Agenda item

Councillor Tamoor Tariq Deputy Leader of the Council 
Cabinet Member for Children Services, Young People and Skills presented a report setting  out the proposals to re-design the Short Breaks Services for Children and Young People with Disabilities and their families.

The proposal is for the new model to be graduated with different types of Short Break services to meet the different needs of individual children and young people with the emphasis on enabling choice, community access and preparation for independence.

The new specification will deliver high quality services with appropriately trained, consistent staff and specialist services where there is an identified need.  By ensuring the available resources are allocated based on need and are proportionate the duty to ensure best value will be met.

The services which will be commissioned are:

Individual Home Care Packages and/or elsewhere including Outreach

Targeted Social Club – Term Time

Targeted Social Club – Holiday Time

Time Limited Skill Based Service

Time Limited Participation Support

Positive Behaviour Support

To commission new Time Limited Skill Based and Time Limited Participation Support services which are in response to the need to enable children and young people to improve their skills, build their confidence, access their local community independently and be more prepared for life as an adult. These services will be available for a period of 4 weeks up to a maximum of 12 weeks.  

The introduction of time limited support will not only improve the outcomes for children and young people but ensure that resources are only allocated to ongoing packages of support where alternative options have been explored.    

The Positive Behaviour Support is specialist intensive support for those children and young people who have challenging behaviour as a result of their disability.   The package of care will be bespoke for each young person and will specifically target the small cohort where there is a risk of family breakdown if the family goes into crisis leading to requests for high cost residential provisions.    

The Individual Home Care Packages and/or elsewhere including Outreach develops family resilience by providing a break from some of their caring duties.  This type of support also provides a range of support to family routines in the morning and evening.

To commission a Targeted Social Club in Term Time and Holiday Time for those children and young people who cannot access the community without additional support. These group activities will take place throughout the borough.

All providers will be responsible for identifying and securing suitable locations throughout the borough which are fully equipped and local to the places children and young people would like to visit.

All providers will be expected to show how they can adapt services and use new approaches in service delivery using the learning from the impact of Coronavirus.

The budget will remain the same as 2020-21 at £1.2m overall but will be configured differently with the introduction of time limited support.

The procurement route for the new services will be a Flexible Purchasing System to provide more choice of provision, value for money and the option for new providers to join the contract as the market develops.    

The Individual Home Support and Targeted Social Club in Term Time and Holiday Time will both be Service Contract awards to the leading bidder for each lot.  This will provide stability and consistency of staffing and best value due to the volumes accessing.

The contracts will be awarded for 4 years with 2 plus 1 year extension options which equates to 6 years in total.

Delegated decision:

Cabinet agrees:

To approve the proposal as set out in the report to tender for short break services.

Reason for the decision:

The current arrangements have been in place since the 1st April 2016 following a competitive tender in 2015.   The contracts were originally awarded for 3 years + 1 year option to extend.   A further extension period to 31st March 2021 has been granted due to the unforeseen circumstances of the pandemic and key staff having to prioritise other areas of work. To remain compliant with EU, UK Regulations and Council Procurement Rules a competitive tender exercise needs to be completed.

Other option considered and rejected:

1.   To agree the proposal with further modifications;

2.   To retain the existing arrangements with no change.