Hampshire County Council

Executive Member - Social Care Item 1

19 December 2003

Authority to invite tenders - Children and Families Services

Report of the Director of Social Services

Contact: Alan Edwards (County Contracts Manager) Extn 7158

Sandra McDine (Contracts Support Manager, C & F) Extn 7228

1. Summary

The following decision is sought:

1.1 That authority be given to the Director of Social Services to invite tenders and to form approved lists for the provision of residential care, fostering care and domiciliary care for the Children & Families Sector.

2. Reason(s)

2.1 To meet the needs of children who are already in permanent stable placements, and to enable us to continue to offer placement choice to Looked After Children in Hampshire.

2.2 To provide more secure contracting arrangements for Children and Families Services.

2.3 The contracting processes outlined for the Children and Families service is fundamental to achieving the aims of `maximising life opportunities' and the focus on quality and cost also contributes to `improving services'.

3. Other options considered and rejected

3.1 The proposed arrangements outlined in this report will bring contracts into line with the County Council Standing Orders, and are in line with regional and national approaches.

4. Conflicts of Interest declared by the decision-maker or a Member of Officer consulted

4.1 None

5. Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee

5.1 None

6. Reason(s) for the matter being dealt with if urgent

6.1 Not applicable

Approved by: Date of Decision:

Councillor Felicity Hindson

Hampshire County Council

Executive Member - Social Care

19 December 2003

Authority to invite tenders - Children and Families Services

Report of the Director of Social Services

Contact: Alan Edwards (County Contracts Manager) Extn 7158

Sandra McDine (Contracts Support Manager, C & F) Extn 7228

1. Purpose of the Report

1.1 This report seeks to obtain approval from the Executive Member for Social Care to invite tenders and to formulate approved lists of providers for services for the Children and Families Sector - namely residential care, foster care and domiciliary care.

2. Background

2.1 The Department is seeking to bring arrangements for contracting for child care services on the same footing as has existed for adults and older people's services since 1993, when the NHS and Community Care Act, was implemented. Current contract arrangements for children and families services are variable, and require formal arrangements to ensure all procedures - including provider selection, placement negotiation, payment arrangements and quality assurance - are carried out in a consistent manner.

2.2 Although the issues detailed above apply to services purchased across the range of provision, there are some formal contractual arrangements in existence for a variety of services. It is intended that the arrangements to formulate approved lists of providers would complement these services and arrangements already in place.

2.3 The situation regarding purchasing of child care services is similar in all authorities, and this report will demonstrate the work being undertaken by authorities at a national and regional level, and the extent to which the Department is linked into these developments.

3. Service Provision & priorities

3.1 Hampshire County Council has been working in recent years with the other eighteen Local Authorities within the South Eastern ADSS region to develop contractual documentation for the provision of residential care services. This documentation was completed and ready for implementation in May 2003, and has already been approved by Hampshire County Council Legal Services. A regional children's contracting sub-group has recently been formed, and it is through this forum that the developments are now progressing. Hampshire County Council has identified that contractual arrangements are particularly poor for long term residential placements, and therefore wish to work with the other local authorities in the region to develop these contracts as the highest priority.

The regional group has identified Foster Care as the next priority, and the production of contractual arrangements for this service are being actively pursued at present.

It is anticipated that other services, such as Domiciliary care, will be undertaken by the group as soon as other workload pressures permit.

3.2 Residential Placements:

3.2.1 The summary of the number and category of residential placements with independent sector providers (as at October 2003) are shown on the table below:-

Category of Placement	Number of Placements	Number of Providers
Long Term Residential - EBD	16	13
Long Term Residential - CWD	63	43
Respite - CWD (including some of the block arrangements)	50	10
TOTAL	129	66

3.2.2 The summary of range of costs and breakdown of funding arrangements between partner agencies are shown on the table below (*** Figures based on available information).

Long Term Residential - Educational and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD)
	£50,000 - £100,000	£100,000 - £200,000	£200,000 +
Total Number of Placements	8	5	3
Sole Funded by SSD	8	4	2
Jointly funded by Education & Health	0	1	0
Jointly funded by Health	0	0	1

Long Term Residential - Children with Disabilities (CWD)
Cost of Package	Under £20,000	£20,000 - £50,000	£50,000 - £80,000	£80,000 - £110,000	£110,000 - £150,000	Over £150,000
Total Number of Placements (total cost)	2	21	12	14	10	4
SSD sole funded	2	13	5	2	3	1
SSD & Education	0	5	4	5	5	1
SSD & Health	0	0	0	1	0	0
SSD & Education & Health	0	3	3	6	2	2

Social Services level of contribution towards CWD packages
Level of contribution	Under £20,000	£20,000 - £50,000	£50,000 - £80,000	£80,000 - £110,000	£110,000 - £150,000	Over £150,000
Number of Placements	9	30	12	6	5	1

3.2.3 The Local Authorities across the region are at different stages of implementation, with a few having already signed up a number of providers to contracts. The South Eastern Region group of Local Authorities are also in discussion with the Eastern Region (a further 10 Local Authorities) who have also developed their own contracts toolkit. The Eastern Region has also commissioned the development of a provider database, which will be launched in November 2003. Each local authority will undertake quality assurance and monitoring of a proportionate number of providers, and share the information via the central database, which will be managed by one of the local authorities on their behalf. The DfES have made available a sum of £20,000 during the 2003/04 financial year, the intention of which is to try to reconcile the contracting processes between the two ADSS regions. Hampshire County Council would benefit greatly from the increased market intelligence being made available from the shared database, and the standardisation of contractual arrangements and costs which this joint approach would bring.

3.2.4 Alongside the Regional Residential Contract, a nationwide contract has been developed by the National Association of Special Schools (NASS). The development group for this contract included representatives from regional ADSS and Special Educational Needs (SEN) partnerships. This contract would need to be used for all special schools who are members of NASS, and although the final number need to be clarified, this would represent at least one third of the current long term placements for children with disabilities. One significant issue of the NASS contract is that the annual fee increase is tied into the national teachers pay award, which may be in excess of the annual inflationary increase awarded by the County Council. Discussions have commenced with Finance on this issue, and it is also one of the items to be discussed with Education colleagues, in order to agree a Hampshire County Council approach. It is understood that Hampshire County Council Education Department - as part of the South Central Regional Inclusion Partnership (SCRIP) of LEA's - are also undertaking to use the NASS contractual documentation. The Education Department have in the region of 200 placements which would be affected by this contract, and it is anticipated there will be further benefits of joint working between the two Departments.

3.2 Foster Care

3.3.1 Hampshire were purchasing 121 fostering placements from independent sector providers (as at October 2003). Approximately half of these placements are covered by formal contracts on a discounted payment structure (cost and volume contracts). The other 50% of placements are made on an individually negotiated cost basis (spot purchase contracts) with 25 providers, of which four providers account for 30 of the placements, with the remaining 30 placements divided between 20 providers.

3.3.2 The ADSS South East Regional Contracting Group have identified fostering contracts as the next priority, and it is likely that the fostering contract designed by the Pan-London group of authorities, which has recently been revised, may also be used by the South East Region. The benefits of using a standard contract across authorities would be similar to the residential contracting process, and would be likely to lead to benefits in terms of cost controls and quality improvements, but would again result in less local flexibility of terms and conditions.

3.3 Domiciliary Care

3.3.1 Domiciliary care covers a variety of different services, including outreach support, home care and sitting services, and will therefore require a variety of contractual approaches.

3.3.2 The estimated value of domiciliary care purchasing for children with disabilities is £279,000 for the current financial year.

3.3.3 The Domiciliary Care National Minimum Standards and Regulations, which have been introduced under the Care Standards Act 2000, and introduced from 1 April 2003, will apply to all organisations providing personal care. Those organisations are now required to register with the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC). It is therefore proposed to invite tenders for the provision of domiciliary care services from those organisations who have registered with NCSC for children's and families services. It is hoped this arrangement will, for the first time, establish a "market price range" for such services.

3 Other Issues

4.1 It is hoped that these proposals will achieve better and safer outcomes for children and young people.

4.2 It is also hoped that these proposals will achieve financial savings due to more stringent contracting measures, but it is not possible to assess the impact at this stage.

4.3 It is also intended that in the longer term it will be possible to identify and develop the quality and capacity of child care services in the local area, to ensure that children and young people's needs may be met within their own locality.

4.4 These arrangements will mean a training commitment for staff in contracting procedures, and the associated revised arrangements for placement approval processes which the contract arrangements will support. The revised procedural arrangements and approval processes are also being addressed alongside the contractual arrangements. The training required will be Social Services specific, and any additional training needs which have a commonality with other Departments will be addressed through the Corporate Procurement Network.

5. Links to the Corporate Strategy

5.1 The contracting processes outlined for the Children and Families service is fundamental to achieving the aims of `maximising life opportunities' and the focus on quality and cost also contributes to `improving services'.

6. Recommendations

6.1 Authorisation is sought to invite tenders with a view to forming approved lists for the provision of residential care, fostering care and domiciliary care for the Children & Families Sector.

6.2 Authorisation is also sought to form approved lists for the provision of residential care, fostering care and domiciliary care for the Children & Families Sector.