Management of Temporary Accommodation – The Bury

Watford Community Housing (WCH) currently manages all of the Council’s temporary accommodation sites The Council considers that no reasonable alternative supplier exists at this time for the following reasons:

•Due to the indivisible nature of our service structure and the difficulty of lotting, competition is not practically feasible.

•Public benefit in our service design reflects operational reality of statutory housing delivery. Furthermore, the service relies on a unified operational model covering property access, tenant management, safeguarding oversight, compliance monitoring, and rapid response to risk across the entire temporary accommodation estate.

•Service integrity would be compromised by the separation of technical and operational indivisibility therefore unified accountability is necessary for compliance and maintaining integrity.

•The proposed supplier, Watford Community Housing (WCH) has operational expertise of the Council's temporary accommodation portfolio, including property-specific hazards, household vulnerabilities, escalation procedures, and safeguarding controls.

•Only one supplier capable within required timeframe with the operational knowledge that cannot be replicated without delay

•This knowledge is essential for the secure and lawful functioning of the service and cannot be duplicated or transmitted within the necessary timeframe without subjecting the Council to significant risk.

•Extreme and unavoidable urgency – The risk of delay exceeds the benefits of competition and the Council’s statutory duties under the Housing Act 1996 compliance risk.

•Introducing a second provider to oversee a portion of the portfolio would result in fragmented service delivery, necessitating parallel operational models, redundant interfaces, and split accountability. Furthermore, any fragmentation would materially reduce the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements, compromise the Council’s ability to exercise oversight, and diminish operational flexibility in responding to urgent placements, incidents, or emerging risks.

•The duration of mobilisation is incompatible with maintaining continuity. It would be necessary to transfer sensitive home data, make arrangements for property access, and take on active case management duties in order to mobilise a new provider into a live safeguarding service. This has the potential to introduce an unacceptable level of risk, including the potential for service failure, safeguarding breaches, and non-compliance with statutory duties under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996.

Under these conditions, the designation of an alternate provider or the lotting of the service among several providers is not reasonably feasible without compromising the continuity of service delivery and safeguarding outcomes. The proposed direct award is therefore necessary and proportionate to ensure the safe, continuous, and lawful delivery of temporary accommodation management services.