Agenda item

Housing Related Support Services

(To receive a report from the Executive Director – Adult Care and Community Wellbeing, which invites the Executive to approve the commissioning of a housing related Support service, and the undertaking of procurement to establish a contract, to be awarded to a single provider of a countywide service effective from 1 July 2020)

Decision:

(1)  That approval be given to the commissioning of a housing related Support service, and the undertaking of procurement to establish a contract, to be awarded to a single provider of a countywide service effective from 1 July 2020.

 

(2)  That approval be given to the commissioning of services to provide two domestic abuse refuges, and the undertaking of procurement to establish a contract(s), to be awarded to a single provider of service at each refuge site, effective from 1 July 2020.

 

(3)  That approval be given to the commissioning of a mental health crisis houses service funded by Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Groupsto be awarded to a single provider of the service, effective from 1 July 2020.

 

(4)  That the Executive Director - Adult Care and Community Wellbeing be delegated authority, in consultation with the Executive Councillor for Adult Care, Health and Children's Services, to determine the final form of the service; the procurement and the contract; the award of the contract; and entering into the contract, and any other legal documentation necessary to give effect to the above decisions.

Minutes:

NOTE: As the reports for Minute Items 31 – Housing Related Support Services and 32 – Commissioning of Supported Accommodation: Children's Services as they were interlinked, it was agreed that the discussion for both items would be combined, with the decisions being taken separately.

 

Housing Related Support Services for Adults

 

The Director of Public Health; the Chief Commissioning Officer; and the Commercial and Procurement Manager - People Services presented information relating to the Housing Related Support Services for adults.  The contracts comprised of:

 

·       Emergency accommodation based support.

·       Non-emergency accommodation based support.

·       Floating support (not linked to designated accommodation).

·       Rough sleeper outreach.

 

The services worked together to form a structured model of support for people who were currently homeless or at risk of losing their home. 

 

The Council had also commissioned the following services, linked to housing, which were packaged together with housing related support services when they were last commissioned in 2015:

 

·       Two domestic abuse refuges.

·       Mental health crisis houses.

 

With the exception of the floating support and rough sleeper outreach elements, which were due to conclude on 31 March 2021, the above contracts were due to end on 30 June 2020, and as a consequence decisions would need to be made about the future commissioning of the services. 

 

The report presented the case for re-commissioning a reconfigured housing related support service for adults in Lincolnshire.

 

The proposed service access pathway had been redesigned to ensure that district councils' housing and homelessness reduction duties, as specified in the report, were considered first, with Lincolnshire County Council-commissioned housing related support being used only by those who met the revised eligibility. The revised eligibility was detailed on page 115 of the agenda pack and the referral process was illustrated in Appendix A to the report. It was confirmed that the County Council had been working closely with the district council in developing the proposals.

 

Commissioning of Supported Accommodation: Children's Services

 

The Children's Services Commissioning Manager presented information on the re-commissioning of the Children's Services Youth Housing Service and the overall Supported Accommodation offer for young people. 

 

The new proposed model, as set out in Appendix A to the report, would operate in a similar way to current arrangements, using a single gateway as the referral mechanism with support continuing to be commissioned across three main hubs – Boston, Grantham/Sleaford, and Lincoln/Gainsborough. There would be no change to the age of the eligible cohort.

 

The Executive was asked to approve the proposal to procure the new service model through an open competitive tender with an indicative budget of £1.613m.  It was also recommended that a contract be awarded for five years (3+ a maximum of 2 years extension), commencing on 1 July 2020.

 

The Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board advised that the Adults and Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee had agreed to support the four recommendations in the Executive report, which would deliver a reconfigured housing related support service for adults in Lincolnshire.  The comments of the Committee were detailed on page 126 of the agenda pack.

 

It was also advised that the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee had agreed to support the recommendations to the Executive on the commissioning of support accommodation: Children's Services.  The comments of the Committee were detailed on page 155 of the agenda pack.

 

During discussion of both reports, the following points were noted: -

 

·       The 72 units of support accommodation to be commissioned with Youth Housing along with the 10 units of in-house provision would meet the demand for accommodation by homeless 16/17 year olds, Looked After Children and Care Leavers up to 21 years old, and could be provided within the proposed budget.

·       A fundamental element of the new model for adult services was that people would be directed through to district councils as their first port of call.  District councils accept any referrals made via the referral platform, ALERT. 

·       Funding had been secured to introduce a dual-diagnosis service for mental health and substance misuse services for adults.

·       The new eligibility criteria restricted the numbers of people who would be eligible for housing related support services in future by approximately 37%, aiming to focus resources on those that are most vulnerable.  There were two main groups that would no longer be eligible: people with a low level of need who have accommodation but were at risk of homelessness; and people who have no 'local area connection' to a district in Lincolnshire.  It was requested that the technical definition of the 'local area connection' be emailed to the Executive for information.

·       It was confirmed that there was a protocol in place with the district councils relating to Looked After Children to ensure they were not disadvantaged. 

 

As stated above, the Executive recorded its votes on the two sets of proposals separately.  The vote on the Housing Related Support Services for Adults was taken first, on which it was:

 

 RESOLVED

 

(1)  That approval be given to the commissioning of a housing related Support service, and the undertaking of procurement to establish a contract, to be awarded to a single provider of a countywide service effective from 1 July 2020.

 

(2)  That approval be given to the commissioning of services to provide two domestic abuse refuges, and the undertaking of procurement to establish a contract(s), to be awarded to a single provider of service at each refuge site, effective from 1 July 2020.

 

(3)  That approval be given to the commissioning of a mental health crisis houses service funded by Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Groupsto be awarded to a single provider of the service, effective from 1 July 2020.

 

(4)  That the Executive Director - Adult Care and Community Wellbeing be delegated authority, in consultation with the Executive Councillor for Adult Care, Health and Children's Services, to determine the final form of the service; the procurement and the contract; the award of the contract; and entering into the contract, and any other legal documentation necessary to give effect to the above decisions.

Supporting documents:

 

 
 
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