The commissioning of supported accommodation for young people - Find a freedom of information request

Cornwall Council is currently in the process of recommissioning the Supported Accommodation offer for young people, young parents and young families aged 16+.

We are particularly interested in how you commission supported accommodation for the following groups of young people; Homeless 16 and 17 year olds Care Leavers up to the age of 25 Separated Children Seeking Asylum Any other support / move on accommodation for homeless young people up to the age of 25 Please can you support us with some benchmarking in our new service design by responding to the following questions?:

1. How do you currently commission 16+ Supported Accommodation? What is it you commission and how is it accessed? I.e. Supported Housing options with support workers and 24/7 staffing/ security (e.g. Foyers) Supported Lodgings Self-contained solo accommodation Spot purchase placement options for young people age 16/17 Spot purchase placement options for young people age 18+Dedicated emergency beds Floating Support 2. Do you have any dedicated accommodation and housing support for Care Leavers up to 25 years -If yes , please provide details

a) Please let us know how you commission accommodation and housing support for Separated Children seeking Asylum

b)Do you commission different levels/ tiers of support depending on the young person's level of need/ circumstances ? if yes, please provide details

3. How are you ensuring that providers are able to meet the requirements of new Ofsted 'The Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023' Does this take account of unaccompanied asylum seeking children? If so, please can you give some detail about what is delivered?

4. What barriers do you face in commissioning this service/s?

5. What is working well in these services?

6. How much is your hourly rate for the support worker in this provision?

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council. I have detailed below the information that is being released to you.

1. Lincolnshire commission our 72-bed youth housing contract which supports 16-17 year olds who are homeless, at risk of homelessness and children in care; this is a 5-year contract until December 2025 and is Ofsted registered;

care leavers can remain accommodated until they are 21 Supported Lodgings commissioned through our commissioned Leaving Care Service, which runs to March 2025 – this is for 18+ year old care leavers though can support 16-17 year olds assessment/transition placements as they are Ofsted registered. (IN)SA placements for16-17 year olds are commissoned as needed through our Open Select List procurement mechanism – this is a 7-strand list which opens annually to admit new suppliers; those that return a compliant SSQ submission and sufficient financial information are admitted to the OSL and are then able to receive referrals for consideration in advance of the rest of the market; responses are evaluated/scored for price and location before the service area scores on meeting needs;

UASC supported accommodation is commissioned through the UASC Closed Ordered List – this is a 5-year contract with fixed pricing for support and accommodation; compliant suppliers are ranked based on their tender submission and are approached in order of the list when a UASC young person needs accommodating; if all COL suppliers are full, we would explore youth housing or in-house capacity, and then consider a search via the OSL; provision in the contracts for 18+ former-UASC care leavers without an asylum decision to remain in their accommodation (reduced costs – accommodation only as support delivered by Leaving Care); all suppliers are Ofsted registered In-house supported accommodation for 16-17 year olds – referral form completed and reviewed by homes manager; Ofsted registered

a) What is it you commission and how is it accessed?

i.e. Supported Housing options with support workers and 24/7 staffing/ security (e.g. Foyers) – this is our commissioned youth housing service known as NEST, which operates 5 foyer-style hubs in 3 locations, as well as some smaller units e.g. parent and child, shared houses and 4 x solo intense support units for young people who are not yet ready to live in a hub environment Supported Lodgings – managed through the commissioned Leaving Care Service Self-contained solo accommodation – some availability within commissioned youth housing and our specialist UASC supported accommodation providers (dependent on need and availability) Spot purchase placement options for young people age 16/17 – commissioned through our OSL or via our UASC Closed Ordered List.

Spot purchase placement options for young people age 18+ – not usually commissioned other than by extension of an U18 placement; care leavers can access supported lodgings post-18; some young people with assessed needs remain in their placement post18 with costs picked up by Adult social care; Lincolnshire also has a Shared Lives service contract managed by Adults which takes 18+ year olds

Dedicated emergency beds – Lincolnshire have commissioned a UASC age assessment unit via our OSL which allows us to offer short-term accommodation to NTS transfers or young people undergoing an age assessment, before they move to their long-term placement; we also have an in-house emergency accommodation unit which, if needed, is staffed by social workers from the duty rota

Floating Support – We do not commission floating support Almost all options above (except for emergency beds and UASC COL placements) are managed through a referral form which is generated on our social care casefile system, and then sent to our LCCPlacements team who send it on to the relevant suppliers, before managing the responses and liaison with the service area to agree the placement, set up the contract/POs etc

2. Youth Housing supports care leavers to the age of 21, and the UASC Closed Ordered List arrangements support former-UASC care leavers to the age of 21 when their asylum claim remains undecided. Former-UASC care leaver may, subject to individual supplier capacity, also remain in their accommodation for up to 6-months post-decision which is then funded from their benefits/employment. The Lincolnshire Leaving Care Service support all care leavers to the age of 25 who need help with accessing or sustaining suitable accommodation, with specialist accommodation worker further strengthened by our Staying Close project to support care leavers with preferred accommodation options and the DfE-funded care leaver homelessness prevention project. Leaving Care Service also supports s a number of supported lodgings households, which support care leavers to the age of 21 or later if required. Lincolnshire has 8-beds of in-house supported accommodation for care leavers.

a) UASC Closed Ordered List (see Q1)

b) Youth Housing contract has an annual number of contracted support hours which can be used flexibly according to the needs of young people accommodated, and also 4 solo units offering intense/focused support for young people who may not be ready to live in a multioccupancy environment. Other commissioned supported accommodation is based on the individual support needs of the young person, guided by their social worker or Leaving Care Worker.

3. All supported accommodation including in-house provision, youth housing, supported lodgings, independent (IN)SA placements, and specialist UASC accommodation is Ofsted registered as supported accommodation.

Contract assurance takes into account the new regulations as does contract oversight/checks.

LA has ongoing offer of support to suppliers and will continue to do so once inspection gets underway in April 2024. All supported accommodation is able to support UASC and have done so/are doing so. UASC are referenced in all relevant service specifications, though the one for the UASC Closed Ordered List is more explicit about their needs.

UASC-specific training is shared with relevant accommodation suppliers. Support is provided to accommodation suppliers by Commissioning (one of the Officers focuses on UASC supported accommodation), the UASC social work team and the Leaving Care UASC team.

4. Capacity in the supported accommodation market, complexity of young people’s needs leading to enhanced packages of support, geographical availability, barriers to access due to no Local Connection when seeking placements out of county

5. Skilled providers who want to support our young people; range of provision that can support the majority of young people

6. Support worker costs vary per service so is difficult to provide an hourly rate