Social work services with accommodation

Tender description

The Council is seeking to procure safe overnight accommodation for rough sleepers. The service needs to be flexible and reactive to meet the immediate needs of anyone sleeping rough in Northumberland. We would like to seek views from the market and explore opportunities that will enable us to identify whether a procurement exercise would attract sufficient interest in the provision of a rough sleeper accommodation service and if so, what this model would look like. The Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy for Northumberland 2019-2021 sets out how the Council will work with partners to deliver services to households in Northumberland who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. It sets out the key challenges that exist in Northumberland, and the context in which the Strategy is delivered. Priority 1 of the strategy states: Priority 1 — Develop Services for Rough Sleepers. The reported number of people sleeping rough within the county is low, but is still too many. No one should have to sleep rough and we need to ensure we have sufficient provision in place to promptly manage anyone sleeping rough. To help meet this priority the Council is seeking to procure safe overnight accommodation for rough sleepers. The service needs to be flexible and reactive to meet the immediate needs of anyone sleeping rough in Northumberland. This could be in the form of sit-up services, crashpads, or shared accommodation to be provided on a night by night basis (we are happy to consider other models of delivery) and preferably in more than one location. The service users will be single homeless people who will often have multiple complex needs. We would therefore like to seek views from the market and explore opportunities that will enable us to identify whether a procurement exercise would attract sufficient interest in the provision of a rough sleeper accommodation service and if so, what this model would look like.