To approve payments to Hoople for services as specified in the Hoople service level agreement for 2019/20 and establish the overarching agreement (the Hoople Services Contract) which sets out the contract between Hoople and the council for 2019/20 onwards following the expiry of the prior agreement.

Hoople provides a range of service to the council, including revenues and benefits, finance, human resources, ICT, training and education, and reablement services, they also assist the council in its management of ICT applications that are provided to the council by others. These services support the operation of the council across all directorates. The cost to the council of services provided by Hoople in 2019/20 is expected to be £5.699m. The services that Hoople are to deliver in each financial year are described in an annual plan, which is known as the Hoople service level agreement or the ‘Hoople SLA’. As a teckal company those services are to be provided to the council at cost with no profit element. For 2019/20 the overarching agreement (the Hoople Services Contract) which sets out the contract between Hoople and the council is to be re-established following the expiry of the prior agreement. The expired agreement has been reviewed for any contractual mechanisms, which refer to processes that are still deemed to be active. These being moved into a current document overarching the annual Hoople SLA document.  Amongst other things that agreement sets out the payment mechanism through which payment will be made to Hoople. That payment mechanism is entirely compatible with the arrangements that are necessary for the council to maintain the teckal exemption under which this provision must operate. As such approval of the new overarching agreement is also sought in order to enable Hoople to be paid for the services specified in the Hoople service level agreement for 2019/20, or the agreed variant thereof. This new overarching agreement will then be the subject of regular review.

The recommendations put forward enable the client/provider relationship between the council and Hoople to continue on a sound contractual footing, they enable the services that Hoople are commissioned to provide to be fully described, adjusted as may be required to support the council’s operations and then paid for to the extent that they have been provided.