Pan London Residential Family Assessment Centre Framework

The process for the award of this contract is an adapted Open Procedure pursuant to Regulations 74-76 of the Public Contract Regulations 2015 ("Light Touch Regime"). The duration of the contract is one (1) year plus three (3) possibilities of annual extension. Four (4) years in total if all extension used.

The contract is for the provision of services provided by OFSTED Registered Residential Family Assessment Centres. Residential Family Assessment Centres provide:

• I.Accommodation to parent(s) and their child(ren)
• II.An assessment of a parent's capacity to respond to the needs of their child(ren), keep them safe and promote their wellbeing.
• III.Parent(s) with advice, guidance and counselling, as necessary

Context

The Pan London Placement Commissioning Panel was established in 2020 to explore collaborative opportunities between London local authorities when commissioning services for children. Various workstreams were initiated to develop collaborative commissioning arrangements.

The Residential Family Assessment Centre workstream identified that London local authorities spend an estimated £8million per annum on residential parental assessments. Due to the relatively small and unpredictable nature of demand at the individual local authority level the decision was taken to explore a pan-London approach.

The aspiration is to develop a single procurement that all London local authorities utilise when procuring Residential Family Assessment Centres. This would deliver several benefits to local authorities and suppliers, including:

• I.A common set of contractual terms and conditions to enable both parties to have clarity on what the service provides contractually thus avoiding disputes.
• II.The ability to block book services for exclusive use of London local authorities.
• III.The ability to clearly identify regional sufficiency requirements such as location of services and areas of specialism which in turn will enable commissioning of new services where required.

Based on our analysis of previous spend data we anticipate between £7.5m - £8.5m of annual spend through this framework. Please register on https://ealinglbc-atamis.my.site.com/login to view the opportunity