Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (People)

The Cabinet considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (People) that sought approval to commission a block of 92 supported accommodation beds and 30 floating support services units for young people.

A corresponding private report was also submitted to the meeting setting out the commercially confidential matters of the proposals. (Minute 139 below refers.)

Supported accommodation provided accommodation and support to young people aged 16-24 who had a range of needs and were the responsibility of Children’s Services. This cohort included young people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness, children in need (CIN), looked after children (LAC), and young parents who were pregnant or had children who were on child in need or child protection plans and care leavers where care leavers were now defined as: (a) Eligible child under s19B Sch 2 Children Act 1989 (b) Relevant child under s23A(2) CA 1989 or (c) Former Relevant Child under s23C(1) CA 1989.

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced 3 new provisions extending the statutory duties of a Local Authority under the Children Act 1989: The act placed a duty on the Local Authority to financially support and meet the housing needs/costs of care leavers until their eighteenth birthday, and to maintain contact with them until they reached their twenty fifth birthday. This responsibility included the provision of suitable accommodation. The City Council managed this responsibility primarily through the Through Care Service, and where accommodation was required for care leavers, this was provided through the supported accommodation contracts. In summary:

•  Where children leave care aged 16 or 17: the Local Authority is responsible for their accommodation as a ‘corporate parent’.

•  Where children left care at 18: there was no responsibility for Children’s Services to provide accommodation unless it was assessed that their welfare required it.  If their welfare did not require it then the responsibility for housing care leavers aged 18 plus fell to the Housing Authority.

A very small number of young adults would move on to supported living, which was for adults with learning disabilities and/or mental ill health. The re-commissioning of this service was the subject of a separate report to Cabinet on 9^th April 2019 (minute 133 above referred).

Supported accommodation was currently delivered by a number of externally commissioned providers, who were commissioned via block contracts, the West Midlands Supported Accommodation Framework or spot arrangements.  The current block contracts were due to end in December 2019, and the Council was recommissioning the service with a planned start date of November 2019.

The purpose of the service would be to accommodate young people and prepare them for independent living by building their skills and resilience in areas such as payment of bills, cooking, accessing services, attending appointments emotional resilience, education and employment or training.  Providers would deliver a range of accommodation options to enable young people to move between different types of accommodation as their needs increased or decreased, before moving on to independence with floating support. The support provided should enable young people to move to independent accommodation and sustain independence at age 18 and 3 months.

A needs analysis had been completed to determine the number of and type of units that would be required, and these would be commissioned via block contracts.  The level of block provision would be reviewed regularly, with the option of increasing or decreasing it as necessary, with an agreed period of notice being given to providers.

The commissioning process had two key aims:

•  To provide a service which enabled young people to move into independent accommodation at age 18 and 3 months. The Children’s Transformation Strategy had a project in place to monitor young people in the service aged over 18 and 3 months.

•  To reduce the use of expensive Supported Accommodation Framework and spot provision which was on average 35% more expensive than the forecasted block provision.

A small number of additional units will continue to be purchased via the West Midlands Supported Accommodation Framework or spot arrangements for young people with high support needs who are eligible for adult services and young people who require an out of city placement.

The new contracts would be for three years, with the option of extending them for two years, followed by a further period of two years.

The recommissioning of the service was being overseen by a project group which reported monthly into the Children’s Transformation Board. This enabled risks and interdependencies to be identified and managed at a strategic level.

The procurement process would be an Open procedure under the Public Contract Regulations 2015. The opportunity would be advertised in OJEU and potential providers would be given a minimum of 30 days to respond.

The tender process would accept individual, consortia and sub-contracting applications.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:

1)  Approves the proposal to commission a block of 92 supported accommodation beds and 30 floating support units.

2)  Grants permission to issue a tender to procure in line with the proposed model and timescale.

3)  Delegates authority to the Director of Children’s Services, following consultation with the Director of Finance and Corporate Services, to award and implement the contracts for supported accommodation services.