Contact: Sandra McDine Tel: 01962 847228 [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report provides information relating to the contracting process for the purchase of independent sector residential placements for children and young people. It also provides information relating to the joint work being undertaken by 38 local authorities in the East, South East and East Midlands to share information and resources to maximise placement safety, stability and cost.

1.2 This supports aims 1, 4 and 5 of the Corporate Strategy by:

1.2.1 Maximising life opportunities for children looked after by ensuring that the independent providers with whom they are placed are able to appropriately meet their needs.

1.2.2 Building strong and safe communities by working with providers to ensure that their services enable children and young people to become involved and develop strong links within their local community.

1.2.3 Improving services for children who are looked after by through joint work to monitor and improve the services provided by independent providers.

1.3 This supports the five outcomes of `Every Child Matters' and of the Children Act 2004 by verifying that providers procedures and practices provide safe care for children, that their services meet the health needs of all young people placed with them, that the educational provision or access to education is appropriate. The monitoring process also seeks to ensure that the children and young people have access to a range of activities and pursuits which encourages them to become a part of their local community, and enables them to plan for their futures. The monitoring process is developing to include feedback from young people and professionals to provide as wide a range of evidence as possible to verify these aims are being met.

2 Background Information

2.1 Approval was given to tender for an approved list of residential providers at the meeting of the Social Care Executive Member in December 2003. This has not yet been undertaken, due to the difficulties highlighted in this report in relation to achieving a satisfactory and appropriate tender award, and the ongoing developments within the ADSS and SEN regions in relation to joint working, including provider database and monitoring arrangements.

2.2 In the summer of 2005 it was agreed with Legal Services that contracts could be put in place with all providers with existing placements, and those providers who are registered in Hampshire. This decision was reached as an interim measure to reduce the risk of the previous arrangements which included using the providers own contract.

2.3 Contracts were therefore sent to these providers, and for children's residential homes, all but two of the current providers have signed up to the contract, and these providers have confirmed that they will be returning contracts. The majority of residential schools have also signed up to the National Association of Special Schools pre-placement contract, and we are continuing to pursue the remainder.

2.4 Although this work has ensured that risk has been reduced for existing placements, this procedure has not established an approved list of providers in line with standing orders.

3 Placement Information

3.1 Within the Children's Services Department there are currently approximately 70 placements in independent residential provision which are the responsibility of the Children & Families sector. 50 of these placements are for children with disabilities and are mainly in residential schools. The remaining 20 are for non-disabled children, and are mainly in residential children's homes.

3.2 The need for an independent residential placement arises irregularly, and is usually as a last resort once all other options have been explored.

3.3 The placement numbers are fairly low - although the cost per placement is high. The individual needs identified for each placement are also very specific, and it would therefore be very difficult to identify a "type" of placement. Placement choice is often very limited, due to the match between needs and provider capacity, and therefore even though we would generally choose to make a local placement, it is sometimes necessary to make a placement at considerable distance to Hampshire.

4 Difficulties with tendering the service

4.1 For the reasons outline above it is likely that a tendering exercise would need to be carried out on a national basis, and would include a range of placement options - such as solo occupancy; high staffing ratios; units for sexual perpetrators; violent behaviour; arson etc. It is considered that this is very likely to result in responses from a large number of providers.

4.2 The key difficulties identified with this approach are as follows:-

4.2.1 Staffing capacity to undertake the tendering exercise, including the evaluation of the tender responses.

4.2.2 The number of providers who could potentially meet the criteria would be very high, and monitoring these providers on an ongoing basis would require staff and other resources beyond that which the number of placements could justify. Alternatively we would be left in a position where placements had to be made with providers about whom we had no knowledge other than their Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) or (Department for Education and Skills (DfES) inspection reports.

4.2.3 In order to be able to select providers from a tendered approved list, a database would need to be developed in order to identify the key skills/attributes of the various providers.

5 Regional Developments

5.1 Regional work with children's services has been developing over the past 3-4 years, and one element of this is the Cross Regional Database and Co-ordinator role. The database has been under development and expansion for the past 2 years, and is jointly funded by 38 local authorities in the South East, Eastern and East Midlands ADSS and SEN regions. The Co-ordinator was appointed during 2005 and her responsibilities include the co-ordination of providers to be linked with each authority. It is then the responsibility of each authority to undertake monitoring of these providers on behalf of the other authorities in the regions using standard procedures. These local authorities will also be responsible for undertaking fee negotiations on behalf of the regions. It should be noted that local authorities are also free to undertake their own monitoring and fee negotiations should they wish to do so.

5.2 The initial allocation of link providers was undertaken in the autumn of 2005, and it is planned that the first monitoring of these providers will be undertaken by October 2006. Further work will be undertaken between June - Sept 2006 to check the allocations and ensure there is full coverage of providers. This means that when a placement need arises, we will be able to access providers with whom one of the local authorities in the region is already familiar, and therefore have greater confidence that the provider will be able to meet the needs of our placement.

5.3 There are already more than 500 registered provisions on the database, and more will be added when any of the 38 local authorities take on a new provider who is willing to sign up to the regional contracting and monitoring process. This will therefore provide a comprehensive selection of providers when a placement need is identified.

5.4 There is a search facility within the database which allows us to set parameters and identify appropriate providers. This therefore ensures that the selection of providers is fair, as this uses information they themselves provide.

6 Exceptions

6.1 Although it is anticipated that placement needs will be met from the database in the majority of cases, there may be occasions when there is a need to use a provider who is not already included on the database. In these situations we would encourage the provider to join the database, and may therefore become the link authority.

6.2 There may also be a circumstance where a provider does not wish to join the regional database, but there may still be a need to use them for a particular placement. In these circumstances we would seek to request a single tender exemption in the standard way.

7 Financial implications

7.1 The regional work to share resources to monitor providers and undertake fee negotiations should result in cost savings to the Council through the reduction in resources required to carry out this work.

7.2 The improved knowledge of providers should also result in improved placement selection, potentially leading to greater placement stability and therefore reduced cost

8 Personnel implications

8.1 None

9 Impact assessment

9.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

10 Crime prevention issues

10.1 None.

11 Views of the Local County Councillor

10.1 Not applicable. This report refers to county and nation wide services and there are no specific issues relating to any one Councillor's Electoral Division.

Recommendation

That the Executive Member for Children's Services approves the request for blanket single tender approval to utilise the cross-regional database for the selection of providers for independent residential placements.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None.