Issue - meetings

[Report of the Assistant Director for Commissioning. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal.]

The young people's supported housing pathway has been re-designed and recommissioned. The aim of the new pathway is to offer young people a greater range of accommodation settings and support levels, including 24-hour, visiting and floating support services.

 The Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families introduced this report which sought approval from Cabinet to award contracts for the provision of the Young People’s Supported Housing Pathway.

The Cabinet Member noted the contracts sought to award provision of 35 units of visiting support accommodation, which included a specialist service for unaccompanied asylum seeking children who had become old enough to qualify for those services. There would also be a 10 unit Housing First for care leavers, which would be the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. Those services would be in addition to services that had already been commissioned to support LGBTQ+ young people with stonewall housing and also services that the Council would be looking to commission separately to provide support for young women and young parents towards the end of 2019.

The contracts would be for provision of a range of support across issues, such as health and wellbeing, crime and safety, employment and skills, and building financial resilience. It was highlighted to Cabinet that those proposals and the specifications for the contracts were developed in consultation with young people who were also involved in interviewing the providers as part of the procurement process.

The Cabinet Member closed by claiming the contracts were an important element in delivering on the Administration’s manifesto commitment to tackle homelessness in the borough.

Following questions from Cllr Barnes, the following was noted:

• There were no bids for Lot 1 (Assessment Centre) and Officers believed the reason for that was around identifying a suitable property. The incumbent provider was North London YMCA. They had not bid because they were in the process of exploring their options for the provision of future services. They would continue to operate the Assessment Centre despite not having made a bid for Lot 1. The Council was negotiating how the services might look beyond 1^st March 2019 and the North London YMCA had been exploring extension to the existing contract and what other services could be offered there to meet young people’s needs. Officers assured more services were to be offered to young people than what was currently being offered at this 24/7 site.
• Lot’s 2 and 3 would mostly be provided from street properties which Officers claimed would be more attractive to a number of the organisations the Council was working with because they were easier to acquire.
• No decision had been made with regards to retendering Lot 1. However, Officers would monitor how the Pathway worked with the new services and, if the Council identified the need for the assessment function to continue, it might explore having the assessments take place at a different building to its current one.

Further to considering the exempt information at item 22,

RESOLVED

To approve the award of three contracts for the Young People’s Supported Housing Pathway, to the organisations outlined in the exempt report, for a duration of three (3) years with option to extend for a further three (3) years, with a commencement  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59