Purpose

a. Approve the use of funding within the budget to amend the value of the Contract for Year 2 (1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027) only; to increase the annual value by £115,000 (from £972,160 to £1,087,160) to provide additional capacity and resource to the Service.

b. Approval to modify the Contract, for the annual value of the Contract for Year 2 (1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027) only to be increased and utilised as specified in the Contract Variation.

Decision

Approval is required to approve the use of funding within the budget to amend the value of the Contract for Year 2 (1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027) only; to increase the annual value by £115,000 (from £972,160 to £1,087,160) to provide additional capacity and resource to the Service. This is in accordance with the scheme of delegation and Financial Regulations E (Spending), paragraph E18 (Order Approval Levels).

Assistant Director Early Intervention and Prevention is required to provide approval to modify the Contract, for the annual value of the Contract for Year 2 (1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027) only to be increased and utilised as specified in the Contract Variation. This is in accordance with the scheme of delegation and SCC Procurement Regulations D17.4 (Contract Modifications).

Alternative options considered

Staffordshire County Council is looking to provide its jointly-commissioned Children and Young People’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing Service with a one-off additional funding payment of £115,000 in Year 2 (2026-27). We have identified that the Service is underperforming in several key areas and would benefit from additional temporary staffing capacity to allow the Service to reduce the triage assessment backlog, strengthen delivery capacity and enable more children and young people (CYP) to access timely support. The proposal provides a blend of short-term recovery actions and structural fixes that will support sustained improvement into Year 3 of the contract.

Reprofiling or ring-fencing existing resource to address backlogs and waiting lists without additional funding has been discounted as an option. This would only work if the Service also scaled back intervention delivery in order to redirect resource to triage assessment. As there are also waiting lists for children and young people awaiting access to interventions, the activity mix would be unsustainable and impact the effectiveness and timeliness of the early help offer provided by the Service.

A range of alternative options have been considered, including internal reprioritisation, strengthened contract management and system-wide capacity solutions. However, given the scale and immediacy of the backlog and the impact on CYP, a targeted, time-limited investment in additional capacity is the most effective and deliverable short-term intervention, alongside continued improvement actions