Agenda for Commissioning and Procurement Executive Committee on Tuesday, 11th January, 2022, 10.00 am

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Ground Floor Committee Room - Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. View directions

Contact: Mark Leavesley  Email: mark.leavesley@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

39.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Councillor Barnard  )  personal

Councillor Campbell-Clark  )

Councillor Longford  -  other Council business

 

The Committee noted that Councillors Barnard and Campbell-Clark, who would normally have attended the meeting but who did not have reports to present on this occasion, had submitted apologies in the interests of supporting Covid safety in the current context of high infection levels.

40.

Declarations of Interests

Minutes:

None.

41.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 259 KB

Last meeting held on 14 December 2021 (for confirmation)

Minutes:

The Committee confirmed the minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2021 as a correct record and they were signed by the Chair.

42.

Arrangements for the joint commissioning of CAMHS (2022/23-2024/25) - Key decision pdf icon PDF 355 KB

Report of Corporate Director for People

Minutes:

Councillor Williams, Portfolio Holder for Adults and Health, and Helen Johnston, Consultant in Public Health, presented the report, which detailed the proposed arrangements for maintaining the current Targeted CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service) provision until March 2025. The service would be jointly funded by Public Health Grant contributions, tapering with increased Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) contributions over a three-year period. The establishment of a Section 75 agreement between Nottingham City Council (NCC) and the CCG is proposed as a robust mechanism for funding and managing the service.

 

Resolved

 

(1)  to approve:

 

(a)  the use of the Public Health Grant for a funding contribution to Targeted CAMHS 2022/23-2024/25;

 

(b)  the development of a Section 75 Agreement between NCC Public Health and the CCG for the commissioning of Targeted CAMHS from 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2025;

 

(c)  that oversight and management of the Targeted CAMHS Section 75 Agreement be held by Nottingham Health and Wellbeing Board Commissioning Sub-Committee;

 

(2)  to delegate authority to the Director of Public Health to agree the final value and scope of the service, and sign the Section 75 Agreement for Targeted CAMHS.

 

Reasons for recommendations

 

(1)  The time-limited use of the Public Health Grant will enable ongoing provision of Targeted CAMHS in Nottingham through to 2024/25 to ensure continued access and support for children and young people to mental health support. Over the period of the agreement, there will be an increasing proportion of CCG funding for the service consistent with the CCG role in coordinating a system-wide transformation programme.

 

(2)  A Section 75 agreement between NCC and CCG for Targeted CAMHS will provide a robust foundation for commissioning the service.

 

Other options considered

 

(1)  Under a ‘do nothing’ option, there would be no agreed use of the Public Health Grant for co-funding this service. The savings against the NCC Mainstream funding for consultation in the Medium Term Financial Plan place the service at risk. A reduction or removal in the Targeted CAMHS offer would leave a substantial gap in the emotional wellbeing and mental health pathway for children and young people in Nottingham, which is why this option has been rejected, and an interim funding arrangement during the transformation programme has been proposed.

 

(2)  Not using a formal Section 75 Agreement between NCC and the CCG carries a risk of not having an appropriate and robust arrangement for pooling the budget and managing the service. Further, a lack of joint arrangements would risk that this key provision is not sufficiently visible and considered within the wider Mental Health Transformation Programme with governance through the Children and Young Peoples’ Mental Health Executive, and the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System Mental Health and Social Care Partnership Board.

43.

Workforce Recruitment and Retention Fund for Adult Social Care - Key decision pdf icon PDF 332 KB

Report of Corporate Director for People

Minutes:

Councillor Williams, Portfolio Holder for Adults and Health, and Anna Coltman, Commissioning Manager, presented the report, which detailed the Government’s commitment, in the ‘COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021’ (announced on 14 September 2021), to support local authorities and social care providers to maintain safe staffing levels over the winter period and to continue working closely with the care sector to build sufficient workforce capacity across services.

 

The ‘Adult Social Care Winter Plan’, published on 3 November 2021, set out the support government would be providing to the adult social care sector to meet the challenges it faced during winter. The plan includes a commitment to providing workforce recruitment and retention funding, originally announced on 21 October 2021, to support local authorities and providers to recruit and retain sufficient staff over winter, and support growth and sustain existing workforce capacity.

 

Nottingham City Council (NCC) has been allocated £1,049,498 from the Government’s Workforce Recruitment and retention fund (WR&R fund), to be spent by 31 March 2022. The primary purpose of the WR&R fund is to deliver additional staffing capacity in adult social care through recruitment and retention activity during the period 21 October 2021 to 31 March 2022. This is a ring-fenced grant and will be paid in two instalments to NCC. The first instalment of 60% will be processed as soon as possible, the second instalment of 40% will be paid in January 2022 and will be conditional on local authorities having completed a return to the Department of Health and Social Care by 14 January 2022.

 

During discussion, it was stated that although the vacancy rate of 2.1% seemed low, this didn’t reflect turnover of staff, which at some providers was almost 100% over the last 12 months.

 

It was also stated that the requirement to be vaccinated against Covid was having an impact of the service, with some reporting up to 30% of staff leaving the sector, a lot of who would normally be moving within the sector but were no longer able to do so.

 

Resolved to

 

(1)  approve acceptance and spend, as per the terms and conditions of the grant, by Nottingham City Council of the funding from the Department of Health and Social Care;

 

(2)  delegate authority to the Director for Adult Health and Social Care, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Adults and Health, to award grants to social care providers to support recruitment and retention of staff during winter months.

 

Reasons for recommendations

 

(1)  Nottingham City Council (NCC) has been allocated £1,049,498 from the Government’s Workforce Recruitment and retention fund (WR&R fund), to be spent by 31 March 2022. The primary purpose of the WR&R fund is to deliver additional staffing capacity in adult social care through recruitment and retention activity during the 21 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 period.

 

(2)  This is a ring-fenced grant and will be paid in two instalments to NCC:

 

(i)  the first instalment 60% will be processed as soon as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.

44.

Changing Futures: Procurement of main service - Key decision pdf icon PDF 304 KB

Report of Director of Public Health

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Williams, Portfolio Holder for Adults and Health, and Bobby Lowen, Commissioning Lead, presented the report, including a supplement to the agenda which included financial and legal comments, which sought approval for the delivery, under Nottingham’s Changing Futures programme, of activity to assist people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage (SMD). The approval would allow for the wider delivery of operational activity under the programme from July 2022 (following Nottingham’s successful bid for funding through the national Changing Futures programme) to build on the initial mobilisation approved in September 2021, which is now being implemented.

 

Resolved

 

(1)  to approve the use of:

 

(a)  Changing Futures funding up to a maximum value of £2,170,868 to procure a range of services and activities, as detailed in appendix 1, to assist people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage;

 

(b)  a competitive tender process to select provider(s) to deliver the services and activities detailed in appendix 1;

 

(2)  to delegate authority to the Director of Commissioning and Procurement to award contract(s) for the delivery of services to successful organisations following the tender process.

 

Reasons for recommendations

 

(1)  The approval of the recommendations will allow for the delivery of the substantial part of Nottingham’s Changing Futures programme from July 2022 to the end of March 2024 in line with Nottingham’s successful application for funding through the national Changing Futures programme.

 

(2)  A start date of the 1st July 2022 has been timed to allow for the transition to activity delivered under Changing Futures at the close of the existing Opportunity Nottingham programme on 30th June 2022.

 

(3)  The wider implementation of the programme will put in place a range of operational activity (see Appendix 1) designed to help improve the lives of people in the city who experience SMD in line with the delivery plan developed in partnership and approved by the National Changing Futures Team (see Appendix 2). SMD is defined under the Changing Futures programme as applying to people experiencing three or more of the following: homelessness, substance misuse, mental health issues, domestic violence, and interaction with the criminal justice system.

 

(4)  The operational delivery of the programme is expected to realise the significant benefit of improving the lives of vulnerable people, and the avoidance of serious negative outcomes (e.g. in relation to health, homelessness, offending, etc) and the associated demand and costs of reactive interventions (e.g. emergency homelessness responses, hospital attendances, etc) across the public sector.

 

(5)  The delivery of the programme is also expected to develop the foundations to enhance partnership efforts across the public and voluntary and community sector to improve the overall response to help people who experience SMD. The programme also aims to establish partnership planning in the longer term use of mainstream resources to help people experiencing SMD (e.g. through joined up planning, funding and delivery of services) on a sustainable basis beyond the end of the programme in March 2024. 1.6 Approval is sought to procure the main delivery service through a competitive tender to select the most  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44.

45.

Voluntary and Community Sector Update

Head of Operations, NCVS, to report

Minutes:

This item does not contain any decisions that are eligible for call-in.

 

To be as covid-safe as possible, the Committee received a written update only from the Head of Operations, NCVS, as follows:

 

Support to Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) during COVID-19

 

(a)  NCVS Group Development

 

NCVS continues to work remotely, delivering group support sessions via video link, phone or email. This work is part funded by arrangement with Area Based and Community of Identity Leads however, there are a still lot of groups in the city who ‘slip through the net’. In addition, there is no free training available for those very small, grassroots groups who cannot afford event the low-cost training offered by NCVS.

 

The voluntary sector has been widely recognised as playing a vital role in supporting communities and vulnerable people directly affected by the pandemic. There is no doubt that without volunteers, grass roots organisations and front line staff in the sector many more citizens would have suffered or died as a result of the pandemic.  NCVS is concerned that, under current arrangements, there are a number of groups and organisations in the city who cannot access Area Based support and funding. We remain keen to discuss with NCC in detail a more efficient way of ensuring equal access to NCC VCSE support and development across the city for all groups.

 

(b)  State of the Sector Report

 

NCVS is currently co-ordinating a State of the Sector 2021 survey. Data and information collected will contribute to our understanding of the VCSE sector groups and organisations which provide services and support in Nottingham city. All who have completed this survey currently have (or have had) a presence in Nottingham city in the last two years.

 

The survey is designed to explore the extent of VCSE sector activities, the role organisations plays in the local community, and the challenges faced. Questions focus on what has changed in the last two years, as well as looking ahead to the next 12 months.

 

All City Council ward areas are represented in the responding organisations. Interim findings show that 66% operate across all city ward areas. Two-thirds of respondents have needed to reassess their organisation's original aims and service delivery. Two-thirds have increased their service provision. Organisations have pivoted quickly to respond to crisis, but attempting to meet demand leaves no time to plan ahead.  Organisations are reporting that they are working together more. This was a trend over the last two years – only half thought this was directly due to Covid.

 

89% of organisations who had seen an increase in income and said this was due to Covid are reliant on grants.  Some of these also fundraise through private donations and charging for services. Only 22% have contracts of some kind.  Almost all of these organisations accessed emergency grant funding either through the Coronavirus Community Support Fund (National Lottery Community Fund & Government) or the National Emergency Trust Coronavirus Appeal funding.

 

Challenges faced by the VCSE sector over the next  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45.