DN551292 Independent Support Planning and Advice

Tender description

The Council is working with Mersey Care and Liverpool CCG to de-commission a supported living service (SLS). All of the adults in the SLS will move onto personal budgets following their Care Act Assessments. Some of the adults may choose to take their PB or part of it via a direct payment. The aim of this work is for the adults to have as much choice and control over their care and support needs as possible. For those adults who choose a direct payment Adult Services will offer them the opportunity to co-produce their care and support plans with an independent, external and well established user led disability support organisation. Although some adults may choose to use the Council's in-house teams, offering the adults a choice of where and how they carry out their support planning will add an extra layer of personalization to the process. This is a small scale but extremely important piece of work and the contract value is very low. We have explored the Council's frameworks to identify whether there is an organisation which could provide this service and there is not one. In this context we have approached Disability Positive - the Council has worked successfully with Disability Positive in the past and their work is high quality. Disability Positive have agreed to carry out the support planning for any adults who choose it, they are aware that none of the adults may choose to use the organisation, so no money will be paid to them. Disability Positive have agreed an hourly rate of £33.70 and the costs have been calculated as if all of the adults use the service and have 20h input each. The care and support for all of the adults will be complex and if additional time /funding is needed to ensure that the needs and requirements of each individual are met then a further request will be submitted. There is a low risk of challenge with putting this contract in place, for such a small contract there is unlikely to be challenge from another organisation which would have liked and would have been capable of offering this service to the standard needed.