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How Hertfordshire Community Meals provides social value

Objectives

Why Hertfordshire Community Meals was set up as a social enterprise

HCM was set up as an Industrial Provident Society (IPS) in 2007 by HCC and a number of borough and district councils in Hertfordshire to deliver Meals on Wheels (MoWs) to disabled, elderly, and vulnerable people across Hertfordshire. As an IPS, HCM is regulated by the Financial Services Authority, issues shares to members who comprise the Board, and is run primarily for the benefit of people who are not members, in the interests of the community. HCM was set up with two charitable objectives: (1) The relief of poverty, sickness, and disability by the provision of meals and services to people who are elderly, frail, ill, disabled or otherwise in need and (2) the relief of unemployment.

The provision of MoWs is a statutory responsibility for Local Authorities under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. Prior to 2007, in a somewhat disparate approach, HCC’s statutory responsibility was met by a combination of borough councils, district councils, and Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations delivering highly variable MoWs services across the county.

This approach was ineffective for a variety of reasons: (1) It was expensive; (2) It was financially inefficient as economies of scale could not be realised; (3) it was inconsistent in terms of quality; (4) It was difficult to manage contractually; and (5) it was difficult to co-ordinate strategically. As such, in 2002 the Hertfordshire Meal Providers Group (HMPG) was established in order to bring together officers from several of the authorities in Hertfordshire to identify opportunities for joint working to generate efficiencies and to look at potential solutions to the problems identified with existing provision. As a result of the work of HMPG, HCC successfully secured a grant of £76,000 from the Norfolk Centre of Excellence in Procurement to work with the borough and district councils to assess the feasibility of a ‘community enterprise model’ for MoWs delivery. A consultancy firm called Mutual Advantage was commissioned to carry out the feasibility study.

The final report from Mutual Advantage considered three options for a social enterprise: (1) A production unit only, with the management and organisation of the service and delivery of meals remaining with the individual District Council; (2) Integrated management and delivery, with meals bought frozen or chilled from a commercial or non-commercial provider or contract and (3) an integrated holistic food production and delivery service.

Key objectives of ‘Meals and Wheels’ services in Hertfordshire

Of the three options suggested in the Mutual Advantage report, Option 2 was subsequently chosen by the HPMG because it was argued that the option could meet four key objectives:

  1. Improved quality of service for clients
  2. Financial efficiencies for local authorities
  3. County-wide consistency of provision
  4. Improved social benefits for Hertfordshire’s communities

Subsequently in October 2007 commissioners from HCC’s Adult Care Services (now Health and Community Services) set up Hertfordshire Community Meals (HCM) to commence service delivery in North Hertfordshire with a view to providing for Hertfordshire’s remaining nine districts on the expiry of existing contracts. Today, HCM operates a 365-day service, serves 2,000 individual clients meals in their homes every day, as well as up to 500 clients who attend community lunch clubs, across every urban and rural area of Hertfordshire.

About this case study
Main Contact

Sam Tappenden

Business Development Manager
Hertfordshire Community Meals

Email: sam.tappenden@
hertscommunitymeals.co.uk

Sam Tappenden wrote this case study for Governance International in January 2014.

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