Improving the Identification of Young Carers

The project to Improve Identification of Young Carers is a key piece of work designed to support the delivery of the Department of Health's Carers work programme this year. The aim of the project is to increase the timely identification of Young Carers (aged under 18) in order that they can receive appropriate support from services and the community around them. The Department has heard in its Call for Evidence , which has informed the development of this new work, that identifying young carers is an essential step in ensuring that young carers, and their families, receive the support they need, in particular ensuring that young carers do not have to provide excessive or inappropriate care. This project and its outcomes will support joint working between the statutory and voluntary sectors, and wider communities, as part of developing carer-friendly communities, to achieve better identification and support of young carers. It also seeks to support the Department and Government's wider strategic aims to: • support carers to continue to care, and only where appropriate, while minimising the detrimental impact on their own health and wellbeing and other life chances; • ensure the new rights for carers introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014 are more fully embedded, and bring the benefits to carers intended by the Act; and • help realise the duty placed on Local Authorities in England by the Children and Families Act 2014, to take reasonable steps to identify the extent to which there are young carers within their area who have needs for support. Interested suppliers need to register on the BMS system if they have not done so already. Details of registration can be found on the attached instructions document and link provided. This Procurement exercise will follow the principles of the 'Light Touch Regime' (LTR) as introduced under the revised Public Contracts Regulation 2015 (PCR2015). The LTR is a specific set of rules for certain service contracts that include certain social, health and educational services as defined by the Common Procurement Vocabulary codes, and whose value that do not exceed a net total of €750,000 (euros). Under the LTR, contracting Authorities are given greater flexibility regarding the approach and tender procedures adopted for the service requirements. Therefore the Authority has decided to utilise our existing suite of templates for the basis of this exercise.