Cabinet Member decisions

Decision –toagree to the disposal of the sites and delegate authority to:

1.    The Director of Infrastructure in consultation with the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services, to finalise the contractual terms of the disposal. 

2.    The Director of Infrastructure to authorise the execution of necessary contractual and land agreements required to implement the above.

Reason for the decision

Proposed property disposal in line with the Council’s s.123 best consideration obligations and over £1million which requires a key decision.

Background

KCC is to dispose of the combined sites at Bensted House, Kiln Court, Osbourne Court and Former Social Enterprise Centre, Lower Road, Faversham, ME13 7NY (approximately 7 acres, split in half by Lower Road).  Facilities operating from the site closed in 2016/17, and the sites were subsequently declared surplus to operational requirements and suitable for disposal.

Comprehensive marketing has been undertaken following which bids have been received, and a preferred bidder is recommended to take forward the development.

The Kiln Court site was registered as an Asset of Community Value under the Localism Act 2011. All necessary notices have been served to the relevant authority relating to Kent County Council’s intention to dispose of the site, all relevant moratorium periods have elapsed.

A decision is now sought to finalise the terms of the disposal and authorise disposal of the site.

Options

The sites have been declared surplus by Kent County Council as such there are no operational requirements for them.

Kent County Council has an overarching duty under Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 to secure not less than best consideration in respect of property disposals.

KCC appointed planning consultants to design a residential development in compliance with the local authority’s current planning and affordable housing requirements to inform prospective bids.

The sites have been openly marketed by a Kent based agent who advertised nationally in Estates Gazette. Conditional bids have been received.

How does the proposed decision meets the objectives of ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2015-2020)’

Securing a capital receipt to fund the capital programme and to streamline the Council’s property portfolio to achieve financial and efficiency benefits in line with appropriate policy.

As the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services, I agree to the disposal of the sites and delegate authority to:

1. The Director of Infrastructure, in consultation with the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate and Traded Services, to finalise the contractual terms of the disposal, on the most advantageous terms for the County Council that it is able to secure; and

2. The Director of Infrastructure to authorise the execution of necessary contractual and land agreements required to implement the above.

Proposed Decision: To commission a service that offers Representation, Rights and Advocacy (RRA) services provision across the county

Background:

·   Kent County Council (KCC) has a comprehensive Representation, Rights and Advocacy (RRA) Service delivered by The Young Lives Foundation.

·   The contract commenced on the 1 April 2015 was for a period of three years. The contract had an annual value of £250,300. The original contract had no capacity to be extended and a Single Source Justification was entered into and will end 31 March 2022.

·   In 2020/2021, an additional service to the Independent Visitor element was included as a Leaving Care Mentoring Service at £8,500.

·   The contract performed well and performance targets were consistently met by the provider.

·   The Local Authority has a Statutory obligation to provide the elements included in this service.

Options and Risks

Based on the options appraisal Option 3 Externally commission a new service as a single contract with five lots is the recommended option

As Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services, I agree to:

A) Commence formal procurement activity to tender for a service, award a contract and develop robust contract management for oversight of the contract performance.

and

B) Delegate authority for the Corporate Director Children, Young People and Education in consultation with the Cabinet Member to award a contract following a competitive tender process and implement the Decision.

Proposed decision – The Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services is asked to agree to:

a)    Authorise Commissioners to commence a competitive strategic grants process for the provision of Short Break Day Opportunities for Disabled Children and Young People, and delegate authority to award grants to the Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education or other Officer as required by the Corporate Director.

Reason for the decision

In accordance the Children Act 1989, section 6, and subsequently The Breaks for Carers of Disabled Children Regulations 2011, Kent County Council has a duty to ensure sufficiency of short break activities available to families of disabled children & young people living in Kent.

The existing grant funding arrangement for Short Breaks for Disabled Children and Young People ends on the 31 March 2022 and it is proposed that a two year Strategic Grants Framework is competitively tendered, to be in place from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2024 to ensure sufficiency of short break activities, and co-production of an alternate delivery model for future provision. The proposed Decision falls within the Key Decision Criteria of affecting two or more electoral divisions and expenditure over £1million for the lifetime of the project.

Background

Short Breaks are preventative, family support services that are aimed at families with a disabled child, to allow them to have a break from caring. They can be at any time ranging from an hour to a day, evening, overnight, or weekend depending on the needs of the family and provide enjoyable activities for the child or young person. The short break may take place in a community activity setting, a child/young person’s home or other residential setting. It allows parents and carers to have a break from their caring responsibilities and gives children and young people the opportunity for a positive experience.

Some disabled children can join in on activities for all children such as Beavers or Brownies, or summer fun days run by their local council. This means that their parents can have a break.

Kent County Council commission activities for those children who need extra support, including activities for children who need significant levels of support. Most of these activities are open to families without having to go through a social worker.

The project outlines the commissioning intentions for short breaks that are open access, meaning they do not always require a social worker assessment for families to access.

—   weekend clubs during term time

—   school summer holiday clubs

The aim of this process has been to ensure that Short Breaks are available for disabled children and families when they need them, providing breaks and support early, preventing and managing crises to helping to keep families together.

Using Short Breaks, we are supporting carers to have a break from the caring responsibilities of their disabled child. Short breaks benefit both disabled children and their parents. Children benefit from new interests, relationships and activities, while parents can catch up with ‘everyday activities’ (sleep, cleaning, shopping), attend to their physical and psychological wellbeing, and maintain and develop social networks.

Options

1.    Do Nothing – The current grants for Short Breaks for Disabled Children and Young People will end on the 31 March 2022. Kent County Council will fail in its duty to ensure sufficiency of short breaks activities are available to families of disabled children and young people.

2.     Use Direct Payment approach – Market analysis and engagement indicates a lack of capacity at present to respond to this option, meaning that some Parents and Carers will be challenged in sourcing a provider and increase the risk of putting families into crisis. Engagement with Parents and Carers on the use of Direct Payments identified that the process can be complex and difficult to navigate. 

3.    Competitively Tender for New Grants Framework (Preferred Option) – This option will ensure continued investment into Short Breaks offer for families and carers. The funding model will promote equitable share, of the available budget across Kent, supporting the Voluntary and Community Sector providers through the COVID Pandemic recovery. The grants prospectus will set out desired outcomes and intentions for a county wide offer to meet a range of needs, including how organisations should be promoting them.

Following the grant award, the new services will be updated on the Local Offer, shared with Local Children’s Partnership Groups, social workers and the front door for the marketing, promoting, advertising. During the two-year grant period Strategic Commissioning will work with Families, Carers, Service Users and Providers to co-produce a sustainable short breaks model to be fully operational from 1 April 2024.

The proposed Decision is in line with Kent’s Strategy for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities 2021-2024

o   Priority Five: Ensure children and young people with SEND are included in their local community

Setting the Course Kent County Council’s Interim Strategic Plan December 2020

o   Define our Commissioning Strategy to inform the way we work with the VCSE to meet the needs of our communities and to identify potential new partnership models

o   Better engagement with residents and local communities

As Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services, I agree to:

A)   Authorise Commissioners to commence a competitive strategic grants process for the provision of Short Break Day Opportunities for Disabled Children and Young People.

B)   Delegate authority to award grants to the Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education or other Officer as required by the Corporate Director in consultation with the Cabinet Member.

Proposed decision – The Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services is asked to agree to:

a)    Continue engagement in the DFE funded Project and participate in the regional procurement for new innovative services for Complex Looked After Children

Reason for the decision

Local authorities, as part of their Sufficiency Duty must take steps to secure, as far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation within its areas to meet the needs of children they are looking after.  The proposed decision directly relates to this duty by aiming to provide additional placements in residential children’s homes with new emerging models of care through a regional procurement.

Background

The Department for Education (DfE) Project “Phase 2” is funded by the Department for Education as part of its “Improving Sufficiency Planning to Increase Stability and Permanence for Looked after Children” Programme and aims to develop a procurement approach and pack for new and innovative provision for looked after children with a particular focus on the following key elements:

•    Flexible, creative provision designed to meet the needs of complex children, including options to ‘step across’ various forms of provision (e.g. residential to fostering)

•    Keeping children local, as close to their home address as possible

•    Working with providers who already offer both residential and fostering services and with small providers, developing joined up partnerships, enabling movement between each as appropriate to need

•    Exploring options for considering lifetime costs for placements, the potential to invest in more intensive early interventions, with a view to improving outcomes and potentially reducing longer term costs

•    Including measures of progress for children placed based on assessment at the point of placement (regularly reviewed up until placement end using an evidence-based assessment tool)

•    The model will be developed collaboratively between local authorities and providers, finding innovative and creative ways to procure, drawing on relationship commissioning models. It will focus on the competitive advantage to be leveraged by working together, developing better ways to support children and young people.

The scope of the project covers the following:

·         Three local authorities (one dropped out in late Spring 2021) and two provider associations in the South East region, who will contribute to the detailed project work and the production of the framework. The three local authorities are Kent, Portsmouth and West Sussex

·         Children and young people who are looked after and who have complex needs (and possibly those on the edge of care - as defined by Phase 1 of the project)

·         The remaining 15 authorities in the South East (within the SESLIP region) who have an interest in the outcome of the project and who may use the model in the future

·         Any provider who may respond to the market consultation process

Kent County Council agreed with the other two local authorities in the profile of children and young people it is most difficult to place and have one or more of the following capabilities:

• Aged between 10 and 16, although needs to include some flexibility
• 70:30 male: female
• Have often experienced exploitation, usually criminal, sometimes sexual
• Have long histories of neglect and exposure to domestic abuse and other forms of childhood trauma
• Sometimes will need to be placed in an emergency

Kent County Council spot purchases residential care and issues an Individual Placement Agreement which details the terms and conditions of the placement along with the Placement Plan for the child.

Within the Kent boundary, there are of 75 residential children’s homes with a total of 336 beds. Kent has 42 children placed in Kent (excluding those under the Disabled Children’s Teams) as at 30 September 2021. The placements in Kent against the overall capacity shows that KCC occupies 12%. This does not allow KCC to have any leverage within the market and as a result relies on local relationships between the homes and the Total Placement Service. There are a further 33 children (excluding those under the Disabled Children’s Teams) placed in residential children’s homes outside of Kent.

Options

1.    Do Nothing – continue to spot purchase placements in residential children’s homes in a market led system

2.    Engage in a framework alone without partners – Commissioners developed an approach and in talking to residential providers through a forum saw costs increase. 

3.    Engage in a regional procurement with partners – utilising the expertise of the South East Sector Led Improvement Programme (SESLIP) and the combined buying power with other local authorities, this is the recommended option to be able to re-set a relationship with providers wanting to engage and innovate positively

Financial Implications

Residential care for children is currently costing Kent County Council on average £4,557 per week (accommodation only).

It is expected that by procuring a service that differs from the standard offer of residential care would benefit from the partnership across the local authorities.

The project team acknowledges, following the market engagement, that it could take up to 18 months for a new provision to be ready for operation under the new contract terms, although we would be seeking quicker opportunities. With the amount of registered standard children’s home provision in the Kent boundary, providers might want to re-purpose their provision in order to meet the Kent need.

The revenue budget for residential care is reported within the “Looked After Children – Care and Support” key service line. The 2021-22 Financial Monitoring position reported to Cabinet in September, reported a small overspend of £0.2m excluding additional costs of associated with COVID. However, over the past three years the overall budget for the placement of Looked After Children has grown by £9m (16%) whilst the number of children looked after has not changed significantly. The increase in cost has arisen from the higher dependency on more expensive placements such as residential care where the total cost in residential care has increased by £7m over the same period, demonstrating the need to explore alternative options.  

The project is expected to be delivered within the existing resources of the Local Authority including use of expertise across the Directorate, Commissioning and Finance services. There are no extra project costs expected. The commissioning of a block contract is expected to be funded within the existing budget for residential care subject to annual inflationary increases as set out in the contract, which have traditionally been funded by additional investment made available through the Medium-Term Financial Planning process.

As this is a proof of concept project, delivered in conjunction with the DFE, it is difficult to fully set out the financial implications. It is unclear how the market will react to a block contract however, we are anticipating the average cost of a bed will be more economical than if purchased individually due to the certainty this arrangement will bring to providers. This will need to be offset against any risks of voids (as set out in the risk section below). Therefore, the project will aim at a very minimum to ensure the average cost of bed under this arrangement is not higher than is purchased through the current spot purchasing arrangement, with an aspiration of potential savings up to 10% if a more competitive rate can be achieved.  A clearer position will be known following the procurement from all three Local Authorities.

Based on an expected 15 beds within 24 months and utilising the current average cost, as a maximum this would commit £3.564m per annum. If the contract was for 10 years, as SESLIP are recommending, this would be £30,564m.

As Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services, I agree to:

A) Continue engagement in the Project

B) Participate in the Regional procurement for new innovative services for Complex Looked After Children

C) Delegate decisions and necessary actions regarding the award of the contract and implementation of the Decision to the Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education, or other Officer as instructed by the Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services.

Proposed decision:

Note and confirm previous activity and delegated decision-making to accept the grant and deploy initial support over the October Half-term.

Confirm overall use and governance for the full grant up to the required end-date of end of March 2021 – updated to reflect changing demands and required support arrangements subsequent to Decision 21/00062 (Summer Grant decision).

Detail relevant delegations to Corporate Director Finance for ongoing management of the grant, including making amendments to funding arrangements and deployment subject to consultation with the Leader.

•         Reason for the decision

Government announced in October the Household Support Grant, which is in line with previous grants issued (Covid Winter Grant and Covid Local Support Grant). While previous acceptance and management of related grants was possible via delegated authority arising from previous decisions, it is appropriate and necessary for these previous arrangements to be noted and the ongoing acceptance of the Grant to be subject to Executive Member decision-making.

This decision is required to confirm KCC’s acceptance of the additional grant monies and its planned use.

•         Background – Provide brief additional context

An urgent decision was taken in November 2020 to accept the Government’s £4.5m Covid Winter Grant and allocate this into 4 areas: Free School Meals, District allocation to target vulnerable households, KCC services to distribute to families in need, and support for residents with food and utility bills.

In March 2021, the Government wrote to advise there would be an extension of the funding, and an additional £1.5m allocated to KCC. A further decision was taken to accept this funding and allocate this to supermarket vouchers for families of children in receipt of benefits related free school meals during Easter Holidays 2021.

In April, the Government awarded a further £1.06m and renamed the grant the Covid Local Support Grant. In June the Government notified LAs that they were extending the Covid Local Support Grant to September for a final time, and issuing an additional £4.239m. A decision was taken in accordance with previous decisions to authorise the provision of free school meals support through the summer holidays and delegating authority to the Corporate Director Finance to take the necessary actions to spend the grant money in line with the grant conditions and implement the decision, together with authority to accept any future grant provided for similar purposes and to spend this in accordance with the governance framework put in place by the decision.

•         Options (other options considered but discarded)

The option of turning down the grant was rejected as there are many Kent families in need who will benefit from receiving this support.

We considered providing all funding to Districts to deliver through localised solutions however there are some elements of support that would be best provided at a county level, for example Free School Meals.

•         How the proposed decision supports the Interim Strategic Plan:

This contributes to the strategic outcome of “Children & Young People in Kent get the best start in life”, by helping to keep vulnerable families out of crisis.

As Leader of the Council, I agree to:

1) Confirm and endorse the arrangements put in place via Officer Decision 21/0008, taken under delegated authority arising from Key Decision 21/00062 by the Corporate Director for Finance, to accept the Household Support Grant in full for use in accordance with the guidance published by Department of Work and Pensions and relevant terms and conditions.

2) Note that Officer Decision 21/0008 committed £750k of the accepted grant to the provision of supermarket vouchers to families with children in receipt of benefits-related Free School Meals or families in need of support through KSAS during the October 2021 school.

3) Approve use of the grant to support the provision of vouchers to families with children in receipt of benefits-related Free School Meals or families in need of support through KSAS during the Christmas 2021, February and Easter 2022 school holidays.

4) Approve the use of the remainder of the Household Support Grant over the winter period to the end of March 2022 as set out in section 3 of the associated Executive Decision Report.

5) Authorise the Corporate Director Finance, in consultation with the Leader to take any other actions, within the scope of the grant management framework, needed to ensure that the grant is spent in full by the date stipulated by the Department for Work and Pensions, including reviewing, revising and amending the funding allocations set out in the Executive Decision Report.

6) Authorise the Corporate Director Finance, in consultation with the Leader, to take other necessary actions, including but not limited to entering into contracts or other legal agreements, as required to implement this decision.

7) Authorise the Corporate Director Finance in consultation with the Leader, to accept and administer any further grant monies providing they are given by government on very similar terms of reference and that they can be appropriately managed under the funding / governance framework put in place by this decision

Proposed decision: The Cabinet Member for Education and Skills is asked to End the Summer term a day early so that term finishes on Thursday 21 July 2022 instead of Friday 22 July 2022.

In England, local authority-maintained schools operating according to the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) must open for 195 days.

Of these, a maximum of 190 days involve teaching children and young people. The remaining five days are non-teaching days when teachers may be asked to undertake other duties related to their role as a teacher. These are often known as in-service training (INSET) days.

The school term dates for Kent community, voluntary-controlled, community special or maintained nursery schools are determined by KCC and the local authority is the employer.

For the academic year 2021/22, in acknowledgement of the additional Bank Holiday for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the DfE has agreed the following position to assist schools and local authorities in their planning:

         ‘The Spring Bank Holiday in 2022 will be moved to Thursday 2 June and an additional bank holiday on Friday 3 June will see a four-day weekend to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

         ‘Many schools will already be on their half-term breaks in the week commencing 31 May, but where the additional bank holiday falls in term time, schools and local authorities (LAs) should observe the bank holidays on 2/3 June and may therefore need to prepare and make any amendments to their published term dates for the academic year 2021/22.

         ‘We [the DfE] have laid regulations to reduce the minimum number of sessions schools are required to meet in the academic year 2021/2022 and enable everyone to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen on 3 June 2022.

         ‘The Department will review the necessary legislation and, as far as the STPCD is concerned, make an amendment for the September 21 version that reduces the number of days that teachers need to be available to work from 190 (+5 INSET days) to 189 (+5 INSET days) and will also reduce the number of directed hours by 6.5. The total school year will therefore be 194 days.’

In essence, teachers will teach one less day for the academic year 2021/22, down from 195 to 194 (including INSET days), or down from 190 to 189 (excluding INSET days) across 1,258.5 hours as opposed to 1,265 hours of directed time. An extra day of holiday will therefore need to be allocated by KCC as the employer.

As Cabinet Member forEducation and Skills, I agree to:

I)               End the Summer term 2022 a day early so that term finishes on Thursday 21 July 2022 instead of Friday 22 July 2022.