Issue details

Proposed Decision:

Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services to:

APPROVE the proposal to not re-commission the services that are currently provided at Seashells and Millmead Family Hubs when the current contracts reach the end of their term on 31 March 2025. 

Reason for the Decision:

The financial challenges facing all local authorities is critical. KCC needs to deliver £108.8m (2024-25 published Medium Term Financial Plan) of transformation and efficiency savings over the next two years. Our work to meet these challenges has already meant changes to services across the county.

In October 2023 the KCC Cabinet adopted ‘Securing Kent’s Future’ which set out the scale of the financial challenge and the approach to tackling it. The financial situation means that we have needed to adopt a Recovery Plan which sets out how we plan to meet the challenge. A key part of the Recovery Plan is to make ‘further savings and generate income through the Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP)’.The MTFP sets out precisely what savings are needed to balance the budget and where those savings could be made.    

Background

In November 2023 KCC Cabinet took a decision to implement the Family Hub model across the County. At the time, that included transformation and efficiency plans for 56 Family Hub locations across Kent not including the two Independently managed centres, Millmead and Seashells (in line with the Kent Communities Programme decision, also from November 2023).

The service contracts for the two Centres were tendered and awarded in 2020 for a period of 12 months. The services were subject to Directly Awarded contracts from April 2021 to March 2022 under Covid-19 guidance. A Key Decision (21/00086) was taken on 10 November 2021 to directly award contracts to the existing providers for a further year until 31 March 2023. A further Key Decision (22/00108) facilitated an additional 12 month extension, meaning the contracts ended on 31 March 2023.   

To minimise duplication of provision and to ensure that future specifications complimented the Kent Family Hub model being developed, the procurement of new commissioned services was delayed. In 2024, a further Direct Award was made to the two centres as Family Hubs. The terms and conditions of this contract were continued from the previous contract and require a six month notice period.  Therefore the current contracts end 31 March 2025. Indicative notice of the end of the contracts was given to each provider, subject to the outcome of the consultation and any resultant Key Decision in July 2024.

Further extension of these contracts is not possible, other than to cover any period of procurement for new contracts, subject to the decision.

It is therefore proposed that KCC will not re-procure these two contracts when they come to their end on 31 March 2025.  The Family Hub service will be delivered from within existing Family Hubs in Margate as an alternative to the Millmead Centre. In relation to the Seashells Centre a Family Hub service will be offered from the Sheerness Gateway. Some minor investment may be required at the Gateway to enhance safeguarding provisions given the increased number of children and babies that may be in attendance.

Options (other options considered by discarded)

These are the options explored by the service for alternatives:

1. Reprocure the contracts, be that from these or other providers, therefore not achieving the saving set out in the MTFP – this would require a short-term extension of the existing contracts to run the procurement for the new contracts. This means that the saving identified within the MTFP would then not be made.

2. Do not reprocure the contracts, instead rent space in the centres to deliver a KCC Family Hub service – this would mean the continued use of the Millmead and Seashells centre by the local authority but with a reduced cost to KCC covering the rent for the building, rather than the cost of commissioning the full-service delivery. Further it would impact on the savings requirement in the MTFP

Financial Implications:

In accordance with the Cabinet decision to support the recommendations in the paper Securing Kent’s Future on 5 October 2023, the approach set out makes sure that, in line with the Recovery ‘further savings and income for the Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP)’ are realised.

The decision to not reprocure the two contracts will save £426k annually.

Minor capital investment will be required at the Gateway site to facilitate safeguarding and the appropriate use of the space for the Family Hub activities. It is planned that this is funded from the Capital grant award from the DfE to facilitate the Family Hub transformation.