Agenda item

Consideration was given to a report of the Managing Director, Community Health and Social Care – DASS, which sought approval to recommission the provision of short-term supported housing in the Borough.

The report provided details of the current arrangements for the provision of short-term supported housing funded by the council and the budget for the provision (£1.195m p.a.) which was held within Community Services and Adult Social Care, however the service provision was cross-cutting, impacting the strategic intentions of several council directorates and of partner agencies: as such, Cabinet was requested to consider and approve the commissioning intentions outlined in the report and the associated budget, and to delegate a subsequent future contract award to the Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care in consultation with Managing Director Health & Adult Social Care Community Services.

Options/alternatives considered

Option 1 - Allow service provision to continue as is. This is not the recommended option, as:

·         The provision was out of contract andthere are greater legal risks with this option.

·         The local landscape and the legislative context for supported housing was now more stableand it was considered that a procurement exercise could now take place, subject to the need to respond to Covid -19, at the earliest appropriate/safe date to do so.

·         There were desired changes to the service specification that cannot reasonably be undertaken unless part of a new procurement exercise

·         Continued uncertainty placed strains on service providers, such as the impact on staff retention, and on landlords, who were less likely to invest in the stock where future use is uncertain.

Option 2 -  Not to commission replacement provision. This was not the recommended option, as:

·         The provision of supported housing made a significant contribution to the councils duty of prevention and relief of homelessness for households with additional support needs, who struggle in unsupported Temporary Accommodation (TA) provision and cannot access general needs accommodation until their support needs are addressed. The provision reduced from 146 units to 104 in 2016/17 to meet savings targets from these contracts: to cease provision further/altogether would severely compromise the council’s ability to meet its duties. It would also create risks where a household may not be owed a duty to accommodate, but where they have complex support needs: there is likely to be negative impacts for these households - and potentially on the wider community - if their housing and support needs are not met.

·         The provision was less costly to the council than TA, or provision in the private landlord sector claiming high rents/Intensive Housing Management: the commissioned provision meets exempt accommodation regulations and the council can therefore claim full HB subsidy. It is also generally of a better standard and quality. 

·         The provision underpinned several council priorities which would be impacted if the service ceases, making it more difficult for instance, to support care leavers to move on to independence, to support victims of domestic abuse - which was likely to become a new statutory duty - to prevent homelessness, and to improve the mental health of vulnerable residents. It was likely that many households would experience further crises and require higher cost, more intensive services.

Option 3 -To retender the provision, and that Cabinet approve:

·         the commissioning intentions outlined for re-tendering of the provision

·         that the overall contract value remains £1.195m per annum with provision made for inflationary uplifts

·         that a subsequent future contract award, of 3 years plus options to extend by up to two further years, be delegated to the Managing Director Community Health and Social Care Service in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care

Consultation

Consultation with service users, and with a range of key partners/stakeholders informed the options and recommended future service design in this report. Consultation methods included holding stakeholder events; specific ones were held for each service with representation from a range of referring agencies and public sector organizations, plus an aggregated version was taken to the Homelessness Forum – which included representatives from many voluntary sector organization – for comment. Service users within each service were consulted about their views of service.

RESOLVED – That the Cabinet would consider the commercially sensitive information contained at Item 10 of the agenda before making a decision.