Councillor Sue Markham, Portfolio Holder for
Children and Families, provided an update to the committee in
relation to recent commissioning activities at the
council. The following points were
highlighted –
- Following Cabinet approval in July
for the council to join the West Midlands regional frameworks for
residential and foster care services, the fostering framework was
successfully mobilised on 27th August 2024, providing the region
with access to 3,282 homes for children. Based on current data,
this supply of foster care homes should meet the regions
sufficiency needs.
- The council received approval to
retender a short term and bail and remand foster care block
provision, which is a flagship service for the council. The service delivery and initial financial
modelling for this have been drafted and will be shared at a future
meeting.
- The capacity for children in care
who live in Supported Accommodation has continued to increase and
is currently around 92%. The impact of this means there are fewer
children experiencing disruption in other areas of their lives and
can maintain important networks and access to universal services.
To continue to build on this success, an options paper is being
developed, following which recommendations will be progressed and
presented at future meetings.
- A tender for our Care, Education and
Treatment Review (CeTR) Expert by
Experience Service is live – this service ensures that the
local system is able to meet the requirement for an expert by
experience (who is an autistic person or a person with a learning
disability or a family carer with lived experience of services) to
be present as a panel member at any CeTR for a child, young person or adult who has
been admitted to a mental health hospital or is at risk of
admission.
- The contract for the Family Wrap
Around Serviced (Phase 1) has been awarded and the contract will go
live in November 2024. The Service is being commissioned as a
proof-of-concept for preventative and responsive solutions for
families in distress and at risk of crisis, with children facing
barriers to Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)
wellbeing.
- The current Short Breaks and
Respites contracts will be re-tendered from October
2024. The model has been redesigned to
include a framework, enhanced offer, core offer and overnight
respite and new contracts will be in place from April 2025.
- Phase 2 of Wrap Around (Care at
Home/Urgent Outreach) will be tendered alongside Short Breaks and
Respite as a 2-year proof of concept.
- The development of the action plan
to determine the options available and make recommendations for the
re-commissioning and future delivery of Children and Young
People’s emotional wellbeing and mental health services
(Rise) in Warwickshire.is underway.
- New governance arrangements and
priorities are currently being developed for children and family
centres in partnership with providers and wider stakeholders.
- Earlier in the year, following
significant consultation and re-design work, WCC went out to tender
for a new Accommodation Related Support Service. This new service
will include Floating and Accommodation based provision for
16–25-year-olds. The tender was successful and new providers
have been awarded contracts. Work is now underway to mobilise the
new service, ready for when the new contracts start in 2025.
The committee noted that there is a lot of
commissioning work underway and were grateful for the
update. It was agreed that the full
list of commissioning activities would be circulated to the
committee.
Councillor Kam Kaur, Portfolio Holder for
Education confirmed that following the recent Government
announcement in relation to the removal of one word inspection
reports for OFSTED that the council is working with
schools. There is some confusion as to
how it will work moving forward and some schools are
nervous. It was confirmed that the
education partnership board has held discussions with school heads
and that the support will continue when the new guidance is
released.
In relation to the take up of early years
placements, it was confirmed that additional hours were available
from the start of this school term and the numbers for Warwickshire
are above the national target. Big
thanks to all the officers who have helped ensure the places are
taken up.