Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care and Disabilities presented a report on the proposed procurement of a new contract to provide home to school travel assistance for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), post-16 travel assistance and travel support for young people in the Council’s care.

The Cabinet Member explained that there had been a significant increase in demand and complexity of requests for those services over the past year in particular.  As a consequence, it was necessary to expand the number of service providers needed to support the Council’s in-house Passenger Transport Service provision and, with that in mind, the new procurement would be let in separate lots covering:

·  Taxi services for home to school transport for SEND children, young people and post-16 students;

·  Additional transport requests for the support of Children’s Social Care;

·  Moving home services; and

·  Secure transport.

As part of the preparations for the new contracts, the Cabinet Member advised that the Council’s statutory policies in respect of home to school SEND assistance and post-16 travel assistance had been reviewed.  Whilst the former remained unchanged, the latter had been updated to include a 12-week training programme for clients aimed at helping them travel unaided and gain more independence.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Approve the procurement of a four-year framework contract for the provision of SEND and Children's Social Care Transport services to ensure that the Council met its statutory responsibilities under the Education Act 1996 and Care Act 2014, in accordance with the strategy set out in the report; and

(ii)  Authorise the Strategic Director, Children and Adults, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care and Disabilities, the Strategic Director, Resources and the Head of Legal, to conduct the procurement and award and enter into the contract(s) and all other necessary or ancillary agreements to fully implement and effect the proposals.