Common use of Availability criteria Clause in Contracts

Availability criteria. The Authority will not pay the full cost of guaranteed places where a place or a number of places are deemed to be unavailable, based on specific criteria. This will be when a Young Person cannot be placed in the bed within the unit (and no alternative place is found at the SCHs own cost) or has to be removed from the SCH and placed elsewhere in the following circumstances: Children at risk or placement unsafe: The Authority reserve the right to remove an individual or all the young people placed by the Authority in the SCH, in circumstances where the Authority has assessed that the children are at risk or the placement is unsafe. Where: continuing registration as a Children’s Home is in doubt or a decision to suspend registration is pending licensing as a secure unit is in doubt or a decision to suspend the licence is pending there is the consideration of the imposition of conditions on licensing if registration or licence are cancelled or conditions are imposed that limit the Authority’s ability to place a Young Person (for example issues identified during an Inspection give the Authority sufficient cause for concern to remove young people from the unit). where the Authority has reasonably deemed Young People to be at risk and has suspended placements and/or removed Young People from the establishment Room is physically unavailable due to damage: If the room is unavailable because of a need for repairs or damage, the unit should endeavour to find alternative secure accommodation for the Young Person within the unit at its own cost. However, the Authority are aware that there may be mitigating circumstances which means that a room is not available, such as the time taken to carry out critical repairs. Therefore the Authority will give a SCH two working days to restore facilities. From working day three the room will count as unavailable to the Authority and the Authority will no longer pay for the place. If there are exceptional circumstances that mean it would be unfeasible to declare the room available within 2 working days then the SCH should discuss the particular case with the Contract Manager In some of these cases, the Authority may decide to grant additional time for the room to be declared available before ceasing payment but the decision remains solely that of the Contract Manager. The Authority’s Service Assurance Team will monitor unavailability of rooms and time taken to carry out critical repairs as part of the performance measurement framework Refusal of a placement by the Provider. Should the provider refuse a placement for any reason the Bed Place shall remain Unavailable until the next placement is made into the home Room not declared available to the YJB in the daily ring-around by the Placements Team: SCHs will be responsible for informing the Authority on a daily basis the number of guaranteed places that are available and the number of places which are not available as defined. If a guaranteed place is vacant but not declared available to the Authority Placements Team (and the error is not picked up, resulting in non-placement by the Authority that day), it will be considered unavailable and not paid for. The onus is on the SCHs to declare their available beds.