Presentation of the Cabinet Member Children & Young People
Minutes:
Developments to home care & community-based support for children & young people with disabilities in Staffordshire had been scrutinised by the Committee in June 2021 prior to a Cabinet decision on the new integrated service. At that meeting the Scrutiny Committee had requested a further report in six months to establish progress made.
Members were reminded of the challenging marketplace issues that had influenced the changes, including staffing shortages across the sector locally as well as nationally, in both adults and children’s social care. There had also been limited choice of provision in Staffordshire within the children’s framework, with just five providers then available.
Progress since the Cabinet decision in July 2021 was shared with the Committee, including:
· a full open tender for all four service types;
· flexible framework contracts to be in place with 11 providers from 1 April 2022. Utilising this flexible framework procurement approach enabled it to be re-opened at specific intervals to allow providers to be added on a contracted basis as appropriate;
· shortfalls in capacity and choice had been addressed to support children and young people with complex needs and/or who needed urgent care, with at least six contracted providers now covering each double district operational area;
· seven new entrants to the children’s market, some of whom currently delivered adult care services to Staffordshire residents and some new entrants from neighbouring authority areas;
· specifications for new services written alongside those for the new Tier 2 Family Support providers, which included new requirements for early help services to support children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) to prevent, reduce or delay additional need;
· better linking between the Aiming High Short Breaks for Children with SEND programme and the Healthy Activities and Food (HAF) funded activities for families in food poverty, enabling a broader range of accessible support for families caring for a child with SEND.
Market development and commercial work still to be developed included:
· further options for home care, for this reason the framework would be re-opened in October following further engagement activity throughout the summer, which it was hoped would encourage further new entrants;
· 1-1 short breaks support was currently limited to 3-4 providers in some areas. Some providers had indicated that their own capacity to submit multiple tenders had inhibited their involvement in this service tender, however they remained interested in joining the Framework, subject to the usual commercial and procurement processes and SCC due diligence;
· further work to be undertaken with the District Operational Teams to reduce or eliminate emergency care provision being sourced outside of SCC’s frameworks, and to manage associated costs;
· to ameliorate the continuing challenges of independent sector providers, plans were being developed to pilot in-house delivery from summer 2022 onwards, focusing on the East Staffs District initially to test viability, as East Staffs was the area with the most limited provider options currently;
· consideration of the balance between spend on Direct Payments (DP) (which was falling) and agency care (currently rising) and ways to address the number of DP hand backs, reviewing the hourly DP rate.
Members welcomed the progress made. They noted the reduction in use of DP, querying the reasons for this. DP saw the service users have employer responsibilities, which some families had found difficult to navigate. This had accelerated throughout Covid restrictions. There was a need to highlight again the benefits of DP, for example enabling families to have more control of the service provided and ensure consistency of carer. A better DP pay rate was being proposed, in line with the increase recently introduced for adult services, which would enable families to pay at least the National Living Plus 5%. There would be significant cost implications if the movement away from DP to agency care was not addressed.
Members asked what efforts were made to ensure consistency of carers where agency care was used. Whilst consistency of carer was preferrable and work continued to encourage this to happen as far as possible, it did not happen in all cases.
Members were pleased to note the excellent work from providers for holiday activities. They also noted there was funding for the activity for three years, ensuring stability for this provision.
RESOLVED: That the Committee were reassured by the progress made, particularly with the increase in provider numbers and in the recognition of potential problems with Direct Payment reductions and the proactive work to address this.
Supporting documents: