Agenda item

Report of Corporate Director for People

Karla Banfield, Head of Commissioning, presented the report and stated the following:

a)  Local Authorities have a statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation within its local authority area to meet the needs of the children that it is looking after (S22G of the Children Act 1989; its ‘sufficiency duty’);

b)  to satisfy this duty, Nottingham City Council provides a range of accommodation options through in-house and externally commissioned services;

c)  the D2N2 partnership is proposing to tender for four 2-bed homes (1 within each locality area) to meet the needs of children and young people who present with emotional / psychological issues and / or challenging behaviour;

d)  these specialist health residential homes will be jointly commissioned across the D2N2 footprint, utilising the existing D2N2 Residential and Fostering Framework, incorporating D2N2 local authority partners (Derbyshire County, Nottinghamshire County and Derby City) and Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Integrated Care Boards;

e)  a D2N2 Inter-Agency Agreement will underpin risk sharing / funding / placement decisions, building on the current D2N2 governance;

f)  the proposal will be funded through the existing Children in Care Budget, using funding currently allocated to individual placements, and it is expected to go out to market during quarter one 2024/25.

Resolved to

(1)  grant approval to undertake a tender process in partnership with D2N2, through the existing D2N2 Framework Contract, for a single provider to deliver 2 units of specialist residential care in Nottingham City, on an initial 5-year contract, with an option to extend for a further 4 years (5 + 4 years);

(2)  delegate authority to the Director of Commissioning and Partnerships to:

(a)  enter into an Inter-Agency Agreement with D2N2 partners within the scope of the existing partnership arrangements governing the D2N2 Framework contract;

(b)  approve the outcome of the tender process for the Specialist Childrens Residential Homes and agree for Nottinghamshire County Council to make that award on behalf of Nottingham City;

(3)  delegate authority to the Head of Contracts, Quality and Personalisation to sign the contract once awarded.

Reasons for recommendations

a)  Nottingham City is a partner in the D2N2 framework for residential and foster care. This enables us to call off the framework for residential homes as and when a young person requires a placement;

b)  we currently have approximately 60% of our residential placements sourced through this framework and where we are not able to source a placement through the framework, we will go out to the wider market;

c)  the tender seeks to establish 4 specialist homes of 2 beds each across the D2N2 footprint, with the potential to increase over the course of the contract. Using a block funding agreement and keeping the homes within 20 miles of each other, should enable development of a cost-effective service with all four authorities sharing the risk of the block funding to enable this;

d)  one, two bed home will be established within each local authority area with the ‘host’ local authority providing the block funding for the home;

e)  Nottinghamshire and Derby City are providing accommodation as part of the contract. Derbyshire and Nottingham City will require the provider to provide the accommodation. The agreement between the four authorities will outline the process for reimbursement between the authorities in the event a child is placed into a partner’s home and the circumstances this would be agreed.

Other options considered

a)  do nothing - rejected. This is an identified gap in the market and due to current insufficiency of supply we are currently placing in unsuitable accommodation at significant cost;

b)  commission the service outside of the D2N2 partnership arrangement - rejected. It is anticipated by offering a provider up to 8 units of accommodation within a relatively small footprint, this will offer economies of scale and be more attractive to providers;

c)  procure more than 2 units - rejected. While needs suggest that we could use higher levels of placements, we are using this approach to test the viability of the model. The health offer will also need to be considered and whether this can be expanded or reconfigured to provide dedicated support to more units.