The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC) isalso developing a monitoring framework during the next three months andwill set up an implementation and monitoring group, which will includerepresentatives of care homes and commissioners. The group will monitorthe implementation of the first year of the England-only contract, whichwill be used by local authorities when commissioning placements in theprivate and voluntary sectors. It will carry out a review of thecontract in September 2008.
The redraft comes after the NCERCC working group, which drafted thecontract, met earlier this month to discuss feedback on itsconsultation, which took place between February and April.
The consultation raised concerns about what would happen when contractswith individual homes needed to be terminated, as well as price andinsurance clauses, but there was positive feedback on the consistency ofthe contract, its role in promoting good quality and outcomes, thepotential for fewer fee disputes and for a reduction inadministration.
Jonathan Stanley, acting director of the NCERCC, said: "The ease of usewas foremost in the mind of the working group. The work of thedevelopment group should be completed in June and there should be anopportunity for further consultation with commissioners andproviders."
Sika Smith, a member of the working group and commissioning andplacement service manager at Northamptonshire County Council, said: "Thechallenge is how detailed we make the contract and how to reduce it insize and complexity without losing the balance of it."
Work has also been under way to relaunch the three-year-old NationalContract for Placement in Non-Maintained and Independent Day andResidential Schools.
- www.ncb.org.uk.
