Agenda item - Children & Young People Respite Recommissioning

Report of the Executive Director, Families, Children and Learning (copy attached)

RESOLVED –

That the Children, Young People and Skills Committee grants delegated authority to the Executive Director of Families, Children and Learning to jointly reprocure the Children and Young People’s Respite Services Contracts with NHS Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group, and award the contracts for an initial term of three years with the option to extend for a further period of up to two years, subject to satisfactory performance.

72.1    The Committee considered a report by the Executive Director (Families Children, & Learning) in order to agree the recommissioning and procurement of existing children and young people’s respite services. The children and young people’s respite services help to support children and young people with health, special educational needs and disabilities within their own homes and communities.  The report was presented by the Commissioning & Performance Manager.

72.2    Councillor O’Quinn thanked the Executive Director (Families, Children & Learning) for the report and noted that respite care was desperately needed.  She conceded this was an area where there was more demand than the council could meet because of the costs involved.

72.3    Councillor O’Quinn proposed an amendment to the report in the form of an additional recommendation. The recommendation was that the Committee receive a report after 12 months’ operation of the service in order to assess its effectiveness. 

72.4    Councillors Grimshaw and Meadows supported Councillor O’Quinn’s proposed amendment.

72.5    The Chair reminded Members that the deadline for amendments had passed but that Councillor O’Quinn’s recommendation would be noted in the Minutes. 

72.6    Councillor Brown recognised that families were under extreme pressure and a short break could help them to cope.  She said it was also good for the children to meet and socialise with other young people and families in their community and she hoped this service would help to ensure that more young people were able to stay with their families rather than ending up in care.  She agreed with Councillor O’Quinn that careful monitoring of the service was required and asked how this would be achieved.

72.7    The Commissioning & Performance Manager said they would hold monthly contract monitoring meetings and contractors would be operating against Key Performance Indicators. 

72.8    Councillor Lloyd noted the great work already done by service partners and he recognised what a brilliant and important service it was. 

72.9    Ms Boyd provided feedback from the Parent and Carers (PAC) Focus Group.  In summary, PAC continued to flag that there were insufficient budgets for the level of need in terms of respite for families.  They believed there was a need for a broad strategic overview of how to deliver sufficient and equitable social care for families with children and young people with SEND and this needed to be linked to the relevant strategies such as the SEND, Early Help and Disadvantaged strategies. 

72.10  Councillor Brown asked that a date be agreed for a monitoring report to come back to Committee. 

72.11  The Chair responded that she would like officers to have a chance to review their workload before a date be agreed.

72.12  RESOLVED: That the Children, Young People and Skills Committee grants delegated authority to the Executive Director of Families, Children and Learning to jointly reprocure the Children and Young People’s Respite Services Contracts with NHS Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group, and award the contracts for an initial term of three years with the option to extend for a further period of up to two years, subject to satisfactory performance.