Councillors have asked why the council was not able to run a supported living service for people with brain injuries itself rather than contracting it out.
Brighton and Hove City Council spent £6 million knocking down Knoll House, in Ingram Crescent, Hove, and replacing it with a new specialist building, Brickfields.
The original plan was for the council to house people there itself – but instead, it has sold a 125-year lease to not-for-profit housing and care provider Southdown.
It will now pay Southdown to house people in need of its supported living services there.
The decision was made by the council’s Labour-run cabinet last month – but a special meeting was held yesterday (Tuesday 2 June) after opposition councillors called it in so they could ask more questions.
The nine Green and two independent councillors who called in the decision also asked the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee to discuss why other potential service providers lost interest in buying the lease.
Green councillor Ollie Sykes, who presented the 11 councillors’ case, said that there remained uncertainties and risks with the project, which started in 2019.
He said that the original business case in 2021 said that the council’s housing department could manage the building repairs and maintenance because the site was on a council estate next to sheltered housing.
The council would receive rent or housing benefit or universal credit, with specialist in-house services running the scheme such as the housing adaptation service.
Councillor Sykes said: “This is working very successfully at Brookmead, another council-managed extra care scheme for people with dementia.
“The present paper states the council has limited experience and capacity to manage a specialist supported living service with the level of responsiveness that’s required.”
Councillor Sykes asked why, in the early stages, there were four specialist providers interested and eventually only one, Southdown.
He asked why the council was concerned about people living in the flats having secure tenancies for life as the reason to sell the leasehold because the council could offer flexible tenancies to the 28 people moving into the flats.
Labour councillor Mitchie Alexander, the council’s cabinet member for communities, equalities, public health and adult social care, said that the decision was made after working closely with council officials before making the decision last month.
She said that the specialist housing for people with brain injuries would reduce reliance on residential care, particularly out-of-city placements, and bring people back to be close to their friends and family.
During budget discussions last December, councillors were told that there was a potential £300,000-a-year saving by moving 28 people into Brickfields from relatively expensive housing outside Brighton and Hove.
Addressing the concern about one provider, Councillor Alexander said: “The council did undertake extensive market engagement, approaching 15 registered providers in total.
“A number of providers withdraw due to several reasons, including the length of the lease, with some feeling it was too small, and alignment with their operating models.”
One committee member, Labour councillor Josh Guilmant, asked for more details about the reasons why other providers dropped out.
He was told by the council’s head of commissioning Anne Richardson-Locke that issues varied from the lease being too long, too short or not fitting with financial models.
She said that the procurement process in this situation was not advertised. Instead, the council approached organisations that already provided the same or similar services, inviting them to negotiate.
Conservative councillor Alistair McNair asked if there were other options for lengthening the leases because Patcham Court Farm had been sold for 250 years to Royal Mail.
He was told that the provider that wanted a longer lease withdrew from the process, even though the longer option was being considered.
The 125-year lease is the minimum required by Homes England which provided the finance for the rebuild.
Labour councillor Sam Parrott, who chairs the committee, asked if the council had considered going back out to the market.
The council’s corporate director for homes and adult social care Genette Laws said: “That was considered and discussed but the view was that this is a niche small market and we had gone through those reputable organisations that we felt could deliver a good service.
“So there was a view – if I can use this phrase – that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, given we felt we’d done our due diligence and the offer from Southdown was a good one.”
After two hours of discussions, with half an hour in private to discuss the confidential finances, the committee agreed that it was satisfied with the scrutiny of the decision and did not send it back to the cabinet or full council to be reconsidered.
Wow – a bit alarming that a council, who like all councils have statutory legal duties to support vulnerable adults (including those with brain injuries), don’t seem confident in their abilities to offer support to a vulnerable group of people with brain injuries. Quite incredible when taken down to its basic level – it suggests that the council has neither the experience or capacity to deal with vulnerable people it has certain responsibilities to in relation to care needs.
It’s a very specific specialism field of care, Cathy.
Who are the 80 tenants Ben, we were given no equality impact assessment apparently not needed.
The rules have changed they used a double urgency block here. Urgency powers to award, then urgent scrutiny, to keep the public out.
There has been no public involvement.
This is a dangerous precident. 125 year lease.
You know I am left, but actually I am independant. Mary Mears was right back then, she is right today. This had cross party support, this is a predictable way they went.
The public are paying 4.99% rises in council tax annually. 2% of that is ASC. They are paying to have there own assets, twice paid for essentially stolen.
We all know Southdown as a landlord has other properties, they will move people on who they want to their homes to get 20k plus Housing benefit.
Those who have self harm or other dangerous brain injuries which cause risk will be evicted and sent to BHCC.
No tenants have a right of tenduture it will likely be a daily or weekly licence agreement.
The council can absolutely facilitate this, with other statutory partners.
I will say this is better than we ABI homeless already deal with, homeless private hostels, but the public have been missold here, over a very long time.
I have been on this ten years now.
so Ben state the facts please, brains actually have a great capacity to heal, they are a wonder organ, and Southdown know this.
They are set up for local government contracts.
Labour Out!
The council has legal duties to provide care and support to many of the most vulnerable groups in our community. They can train people and run services in house, or recruit people with the necessary specialisms directly. They do not need to outsource this contract and I think if they do, it will continue to perpetuate the council’s lack of experience dealing with this vulnerable group – many of who rely on council services and have regular interaction with the council anyway – the council should be upskilling not outsourcing.
Slightly different wording Cathy, but it makes an important distinction, the council has legal duties to ensure care and support; often this is done in-house, but also can be outsourced. To run a specialism in-house potentially has a lot of legal, capacity, insurance, governance, training, and financial barriers.
To be responsible, sometimes the best option, such as this case, is to use a provider who has the skills to run that specialism, and the duty then is to quality assure. It’s certainly a reasonable argument to say that it should all be in-house and upskill the departments and create new departments, but I suspect the major barriers to that, as I mentioned earlier, means that pragmatically it’s not feasible at the moment.
All sounds very odd that the council spent this much money on a project that they are now too frightened to run, for whatever reason.
Tracy watch the whole debate. They originally applied for a different reason and under this labour council changed all the work done over almost 7 years.
There is misinformation here actually no one has mentioned this. What facilities do Southdown have which is similar? Have they been scored by the quality care commission?
There will be a scandal here, some the green councillors and myself and anyone who can see this hatchet job will be proved right historically.
Hence I’ve been documenting this case from the beginning, from the evictions to the continued useless council, giving up!
I will be writing about this for years, if people think none of the tenants placed there won’t come to me, they will.
I have all the time in the world to watch this one, and continue gathering evidence.
I don’t get how people with brain injuries are going to be any better off, if they end up having their own flat’s. It’s still care. Just in their individual flat’s.
There isn’t currently a specialist brain injury supported housing scheme in the city, so a lot of people have been placed outside of the city. This scheme will mean that people can return to the city and will have their needs met in their home city.
The building costs was over £10million, this was supplied by Trinity homes
It has been completely adapted, with wheelchairs users on the ground, with kitchen u it’s that can move up and downforce disabled people. They all have wet rooms, gran rails, automatic closing doors,
We were also told they were not secure tenants
, only be living in brickfields for maximum of 2 years,
Have we on the Ingram estate been lied to, so this building
Could be built?
Hi, no, you have been misinformed. The new tenants will be able to stay here, for as long as they need. which will mean forever for many of the new tenants