Issue - meetings

To seek agreement to proceed with the commissioning intentions as set out in the report and to re-commission Early Help services in 2016.

Cabinet received a report on the reassessment of Early Help and Preventative Services contractual and grant arrangements intended to ensure a flexible and integrated model of support would be in place to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people and the most efficient use of resources.

The report outlined the proposals for future commissioning intentions, including the realignment of approaches with Public Health to ensure maximum utilisation of resources and integrated approaches to service delivery and sought agreement to progress as described

Florence Kroll, Director of Early Help and Preventative Services and Joanna Hook, District Manager; Gravesham Early Help and Preventative Service where in attendance to speak to the item.

The Cabinet Member for Community Services, Mr Mike Hill referred to the Youth Commissioning element of the report for which he was responsible.  He reported that a significant proportion of these services had first been commissioned out three years ago and the results had been generally successful, providing a greater quantity of high quality youth work than before whilst also saving the Council money.  It was now time to recommission these services and the redesign if approved would put in place 12 district based contracts compared to the 47 currently in place, which would enable easier and better contract management.  He was pleased that smaller providers had been encouraged to collaborate in order to compete for the larger contracts and was convinced that this would protect good service already in place.  Finally he welcomed the fact that the budget for youth services had remained unchanged despite the considerable pressures on the Council’s budget.

The Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services, Peter Oakford welcomed the report which he felt reflected the excellent work undertaken to review the current grant and contractual arrangements and improve the offering and efficiency of Early Help and Preventative Services in Kent and he fully supported the direction of travel set out within it.

Florence Kroll described the contents of the paper for members which had been informed by significant diagnostic phase, undertaken over the last 6 months and including stakeholders, young people, providers and staff in both Early Help and Preventative Services and Social Care.  This period had established that the highest number of referrals related to family work or emotional health and wellbeing.

The proposed realignment would see the current complex contractual arrangements aligned to become 12 district youth contracts, 1 young carers contract, 4 family contracts and small local grants to be awarded with districts in order to continue to support small, local arrangements.  In order to ensure that the work was aligned with Public Health commissioning for emotional health and wellbeing the contracts would be commissioned in two phases as follows:

·         Phase 1 – The 12 District youth contracts and the young carers contract would be awarded in April 2016 along with implementation of arrangements for small grants

·         Phase 2 – The 4 Family contracts would be awarded in October 2016.

She reported that the budget was £8.5million reducing to £7.4million  ...  view the full minutes text for item 135

To receive a report by the relevant Cabinet Committee Members and Corporate Director for Education and Young People’s Services to consider and endorse or make recommendations on a decision.

1.            The Corporate Director, Mr Leeson, introduced a report that outlined the proposals for future commissioning intentions, central to which was the alignment of approaches with Public Health to ensure the maximum utilisation of resources and integrated approaches to service delivery.

2.            Mr Leeson advised that a restructure of the Early Help and Preventative service had been undertaken to integrate teams at district level.  The second phase of reorganising the service, to produce better quality support for children and families with better outcomes, was to look at the range of commissioned services that were used to support those families.  There were over 100 different contracts in place to provide different kinds of support for families in their localities.  This report looked at the re-commissioning of many of those services and rationalising those to integrate with the models that were now delivered in each district. 

3.            The Director of Early Help and Preventative Services, Mrs Kroll, highlighted the four appendices to the report; (i) KCC strategic and supporting outcomes, (ii) Existing EHPS contracts, (iii) Diagnostic report and (iv) Procurement timeline. All of the work had been informed by the 2015 Commissioning Framework for KCC, delivering better outcomes through improved commissioning and aligned with the new structure of EHPS.  Mrs Kroll stated that underpinning all commissioning must be the outcomes for children and young people.  There also needed to be a consistent approach across Kent.  Mrs Kroll advised that all of the 100 contracts across Kent had been aligned to end at the same time.  The first phase to end by March 2016 and the second phase by October 2016. She explained that many of the contracts dealt with single issues instead of the whole family.  Many of the contracts had cumbersome pathways to access services causing delays and waiting lists due to a high level of bureaucratic processes before children could access services.  Work had been carried out to improve the specification to improve access to support services.  The work needed to complement EHPS as well as Specialist Children’s Services.

4.            Mrs KrolI gave an overview of the scope of the Commissioning Framework.  This included all the family work, the youth offer contracts, the Emotional Health and Wellbeing, to be aligned with the Public Health work regarding the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) specification.  The re-commissioning would be for a “family approach” that included the Troubled Families work, the Youth offer, Young Carers; and Emotional Health and Wellbeing.  This would also be aligned with the recommissioning in October 2016 of Health Visitors, School nursing, substance misuse and Emotional Health and Wellbeing.

5.            Mrs Kroll advised that there was a grant programme being developed to ensure that small local organisations had access to grants and promoted innovation and promoted local solutions.

6.            Mrs Kroll explained the timeline.  There were two phases; (i) the Youth Services and Young Carers and the grant programme which would be at the start of the procurement in October 2015.  The award  ...  view the full minutes text for item 103