Issue - meetings

Report of the Head of Children’s Social Care

The Cabinet considered the report of the Head of Children’s Social Care which provided details of the current contractual arrangements and proposals for the future procurement of Residential and Fostering placements for children and young people.

Decision Made: That

(1)       approval be given to the continued use of the Regional Residential Framework Contract for a further 12 month period, from 1st April 2017 until 1st April 2018, as provided for within the original procurement exercise, for the procurement of residential placements;

(2)       approval be given to the Council’s participation in the regional Dynamic Purchasing Systems agreement as explained in paragraph 17, to be procured by STAR on behalf of all participating authorities, for future purchasing of residential placements from 1 October 2017;

(3)       approval be given to the continued use of the Regional Fostering Framework Contract for a further 12 month period, from 1 April 2017 until 1 April 2018, as provided for within the original procurement exercise, for the procurement of fostering placements;

(4)       it be noted that the regional work to be undertaken in 2017/18, will determine the best approach for procuring Fostering placements from April 2018; and that a further report will be submitted to Cabinet in due course; and

(5)       it be noted that the proposal was a Key Decision but had not been included in the Council's Forward Plan of Key Decisions. Consequently, the Leader of the Council and the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Children, Schools and Safeguarding) had been consulted under Rule 27 of the Access to Information Procedure Rules of the Constitution, to the decision being made by Cabinet as a matter of urgency on the basis that it was impracticable to defer the decision until the commencement of the next Forward Plan because the Council needs to make the above decisions prior to the next Cabinet meeting and unfortunately, collective agreement across the collaborating authorities, on the approach to be taken in respect of the final year of the existing Frameworks and their replacement / re-procurement was only secured in the latter part of January 2017, providing a very short window for presenting this report to Cabinet for decision ahead of the start of 2017/18.

Reasons for Decision:

Since April 2014, wherever possible, Fostering and Residential placements for children and young people had been procured through regional Framework Contracts.

When these regional Framework Contracts were originally entered into, they were entered into on the basis of a core contract period of 2 years with further optional extension periods of up to 2 years built in and anticipated at the outset as part of the life of the contract, provided that the quality/price of services/goods provided under the contract are of a satisfactory standard and exercising the extension is considered to represent best value for the Council. The purpose of building contracts around core and extension periods was to ensure that the quality of the contract was maintained throughout the life of the contract and to ensure that the Council,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 98