Issue details

This seeks to ensure full compliance with Kent County Council governance for the award of the Young Carers Service contract. This service is currently providing support to children and young people and Kent County Council is paying for this service; the report is to satisfy the governance arrangements for this contract. 

The Council has a statutory obligation to provide for support for young carers; under the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Care Act 2014, Local Authorities must ‘take reasonable steps to identify the extent to which there are young carers within their area who have needs for support’ and are responsible for ‘assessing whether a young carer within their area has needs for support and, if so, what those needs are’.

The Early Help Commissioning Intentions for 2016/17 recognise that a new Young Carers Service could play a critical role in strengthening open access services and support for young people, thereby reducing demand for more intensive, specialist and costly services.

          The Early Help and Preventative Services Commissioning Intentions for 201617 were approved via the following governance route:

·      Portfolio Board – 25 June 2015;

·      CAB – 22 July 2015 & September 2015;

·      DIVMT – Various;

·      Education Cabinet Committee - 18 September 2015;

·      Corporate Board – 28 September 2015; and

·      Full Cabinet Committee – 12 October 2015.

The Procurement Plan for the Young Carers Service was agreed at Procurement Board on    25 November 2015 (Appendix 2). The procurement route was an open tender exercise. As the required service can be categorised under Schedule 3 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and as the value of the required service does exceed the higher threshold of €750,000 (£589,148 sterling equivalent), the Council had to advertise the opportunity on the Official Journal of the European Union (‘OJEU’).

Following an open tender procurement exercise, the authority to award the Young Carers Service contract was delegated to Peter Oakford as Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services. However this decision was outside of the Education and Young Peoples Services Cabinet Committee and therefore a formal record of the decision to delegate authority to Peter Oakford is not available.

Financial implications: The total lifetime (i.e. 36 + 12 months) value of the contract is £1,316,550.73.

There are no specific financial implications attached to this contract. Budget savings were not attached to this contract in recognition of the need for a service with additional capacity to provide workforce development as well as direct support to young carers to ensure Kent County Council remains in compliance with the legislative requirement within the Care Act 2014 and the Children’s and Families Act 2014 to “take reasonable steps to identify the extent to which there are young carers within their area who have needs for support” and “assessing whether a young carer has needs for support, and if so what those needs are”.

Legal Implications: Kent County Council has a statutory responsibility  as defined within the Care Act 2014 and the Children and Families Act 2014 to “take reasonable steps to identify the extent to which there are young carers within their area who have needs for support” and “assessing whether a young carer has needs for support, and if so what those needs are”.

The contractor is continuing to deliver the Young Carers Service as per the contract and is being paid by Kent County Council accordingly. However the Young Carers Service contract remains unsealed and in order to protect both the contractor and the Council action is required to enable the legal sealing of the contract.

Equalities Implications: An Equalities Impact Assessment has been undertaken and it has determined that awarding the Young Carers Service contract would have a low impact on service users with protected characteristics.