Purpose

The council intends to enter 10 year leases
with providers on the EA Framework, which will provide a stable
source of temporary accommodation, and result in savings against
our subsidy loss budget. This was approved at Homes and Housing
Delivery Committee in July.
It will likely take some time for leases to be drawn up and for the
procurement process to take place, so in the meantime, the council
needs an interim arrangement for the 5 providers on the framework
who are on block contracts that expire 12 September.
We are going to enter into a spot contract with them (on the same
prices that they will be on when we lease with them later), which
will expire at the end of March 2026 at the latest, but which we
can end with no notice as soon as we are ready to sign the 10 year
leases (this is expected to be early December).
The total value of £2,872,498 is covered by the previous
decision to commission the EA Framework in June 2023, up to a
maximum value of £96m Temporary Accommodation Project:
Funding and Planning Strategy.
Currently only £22m has been spent on this framework, so
there is no risk of this spend taking the framework above its
approved maximum value.
Of the £2,872,498, around £925,000 will be recoverable
through Housing Benefit, meaning net cost to BCC of around
£1,875,000
Budget for 2025/26 included the assumption of award of an
inflationary uplift on these contracts, so this is not
“new” spend.

Content

To approve the interim arrangement of a direct
award spot contract to existing providers who are on block
contracts on the emergency accommodation framework, where the block
contract ends on 12 September 2025, up to a maximum value of
£2,872,498 (of which around £925,000 will be
recoverable via Housing Benefit).
This arrangement will be replaced by 10-year leasing arrangements,
the procurement of which was approved at Homes and Housing Delivery
Committee 18 July 2025.

Alternative options considered

-Extending the current block contracts –
this option was rejected as they have already been extended for 12
months, and the existing contracts were called off from the
previous emergency accommodation framework, which has now expired.
The contracts must be called off the current framework.
-Award of a new block contract was considered, but this would not
be beneficial as we would need to run a competition, where what we
want to do is direct award to the providers where we already have
people occupying the temporary accommodation they provide, as a
temporary measure before we enter 10-year leases with
providers.-Allow the contracts to expire – this would mean
having to find alternative accommodation for households who are
currently living in the accommodation provided by these providers.
This would be unnecessarily disruptive to these households.