Decision details

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Housing and Adult Care summarising findings from a review of housing related support services and outlining the preferred approach to re-tendering these services, to improve access and achieve efficiencies.

Having complied with paragraph 15 of the Council’s Access to Information Procedure Rules:

(i)  To support the recommendation to proceed with a procurement of a range of HRS services for young people and single adults.

(ii)  Subject to Council approval for the procurement exercise, to delegate authority to the Director of Quality & Integration to carry out a procurement process for the provision of HRS services as set out in this report and to enter into contracts in accordance with contract procedure.

(iii)  Subject to Council agreement to the procurement exercise, to delegate authority to the Director of Quality & Integration following consultation with the relevant Cabinet Members to decide on the final model of commissioned services for HRS and all decision making in relation to this re-commissioning.

1.  This report is submitted for consideration as a General Exception under paragraph 15 of the Access to Information Procedure Rules in Part 4 of the City Council’s Constitution, notice having been given to the Chair of the relevant Scrutiny Panel and the Public.

2.  Reason for Urgency: The contracts relating to these services are coming to an end in April 2017, with an extension sought to June 2017. As they have already been extended to enable the reviews to take place, there is an urgency in proceeding to procurement to ensure services are in place, with appropriate contractual arrangements, within this timescale.

3.  There is a requirement to re-commission Housing Related Support (HRS) services to comply with procurement rules as the majority of the contracts have come to an end and have already been extended. There is an opportunity to achieve efficiencies and simplify delivery and access arrangements within the current commissioning arrangements for HRS services. 

The review of Housing Related Support considered a number of other options which were rejected:

•  To commission the same services without maximising efficiencies or savings; this would not provide the most appropriate service and miss opportunities for savings.

•  To decommission some service areas (e.g. floating support, or hostel): this would achieve some savings but would not address local need whilst generating gaps in service provision. There would be impact on other services which would off-set any savings.

•  To extend all current contracts whilst working on a large scale transformation programme: whilst there are areas of best practice which could be implemented for the city this would take time to develop and an opportunity for improvement in services and realisation of savings would be delayed.