We are excited to confirm that we have five organisations signed up and currently working on our commissioning framework.

Though we originally planned to use this commissioning framework to deliver face-to-face outreach to service users who require additional support, the impact of the pandemic has called for a change to this. We have, therefore, also started to offer telephone ASF1s on the framework.

We have welcomed the following commissioning organsiations:

• Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum (covering Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Essex and Norfolk)

• CHAWREC (covering Cheshire, Halton Runcorn and Warrington)

• Harbour Project (covering Swindon)

• New Routes (covering Norwich)

• Wirral Change (covering Wirral)

Once our commissioned organisations have accepted the offer of work, the details of relevant cases are sent and returned via new secure object forwarding, completed using our Ellis system.

We delivered training sessions last month with each organisation to ensure they were comfortable with, and confident in, the processes of the commissioning services and associated systems. Our commissioned organisations are supported by our Head of Outreach, Outreach Manager and Senior Outreach Adviser who ensure that any issues are resolved quickly.

We are delighted to say that the first cases sent via our commissioning framework have been successfully completed. The demand for our outreach services increased in June; a growth which we hope to see continue.

We also have a further 23 organisations who were successful in their applications to join us during the previous rounds of procurement. These organisations are going through the process of signing up to our framework, which unfortunately saw delays due to the pandemic. We will be looking to progress to the next step with each of these organisations in July and very much look forward to working with them very soon.

If you would like to know more about how our outreach commissioning service works, please email [email protected] and a member of the outreach management team will be happy to discuss this with you.

If you would like to request support for a service user who has additional needs, please email [email protected] and one of our team will be happy to assist.We cover everything currently offered under AIRE and are able to get back to you quickly.