Commissioning: Meeting the 'sufficiency' duties

With the dawn of a new financial year, local authorities and commissioning organisations are reviewing their progress and statistics, updating policies and procedures and ensuring these reflect the most current need. In Central Bedfordshire, this means getting our annual sufficiency statement signed off and beginning to scope the year's placement commissioning arrangements.

The "sufficiency duty" was introduced by the Children Act 1989 and requires local authorities to take steps that secure, so far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation within the authority's area which meets the needs of its looked-after children and those who would benefit from being accommodated. Statutory guidance issued in 2010 made it a further requirement for those authorities to include their plans for meeting the sufficiency duty within relevant commissioning strategies.