatively new, as is the Essex Employment Skills Board (EESB) care sector group.  Neither have clear terms of reference.  Appendix F sets out these groups and an assessment of their maturity.

The ability to engage systematically with care providers is also hampered by the limited extent to which providers have self-organised themselves into groups that ECC can engage with collectively.  There are three organisations that currently operate in Essex and between them they 'represent' about a quarter of the care market:

• Essex Independent Care Association (EICA);
• Care Provider Network (CPN); and
• South Essex Care and Health Association (SECHA) - operating largely in the Southend and Thurrock area.

Comparisons to other local authorities (LAs) in the region suggest that most other LAs have some kind of formal arrangements to engage with providers.  However, these were not always considered robust or effective.  There was a general tendency to rely on 'one-off' or ad hoc arrangements to engage on key issues such as contract issues, resourcing levels and tendering processes. Some LAs worked through 'forums', whilst others had more formal strategic meetings with providers. Overall most LAs have meetings with providers every three to four months in some shape or form.

Providers are self-organised in two of the six LAs surveyed in the Eastern Region, with three others suggesting there are no 'associations' of providers, and one describing a 'partial set up'. Only one LA has a provider organisation that represents all the providers they contract with. Where providers have self-organised, their LAs offer resources in order to help them do that.