The purpose of this report is to seek approval for the council to directly provide a new assessment and support service for young carers.

The joint carers strategy 2017 – 2021 and associated commissioning intentions were approved by Cabinet in July 2017. That decision noted that a panel or focus group of carers, including young carers, would contribute to the final design of new services to be commissioned and participate in the procurement process. That work has concluded that a service for young carers should be commissioned separately from wider carers provision. There are numerous challenges currently to commissioning such a service for young carers to be delivered by an independent provider and it is therefore proposed that the council instead deliver it directly through its children’s wellbeing directorate. This report seeks to approve the proposed new in-house service for young carers.

That:

(a)    the development and delivery of an in-house service to support young carers is approved; and

(b)    authority is delegated to the director for adults and wellbeing, in consultation with the director for children’s wellbeing, to approve the final service delivery model and its implementation from 1 April 2018, with a maximum service value of £65k per annum.

1.          The option to include young carers services in a wider recommissioned service for carers generally. This option is not recommended as support for young carers requires a different model of delivery than other carer services. This includes assessing young carers within the context of their family and wider circumstances and building support plans which use the widest networks. External providers would not generally be in a position to discharge fully the council’s statutory duties in this area.

2.          The option to commission a separate young carers service via a competitive procurement process. This option is not recommended. Few providers are well placed to carry out assessment and support planning in pursuit of statutory duties and initial engagement with the market suggests that the potential contract value would be too small to attract bidders. There would be no competition on price as the contract value is fixed and would have to be published as part of the open tender process to avoid bidders quoting above the value. Additionally, developing a new service within the council delivers better value for money than securing an external service of this small scale, as the fixed costs of procurement would be disproportionate compared to the total contract value. A further consideration is that other related services for young carers are currently being provided by an independent provider not funded by the council and it is not clear how long these will continue. This is an unduly complex environment in which to commission an independent provider to operate.

3.          The option not to have any service to support young carers. This option is not recommended. The council’s duties regarding young carers derive from the Children Act 1989, the Children Act 2004, the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Young Carers (Needs Assessment) Regulations 2015. In summary, the council is obliged to do what it can to identify young carers and must assess their needs using a whole family approach, taking into account a range of different factors. Supporting and enabling carers to balance their caring role with their own aspirations is aligned to the council’s wider strategic approach to prevention, promoting health and wellbeing and enabling those with health or social care needs to stay within their community for as long as possible. It is not sufficient for the council to rely on external bodies picking up some of these statutory functions, based on their own funding and prioritisation.