Surrey County Council's FOIA response ref Work Services Commissioning Group

Families Directorate
Adult Services
3rd floor Grosvenor House
London Square
Cross Lanes
Guildford
Surrey GU1 1FA


1 December 2006


Dear Mr Tovey

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act. Having examined your request I can now give you the following response:-

The Work Services Commissioning Group was a jointly commissioned service with Surrey County Council taking the lead commissioning role. The other commissioner was East Surrey Primary Care Trust (PCT).

1 What was the cost of this Post to the Council?

East Surrey PCT, not Surrey County Council, paid for the post of Project Manager held by Helen Lockett. The appointment followed a national advert for a project manager, which allowed the PCT to benchmark the costs of this post against other project manager posts. There was no specific budget allocated by the Work Services Commissioning Group for this post.

2 Were the costs of this Post shared with anyone else?

As stated above, East Surrey Primary Care Trust paid for this post.

3 Responsible Commissioners and their contact details?

Donal Hegarty (Policy & Commissioning Manager, Adult Mental Health & Substance Misuse, Surrey County Council):

donal.hegarty@surreycc.gov.uk 01483 517944

Diane Woods (Director of Mental Health & Learning Disability Commissioning, East Surrey Primary Care Trust):

diane.woods@eastsurrey-pct.nhs.uk 01737 214874

4 What kind of Democratic Mandate did the User and Carer Representatives on the Work Service Commissioning Group have?

The Commissioners were committed to have service users as part of the Group and although there was no Carer representative we did consult with local Carer groups. The service user representatives brought the user perspective to the Group and one of the representatives was mandated to keep service users in the area informed of progress. Because they represented the service user perspective they had a legitimate mandate to be part of the Group.

5 What was checked to ascertain that they were representative?

Both service user representatives came from East Surrey and had used services.

6 Did they receive Expenses or Payment for their time?

Both representatives were paid expenses for travel to attend meetings etc. This was paid by Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust whom I am sure have a financial audit trail of expenses paid.

7 What Evidence did the Health Overview Scrutiny Committee obtain and retain for record that there was in fact individual informed service users “evidenced” consultation done at services.

The Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee would have a record of what was submitted and discussed at the meeting in November 2005. I would suggest that you contact Derek Cunningham, Policy & Development Manager on 0208 541 7591 (email: Derek.Cunningham@surreycc.gov.uk) as he supports this Committee and will have a record of all the relevant information submitted.

I hope this response addresses all the questions you have raised but if you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me.


Yours sincerely,



Donal Hegarty

Policy & Commissioning Manager

Mental Health & Substance Misuse