Issue - meetings

Background:

This report sought permission to commence the procurement process for the of advocacy co-ordination to meet the needs of mothers whose children are on the edge or in care, so they can protect and care for themselves and their children.

The report detailed the types of support that the contract would provide to such families and gave details on the number of mothers and children that would fall within the service user cohort.  It would create a wider strategy to reduce the numbers of children coming into care which would help to control spends and support the Council to meet its statutory obligations and ambitions.

The exempt appendix to the report contained financial analysis in relation to the proposals.

This Gateway 1 report had been approved for submission to Cabinet after review and discussion at Procurement Board.

Reasons:

This proposal is to make a more sustainable integrated model which will need some additional investment spread across multiple agencies, and a coordinator post to oversee the programme, but will provide some long-term sustainability of the approach and allow for outcomes to be monitored.

The funding would be staggered, with costs reducing year-on-year, and with a commitment to include the requirement in future contract re-procurements to absorb some of the costs and to formalise responsibilities (when contracts are due to be renewed). This approach means that specialists in the key vulnerabilities can work with the family (mental health, drug and alcohol, etc) and would operate in a similar way to the maternity continuity of care model that an individual will be introduced at the start to the small team that will be working with them and cases will be discussed in triage meetings.

The staggered approach would also give the system (Council/NHS/Police/VCS etc) a chance to embed this area of work as a priority gain with shared buy in and funding built into strategies to change working practices.

The benefits of the project will allow for initial piloting and the learning to inform the pathway, early identification of risks to better manage the growing demand for services and prevent more children coming into care.  There will be mitigations to be put in place to address future funding and sources not open to the Council.

Building partnerships between the statutory and independent sector through a partnership agreement, governance, information sharing, risks sharing etc to use synergies to meet needs