West Midlands residential children’s home tender is now live

Birmingham Children’s Trust along with 13 other West Midlands local authorities and children’s trusts are seeking tender submissions for a new Flexible Contract Arrangement (FCA) to provide specialist placements in residential children’s homes.

With the current contractual arrangements due to expire in December 2018, the Birmingham Children’s Trust was asked to lead on developing new arrangements, to help address the lack of residential places in the West Midlands for children with specific needs.

Narinder Saggu, Head of Service for Children’s Commissioning at Birmingham Children’s Trust said:

“We all have a duty to provide the right type of placements and the right type of services to children in care. As a region we have continued having difficulties getting all vulnerable young people placed locally, so to coincide with the establishment of a new arrangement we wanted to both simplify the process and ensure we are all getting the best possible value for money” 

“Working together with all our neighbouring authorities and Trusts we have managed to achieve this arrangement in six months, completing a complex exercise that would normally take a year and a half to finish.

Added Cathryn Greenaway, Commissioning Manager at Birmingham Children’s Trust, who was instrumental in getting to this stage:

“We are now seeking all providers of placements in residential children’s homes to come forward and complete a questionnaire on our dedicated procurement website (In-Tend) before September 28 so we can get a complete picture of the specialist children’s residential provision available across the West Midlands. “We are doing this to attempt to minimise disruption in young people’s lives by matching them to the most suitable local placements so they maintain their local networks such as school, friends and health support.”

The new FCA is seeking providers of the following types of residential placements: 

• Category 1 – Provision of placements in residential children’s homes for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD)
• Category 2 – Provision of placements in residential children’s homes for children with autistic spectrum condition (ASC) and challenging behaviour
• Category 3 – Provision of placements in residential children’s homes for children with complex health needs
• Category 4 – Provision of placements in residential children’s homes for children who require specialist mental health services

If you are interested in tendering please visit the In-Tend website and submit your details.  Companies that register will be sent login details to download the questionnaire.

If you are unable to register with In-Tend please either email cps@birmingham.gov.uk or call 0121 464 8000.

The new FCA will go live in December 2018 across the West Midlands.