The Challenge
- Being able to challenge costs without evidence base.
- Negotiating new settings and reviewing existing services
The Solution
- Subscribing to CareCubed Children’s and using it for new and existing placements.
- Having access to an independent evidence base for benchmarking both new and existing services.
Results
- £774K pa cost avoidance with just one provider across two services.
- An understanding from providers that Leicestershire is armed with insight and able to challenge based on evidence.
Leicestershire County Council has been using CareCubed Children’s since 2024. Recently the council has used the tool to secure a significant 30 per cent reduction in fees across two services with one large provider totalling £774K per annum.
“With CareCubed, we now have a good understanding of what care costs, and are now armed to challenge with evidence. Providers were not prepared for our level of challenge and new insight, they were unable to justify their initial costings.”
Kim Sherriff
Commissioning Manager of Children and Family Services at Leicestershire County Council
Leicestershire County Council currently commissions around 20 children’s placements at five locations with the same large provider. Four of these provide longer term accommodation, the other is a family assessment centre. As services have been established in recent years, whilst the council was concerned about the cost, it found it difficult to produce an evidence-based challenge to negotiate a more cost-effective solution.
With three more services in the pipeline, and the acquisition of CareCubed, Leicestershire had the independently benchmarked evidence base to challenge the quotations it received in late 2024. Quotes were supplied for the delivery of two new services. One of these was a short stay residential service and the other a mental health hospital step-down service, adding up to some £2.5m per annum.
When the council ran the numbers through CareCubed it was able to evidence that these services should be supplied at a much lower cost. Through the negotiations that followed the council was able to obtain a reduction of £774k per annum, with both services eventually being agreed for £1.7m – a 30 per cent reduction.
