Social work and related services

Tender description

Lancashire County Council is sourcing managed service providers as part of its Children's Social Care Referral and Assessment Service Framework to undertake its statutory responsibilities as defined by the Children Act 1989. Lancashire County Council is sourcing providers as part of its Children's Social Care Referral and Assessment Service Framework to undertake its statutory responsibilities as defined by the Children Act 1989. Service Providers will act in accordance with Lancashire Safeguarding Children Board's multi agency procedures, the Lancashire Child Sexual Exploitation Operating Protocol. Through the Children's Social Care Referral and Assessment Service Framework, qualified social workers will undertake statutory responsibilities on behalf of the Council as part of a managed service offering. The Framework Agreement will commence on 1.3.2016 for 5 months and continue for a total period not exceeding 4 years. In order for LCC to effectively manage and monitor its resources and maintain effective relationships with Service Providers, the Framework Agreement shall be restricted to a maximum of 3 Service Providers. No level of business is guaranteed to service providers through the framework agreement. Presently it is envisaged that an initial call-off will be made of up to 900 open cases per month. The framework agreement has been developed to be flexible in terms of volume of services, the period over which they would be called-off and consequently the value of business put through the framework. Provisionally, the initial call-off would be in place for 5 months, although this may be brought to an end sooner or extended depending on requirements. Due to the unpredictable nature of demand for this Service LCC reserves the right to increase or decrease the financial budget and therefore the spend through the term of this Framework Agreement will range up to 3 600 000 GBP, with 1 800 000 GBP being the anticipated value of the initial call-off contract services. Demand for future services covered by this ITT is currently unknown however LCC is letting this Framework Agreement with the intention that where a requirement for the Services is identified in the next 4 years there would be sufficient scope to utilise the agreement for this purpose. Each individual call-off contract may be extended beyond its initial term for any number of defined period (s), with the total maximum duration of any call-off contract not exceeding 4 years.