A report by the Interim Director of Children’s Services outlined the recent tendering exercise for services and support to children, young people and families via the Early Intervention Grant.  Based on the outcomes of the tendering exercise, the report made recommendations for providers of these services and sought approval from the Cabinet to proceed to offering contracts totalling £2,821,828.

The Cabinet was informed that within Wirral there was now a more robust data to inform and support decision making than had previously been available.  Returns from the Common Assessment Framework, Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, ASSET the Youth Offending Service Evaluation tool kit and returns from internal monitoring were providing detailed information which was informing priority setting.  Following consideration of the intelligence available, commissioning priorities were as follows:

• Early intervention and support for families in difficult circumstances (parenting and compromised parenting).  (Priority area 1)
• Children and Young People with Disabilities.  (Priority area 2)
• Improving behaviour in Children, Young People and Families.  (Priority area 3)

These priorities were agreed by Wirral Childrens Trust and supported the goals in the Your Family: Children and Young People section of the Council’s Corporate Plan 2011-2014.  A range of evidence based service areas had been identified for each of the three priority areas above – these were set out in Appendix 1 to the report for Members’ information.

Councillor Ann McLachlan informed that she was satisfied that there was a robust process in place in respect of commissioning and requested the Interim Director to work with the unsuccessful organisations.

RESOLVED:

That the providers identified for the range of services included in the Early Intervention Grant resulting from an open tendering exercise, as detailed in the following tables be approved:

Table 1: Proposed Providers for Priority Area 1 Parenting/reducing compromised Parenting