MHA assessments or BIA assessments - Find a freedom of information request

1) Does the council have an existing contract or framework agreement in place for suppliers to undertake MHA assessments or BIA assessments on behalf of the council?

2) Please provide the name(s) of the organisations providing these services under these existing contracts or framework agreements?

3) Please confirm the start and finish date for any such contract or framework agreement.

4) Please provide the monetary value applied to any such contract or framework agreement.

5) Please provide the spot purchase price the council pays directly to Mental Health Doctors and Best Interest Assessors to undertake assessments for DoLS?

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council. I have detailed below the information that is being released to you.

1) Yes

2) Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust through a Section 75 Partnership Arrangement.

3) The Section 75 Partnership Agreement began in 2012 and has been recently renewed for the next 5 years

4) £880,379

5) The Council does not publish this figure. We consider that the information is commercially sensitive.

Please accept this as our refusal in accordance with Section 43(2) of the FOIA. If disclosed it could be used by companies to attempt to undermine our procurement process should we decide to change from Section 75 funding and put the service out to tender.

In any prospective tendering process the public would expect us to achieve best value for public money and create a fair market for competition. We are satisfied that we are entitled to withhold this in accordance with the Act.