Agenda and minutes

Councillor Longford - leave

If you need any advice on declaring an interest in any item on the agenda, please contact the Governance Officer shown above, if possible before the day of the meeting

None.

Last meeting held on 15 March 2022 (for confirmation)

The Committee agreed the minutes of the last meeting held on 15 March 2022 as a correct record and they were signed by the Chair.

Joint report of Directors for Children’s Integrated Services & Commissioning and Procurement

Lisa Lopez, Lead Commissioning Officer, presented the report, highlighting the following:

·  Nottingham City Council’s (NCC) current accreditation process for Semi-Independent Accommodation was due to end, and the existing contracts due to expire, in March 2023;

·  as such, approval was being sought to utilise the opportunity to jointly commission a Supported Accommodation light-touch framework contract across the D2N2 area, replacing the existing accreditation;

·  as this would be a framework, and therefore services paid for solely based on activity, the costs in the report were only indicative and NCC would only pay for services actually commissioned;

·  commissioning services jointly across the D2N2 area was likely to result in more efficient use of resources, and, as Derby City Council were leading the re-commissioning, it would reduce pressure on NCC resources and align with the Residential and Foster Carers frameworks, which are currently jointly commissioned across D2N2.

In response to questions, Ms Lopez stated that although the:

·  main aim of the service was around accommodation provision, it also included life-skills training, such as financial responsibility etc;

·  D2N2 area was large, with providers across all regions, NCC would look to place service users locally where possible, or across the region if that was more appropriate.

Resolved

(1)  to approve:

(a)  procurement of the provision of Supported Accommodation for Children in Care, as detailed in appendix 1, in partnership with the D2N2 councils, through an appropriate procurement process led by Derby City Council, to commence on 1 August 2022 for a five–year period, with an option to extend for a further two periods of 2-years and one period of 1-year (5+2+2+1), therefore up to a maximum 10 years in total;

(b)  a maximum expenditure of £12,355,200 for the provisionover the entirety of the contract (up to 10 years), to be met from the Children's Placement Service budget;

(3)  to delegate authority to the:

(a)  Head of Contracting and Procurement to sign as required any inter-Local Authority partnership agreement to set out the legally binding relationship and inter-dependencies between Nottingham City, Derby City, Derbyshire County and Nottinghamshire County Councils;

(b)  Head of Children in Care (Regulated Services) to award any call-off contract(s) in accordance with the Council’s scheme of delegation number 274(a).

Reasons for recommendations

1)  To provide high quality, local accommodation for older children in care, aged 16 years and over. Commissioning a light touch framework contract for placements within Nottingham City, in addition to the other existing provision, will ensure the young people who are moving towards living independently will have access to high quality accommodation and support locally.

2)  The current Nottingham City Council accreditation has over 50 providers – this is extremely challenging for our Quality Assurance colleagues to monitor on an ongoing basis. The D2N2 framework will have up to 10 providers for each local authority – this will provide sufficient opportunities to secure placements, whilst keeping the number of providers manageable and thus improving quality. This service will form part of a range of accommodation and support options to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.

Report of Corporate Director for Resident Services

Hannah Stovin, Intelligence and Insight Manager, presented the report, highlighting that as of 1 April 2021, Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 places a statutory duty on Tier 1 local authorities relating to the provision of support to survivors, and their children, of domestic violence and abuse residing within safe accommodation, and covers revenue expenditure relating to those functions, and Nottingham City Council has been awarded £873,640 by the Department of Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to fulfil that duty.

It was also stated that a framework was currently being worked on, through which delivery of these services would be commissioned, and it was expected that this work would be in completed during 2022-23, and in place for 2023-24.

Resolved

(1)  to approve:

(a)  acceptance of the grant of £873,640 from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to deliver the statutory requirement during 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023;

(b)  use of the grant to fund:

(i)  the delivery of services as detailed in appendix 1;

(ii)  1xFTE member of staff to support implementation of the new statutory duty:

(2)  to delegate authority to the Director of Community Protection to award and sign contracts and variations as detailed in appendix 1.

Reasons for recommendations

1.  To enable delivery of the statutory duty as outlined in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 for a one-year period.

2.  To enable the completion of a framework for the commissioning of domestic and sexual violence services in 2022-23 to ensure future compliance.

3.  To enable the continuation of joint commissioning under partnership agreements with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) and Clinical Commissioning Group.

4.  To enable the completion of the review of the CDP Team within NCC and the contributions it receives from Public Health and the OPCC.

Other options considered

No other options were considered as this is a statutory duty. DLUHC have indicated that failure to spend will result in a reduction of future awards. NCC’s proposed strategy and spend were submitted to DLUHC in August 2021 in line with statutory requirements.

Report of Corporate Director for Resident Services

Further to minute 33, dated 14 December 2021, Shaun Miles, Head of Markets and Fairs, presented the report, highlighting that the December report requested authority to participate and draw down grant monies for refugees resettled into the partnership to 2022-23 (with funding until 2025-26), and ensured approval for urgent work underway to commission new resettlement casework and ESOL services for the client group. He further stated that this report sought further approval around grant funded ad-hoc spend and delegated authority for the drawdown of relevant grant monies up to £7,000,000 for refugees resettled in the partnership between 2023-2026 and their legacy funding (5 years’ maximum to 2031), in line with corporate governance and funding of the contracts as per Home Office ways of working.

In response to a question, Mr Miles stated that the service included mental health provision, play activities and registration with/access to GP/CAMHS services etc.

Resolved

(1)  to approve:

(i)  extension of participation in the refugee resettlement schemes to the end of the financial year 2030-31, meaning new arrivals will arrive until the end of the financial year 2025-26, with a five-year funding taper;

(ii)  continuation of Accountable Body duties in support of neighbouring first-tier authorities to deliver resettlement;

(iii)  delegation of spending authority on other required services within NCC, County, District partners and externally with the voluntary sector and local businesses and landlords, in accordance with delegated scheme of authority, subject to compliance with Home Office Funding Instructions and Nottingham City Council’s constitutional requirements, up to the end of financial year 2030-31.

(2)  to authorise acceptance and drawdown of relevant grant monies;

(3)  to grant delegated authority to the Corporate Director for Resident Services to:

(i)  approve the outcome of the tender processes commenced following the 14 December 2021 Committee approvals for both the casework contract (valued at up to £2.5million over 5 years) and the ESOL contract (up to £600,000 over the 5 years), and to sign and award the contracts;

(ii)  recruit 2 additional fixed term staff for this project in order to improve the service, governance and contractual arrangements.

Reasons for recommendations

1.  The Resettlement programme is fully Home Office funded – staff time and redundancy costs are factored into this.

2.  This work is also in accordance with Strategic Council Plan 2021-23 Key Outcome One: ‘To be a city that welcomes those in need of refuge or shelter’.

3.  It should also be noted that central Government funding instructions are frequently changing in parameters and timescales, and are often issued after implementation has begun. UKRS funding instructions were issued in April 2021, while ARAP and ACRS funding instructions were substantially altered and reissued in August 2021 and January 2022.

4.  The three schemes are now aligned in funding amount and confirmed to run for 5 years with a 3 to 5-year funding taper in place, so it is prudent to seek governance for the five years at this stage providing the opportunity to ensure commissioning, staffing and service delivery are planned  ...  view the full minutes text for item 67.

Report of Corporate Director for Finance and Resources

Tracy Martin, Team Leader, Transactional Accounting, presented the report, highlighting that the Merchant Acquirer contract was a core contract that enabled NCC to accept debit and credit cards payment for a range of income generating services, and was due to expire in August 2022.

Resolved to approve that Nottingham City Council enter into a new 3-year Merchant Acquirer contract with Cardnet, utilising an existing framework CPRAS, at an estimated total value of £891,000.

Reasons for recommendation

1.  The current NCC contract is due to expire in August 2022. The existing arrangements with Cardnet have been in place since 2015; the contract was awarded in line with the bank contract as Cardnet is part of the Lloyds group.

2.  The option to undertake a full tender has been disregarded for the following reasons:

·  There are a small number of providers of merchant acquirer services for an organisation of this size and scale.  There is no guarantee a full tender would generate a saving to the council; current accessible benchmarking data indicates that NCC are not overpaying for this service;

·  A change of merchant acquirer includes a hardware and software change to 53+ establishments and significant software configuration to link this new hardware to our cash management system which would require project managing.  This will result in revision of bank paperwork, termination of card terminal lease arrangements, changes to cash management rules and potentially changes to business process depending on the service offer.  This will all need testing thoroughly to ensure functionality is in place prior to the go live date;

·  If the merchant acquirer was to change this would trigger a new award for replacement card machines at the 53 establishments;

·  The specialist resource required to support this project is already fully utilised supporting other core functions and projects such as: end of year closedown in Fusion, transfer of EnviroEnergy into NCC and an essential cash management system upgrade during 22/23.

Other options considered

The option of undertaking a full tender has been considered but disregarded because this does not appear to offer NCC material cashable savings. Awarding this contract to an alternative provider would result in changes to card reader hardware and software at 53+ establishments and software changes to the Council's cash management system, which are not realistically deliverable by September 2022.

To note the proposed meeting dates for 2022/23 of:

2022  2023

10 May  10 January

14 June  14 February

12 July  14 March

13 September

11 October

15 November

13 December

The Committee noted the proposed meeting dates for municipal year 2022-23, to be agreed at the first meeting in May 2022.