Aims
To provide a compliant, procedures manual that strengthens governance, supports best practice, and enables effective operational delivery.
Objectives
- To develop and maintain a core suite of adaptable procedures that can be tailored to local policy and responsibilities.
- To enable ownership through seamless integration and management of local content.
- To provide a secure, customer-controlled resource library with real-time content management.
- To support effective use of procedures through training, guidance, and usage insight.
- To enhance compliance, oversight, and continuous improvement through expert support.
Scope of Project
- Development of the Procedures Manual site
- Maintenance of the Procedures Manual site
- Hosting of the Procedures Manual site
- Training and support
Summary of Included Services
- Based on a set of template procedures reflecting legislation, regulations, and good practice
- Hosting of Procedures Manual online 24/7
- Procedures Consultant time to advise and support in the development of the manual, collation and redrafting the content, and incorporation of Customer local material
- One planned review in the first year, including virtual or on-site meeting (if required)
- Online and telephone advice and support from your dedicated Procedures Consultant
- Support to launch the manual virtually (which can be recorded for future use) or face to face
- Access to free online resources: Glossary and key contacts, Sector-specific legislation, guidance and standards, Regulatory frameworks and compliance resources, Practice toolkits and implementation guides, Policy, and procedural reference materials
- User maintained online portal—CMS for local resources and optional reading task allocation/monitoring functionality
- Google Analytics (email account provided by customer)
- Link to Safeguarding Partnership Procedures or Adult Safeguarding Board Procedures
- Link to other customer OneTouch tri.x procedures
- Provision for single change in the colour scheme of the manual to reflect Customer branding
- Facility for users to register to receive email notification when the manual is updated
- Archiving of each version of the Procedures Manual
- Urgent updates which are as a direct result of a Case Review, Inspection, or serious complaintScheduled reviews: updates encompass any changes to legislation, guidance, best practice, case law, or any specific requirements
1. Development, Drafting and Consultation
1.1
On acceptance of this agreement, the Contractor will allocate a Procedures Consultant to work for the duration of the development project. The Customer will be required to identify a Project Leader and a consultative group consisting of relevant managers with authority to agree the content of procedures.
1.2
The starting point for the Procedures Manual will be a template set of up-to-date procedures. The standard list can be reorganised, but the addition of whole new categories or sections may incur an additional cost.
1.3
The draft procedures will be produced in the form of a ‘draft’ manual, made available online for review as part of the development process.
1.4
The Contractor will guide in the re-drafting process to achieve procedures reflecting local practice. This agreement provides for Procedure Consultants time to support with the development process and launch of the Procedures Manual.
1.5
The re-drafting process will tailor the template procedures to suit specific needs in the following way:
- The merging of content of up to ten template and Customer procedures which will be formatted in the web style.
- Responsibility for the ongoing updating of the content of locally developed policies and procedures which are included in your manual lies with the Customer.
- The inclusion of links to websites, intranet, or any other material available on the internet required locally will be provided by the Customer.
- The inclusion of links to underpinning documents provided by the Customer.
1.6
The Contractor reserves the right to review the price if additional work is required over and above and agree any additional payments with the Customer in writing.
2. Development, Drafting and Consultation
2.1
The Procedures Manual is designed for use in web-enabled format; it is not designed to be printed or published in ‘hard copy’. Individual chapters can be printed for reference only.
2.2
If hard copies of the Procedures Manual are circulated, the Customer is responsible for version control.
2.3
The bulk of the procedures will be created in a web-enabled format, but the Procedures Manual will contain PDF and/or Word versions of documents provided by the Customer (e.g. Protocols) which can be printed in their original format.
2.4
Hyperlinks provided by the Customer to local intranet or external websites will be included in the manual with responsibility for the reliability of such links being the Customers. Broken link checks will be undertaken at each maintenance update. Where the Customer notifies of broken links outside of this timetable, we reserve the right to quote for any additional work required to re-link these where the Customer has originally supplied the information.
2.5
The Procedures Manual will include a facility to allow users to ‘Register for Updates’ who will be electronically notified when the Procedures Manual is updated. Where the Customer mail server is unable to deliver this alert, it will not be resent.
2.6
Customers may include a ‘Contact Us’ facility within the manual, providing an email address for enquiries to be sent to.
3. Content Provided by the Customer
3.1
Responsibility for the ongoing updating of the content of locally developed policies and procedures which are included in the Procedures Manual lies with the Customer.
3.2
Images/flowcharts provided will be included in their original format, and the Contractor will not be responsible for editing them.
3.3
Documents provided for inclusion in PDF/MS Word format (e.g. Guidance, Protocols, Forms) will not be edited by the Contractor.
4. Portal Area
4.1
Documents including PDFs uploaded to the Portal area of the manual should comply with the government web accessibility guidelines. The responsibility for meeting these standards for local documents lies with the customer.
4.2
All local documents uploaded to the portal area of the manual should be checked by the customer to ensure personal and sensitive data is removed. It is the customer’s duty and responsibility to comply with GDPR.
5. Planned Reviews
5.1
Following the publication of the first edition of the Procedures Manual, the contract provides for one planned review during the remainder of the first 12-month period. Where it is not possible to publish the first edition due to delays on the part of the Customer, the review may not be carried forward into Year 2.
5.2
The Contractor will endeavour to anticipate changes in relevant UK legislation and regulations so that the Procedures Manual is updated in a timely fashion, as part of planned reviews. Where this is not feasible, the Customer will be advised of a plan for alerting manual users to the changes as quickly as possible after their implementation until they can be incorporated as part of the next planned review.
5.3
Meetings will be conducted in relation to each maintenance review to discuss any implications of amendments recommended by the Contractor to reflect recent legislation, court rulings, and national guidance in addition to discussing amendments required by the Customer. An updated plan detailing recommendations by the Contractor will be issued in advance of any meeting. If on-site meetings are cancelled or postponed by the Customer, any non-refundable travel or accommodation expenses will still be charged.
5.4
Agreed dates for reviews should be adhered to. If the Customer is unable to provide us with amendments by the previously agreed date, they may lose the opportunity to include them in the review, and the review will go ahead incorporating only the amendments that are ready and agreed. If the Customer wishes to delay or reschedule a review this will be subject to agreement by both parties.
5.5
Where the Customer submits amendments to existing procedures, the current online manual procedure should be copied into MS Word and use the ‘track changes’ facility to show amendments, copying the whole chapter, not just the part to be amended. Each chapter to be saved individually in a Word document.
- Any changes received which have not been applied in this way will not be processed and will be returned.
- Any changes submitted on copies of previous versions of the Procedures Manual will not be processed.
- For minor ‘generic’ amendments (e.g. the change of a team or post title), the change will be made without being submitted via track changes but by issuing a single clear instruction.
- Where more than one person submits edits to the same chapter, this must be co-ordinated, with one definitive submission being forwarded for update.
- No action will be taken regarding comment box instructions or conversations between local editors.
5.6
Enhancements or changes to the layout and style of the Procedures Manual are not included as part of the maintenance contract.
5.7
As part of a review, amendments to existing chapters will be made as required. Where new chapters are submitted for inclusion, the Contractor will advise of the most appropriate format for inclusion.
6. Unplanned Reviews
6.1
These are reviews required by the Customer, not relating to a change in local contact details and/or not within the definition of urgent, i.e. not resulting from a Serious Child Death Review or an Inspection. Unplanned reviews in advance of an inspection are not, for the purposes of this proposal, defined as urgent.
6.2
The contract does not provide for unplanned reviews.
6.3
Each request for unplanned reviews will be considered on a case-by-case basis and where appropriate a proposal detailing any additional cost and timescales submitted to the Customer. This will be dependent on the complexity of the request, the amount of time it will take and whether there is provision in the Contractors production schedule to accommodate the work. Any unplanned work will be by agreement in writing by both parties.
7. Technical Specification
7.1 — Data Storage
Personal information is not automatically stored or captured; the only information automatically stored and captured is the user’s IP address. This information is used to provide the Customer with data/activity on the usage of the Procedures Manual. Email addresses and other information volunteered by manual users will be captured for the purposes described in section 2.5. This shall be treated as confidential but may be used for internal review and to notify registered users about updates to the Procedures Manual and Contractor services.
7.2 — Third-Party Data
The capture, storage and use of personal information will not be made available to any third party without prior permission.
7.3 — Web Standards
The content of your Procedures Manual/website will be created in HTML format and will conform to the World Wide Web Consortium XHTML 1.0 Transitional (W3C) and are WCAG Priority 2 AA compliant.
7.4 — Performance
The average delivery time for access will be no more than two seconds when taken as an average of at least one hundred requests.
7.5 — Browser Compatibility
The Procedures Manual will deliver pages to the end user via a browser and be viewable and fully functional in: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Microsoft Edge.
7.6 — Security
The Procedures Manual will be secured so that only authorised users are able to effect changes to the content or look and feel of the website. Multi-factor authentication is used.
7.7 — Hosting
Data is hosted with a professional and reputable UK hosting company, and the Contractor assumes full responsibility for the maintenance of that relationship, including all payments.
Business and Security Certification: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/compliance/
Schedule 1a: Monitoring Schedule
The Contractor will appoint a Procedures Consultant to manage the contract and supervise service delivery, who will attend virtual meetings to coincide with the Procedures Manual maintenance review cycle. This provides the opportunity to monitor the service against contractual arrangements.
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