Words to live by

Tiptoeing back to the blog to put some thoughts down on pixel-paper.

If you’re missing your fix of Community Budgets news, head on over to the dedicated website, where you can find news and updates on the programme.

Having been in my new-old job for a couple of months now, I was reflecting on the things I’ve taken with me from my time at the Leadership Centre. There are lots of habits, conscious and unconscious; preferences for certain working styles over others; a lingering fondness for colourful sticky notes…

But what’s really stuck with me, if I’m honest, are the words. As a team, we were like magpies, swooping on new ideas that caught our eye and bringing them back to the nest. Here are some of the ones that I find myself coming back to time and time again (with grateful thanks to their progenitors):

1. What would success look like? This prompts me to think about what I’m really trying to achieve, and is a useful test of whether the work I’m doing is really going to help that.
2. Proceed until apprehended This was a favourite from Cat Parker in Total Place days which has been shamelessly adopted by everyone from the Leadership Centre. Be bold!
3. We don’t know what we don’t know Or, the more perspectives you can gather along the way, the better.
4. “Myron’s maxims” From the excellent Myron Rogers (see this presentation for more – PDF)

• Real change happens in real work The hypothetical can only take you so far
• Those who do the work do the change 
• People own what they create 
• Start anywhere, follow it everywhere It doesn’t matter what your route in is, once you start you can tackle all kinds of issues
• Connect the system to more of itself Get people talking and sharing!

And last, but most definitely not least: Does anyone fancy a drink?

What are the things that shape how you work? Is it words that for you?

Weekly update 24.05.11

Weekly update 24 May 2011

Community Budgets round up of meeting and events

The Community Budgets Group chaired by Lord Bichard met last week. They discussed the evolving radical approaches to the development of community budgets; the Community Budgets stocktake and Professor Munro’s review into frontline child protection practice.

Baroness Hanham’s political leadership group meet today to talk through their papers and agree within the Group the key issues, solutions and actions needed to address the barriers that are impeding ambitious Community Budgets progress.

The Way to Work: Young People Speak Out on Transitions to Employment

The world of work and transitions to adulthood and independence are in a state of flux. Young people negotiating their transitions to adulthood are faced with unprecedented choice and opportunity, but also far greater levels of uncertainty and risk.

The Way to Work looks at shifts in the labour market, the workplace and transitions to employment, highlighting the need for education and careers information, advice and guidance that responds to the changing needs of young people and the economy.

Download the full report.

Cabinet Office plans future civil service

The Cabinet Office has begun to develop plans for the long-term reshaping of the civil service, the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) chief operating officer Ian Watmore has told Civil Service World.

“I think the characteristic that will most define the civil service of the future will be around flexibility and collaboration, working across and outside traditional boundaries,” he said. In future, civil servants will “have the citizen or business or other end beneficiary primary in their mind, and then the organisation for which they work secondary – instead of the other way round.

Finance commission calls for the return of the business rate

Via Localgov – 23^rd May

A group of influential councils will today urge ministers to quickly hand new financial powers to local authorities – including the retention of business rates, new borrowing powers and control of merged public sector budgets.

The City Finance Commission (CFC) – set up by Birmingham, Manchester and Westminster Councils – is due to publish its final recommendations to overhaul local finance systems. The report will urge ministers to allow authorities to keep the growth in business rates and council tax generated by new developments. It will also call for the swift introduction of tax increment finance (TIF) powers, which would allow authorities to borrow against predicted increases in business rates income from new developments.

Read the full article.

And the CFC website is found here: http://www.cityfinancecommission.co.uk/

BWB weekly update of government websites

Safeguarding

The Government has published its policy on safeguarding vulnerable adults. It includes a statement of principles for use by Local Authority Social Services and housing, health, the police and other agencies for both developing and assessing the effectiveness of their local safeguarding arrangements. 

Health

The Department of Health has published criteria designed to support all health services to be more young-people friendly.

Social care

Earlier this month, the Office of Fair Trading published research into the impact of its 2005 market study into care homes for older people.

Reoffending

The Government has launched a report outlining plans to “break the cycle of reoffending by giving offenders better access to skills that employers demand”.

Housing

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published “Human rights at home:  guidance for social housing providers”.

How can councils capitalise on the strength of the voluntary sector to transform public services?

[Source – IngridK’s Public Path blog.]

Baroness Hanham, from the Department of Communities of Local Government, will take part in a web discussion between 24 and 26 May exploring how councils and the voluntary sector can work more closely together. She will be using the Local Government Improvement and Development’s Communities of Practice platform to engage in discussion with practitioners between 24 and 26 May. To make sure you’re not missing out on this important conversation and the chance to engage directly with a minister – just sign up here with your email address and we’ll contact you with joining instructions.

And lastly …. Big, local and app-solutely fabulous!

Solihull residents can now get council and local news on the move thanks to a new smartphone app for the borough.

The Big Local App Solihull, developed by AppHouse UK, follows in the footsteps of a Redditch and Bromsgrove version, while further apps for other regions across the country are also planned. The free app contains a host of council information, including latest news, details on waste and recycling, information about local councillors and more.

P.S. For the time being I shall be looking after the weekly update as Nicky has moved to a different part of the Group, so if you would like to contribute or add a colleague to the distribution list please email me: john.jarvis@local.gov.uk

Weekly update 17.05.11

Weekly update 17 May 2011

Here are the best bits from this week’s update.

Access to Employment and Benefits – Opening of Community Hubs in Bedfordshire

The Bedfordshire and Luton Total Place partnership will be opening three Community Hubs during 2012.  This innovative development, the first of its kind nationally, is in keeping with the Government’s emerging agenda on welfare reform putting increased emphasis on access to employment opportunities for benefits customers.

In March this year, Central Bedfordshire Councils’ Customer Service Advisors successfully co-located with staff at the Biggleswade Jobcentre Plus office.  Our customer research showed us that these services were being used by the same people. The combined service will allow customers to access a range of benefits, together with employment support, under one roof. Further co-locating opportunities in Bedfordshire will be explored over the coming months. There is ministerial interest in this model and the Biggleswade Community Hubs will be visited by The Right Honourable Chris Grayling MP, Minister for Employment in June 2011.

For more information, please contact: Hannah.richards@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk

Integrated Offender Management – A new model for Offender Management in Bedfordshire and Luton

An integrated offender management model is about to be launched in Bedfordshire and Luton. Partners have agreed to integrate a range of services for into a new model for dealing with repeat offenders and their families with the aim of preventing repeat offending and reduce crime.

Work to date has focussed on researching best practive and costing different models of integrated offender management to identify a solution that will have the maximum impact on those offenders it seeks to target.

The model will bring together on one site representatives from all justice organisations, all three local authorities in the area, the drugs intervention programme, health and the voluntary sector. This will minimise duplication of work across agencies with offenders and has the potential to improve outcomes relating to repeat offending.

This exciting collaborative development will be in place by summer 2011 and will be funded from contributions from all participating organisations.

For further information, please contact: Katie.Morgan@bedfordshire.probation.gsi.gov.uk

Independent review into child protection says: free professionals from central Government control to let them do their jobs properly

Local areas should have more freedom to develop their own effective child protection services, rather than focusing on meeting central government targets, an independent review into child protection recommends.

Professor Eileen Munro, who has conducted a wide ranging review into frontline child protection practice, concludes that a one-size-fits-all approach to child protection is preventing local areas from focusing on the child.

Professor Munro says that the Government and local authorities should operate in an open culture, continually learn from what has happened in the past, trust professionals and give them the best possible training.

Her recommendations signal a radical shift from previous reforms that, while well-intentioned resulted in a tick-box culture and a loss of focus on the needs of the child. Currently local areas are judged on how well they have carried out certain processes and procedures rather than what the end result has been for children themselves.

The report echoes LGA calls for targets and red tape to be scrapped and frontline social workers to regain the freedom to decide what is best for children.

To download the full report, please visit http://www.education.gov.uk/munroreview

BWB weekly update of government websites

Education

The Government has launched a new campaign “Make Your Future Happen” for prospective students and their parents about changes to the student finance system in 2012.

Community

Planning Minister Greg Clark has said that new community powers giving people rights to shape development in their neighbourhood could provide “a bumper crop of allotments”.

Social enterprise

Research carried out by the Social Enterprise Coalition about attitudes to public service provision has uncovered a “remarkable preference for community businesses that reinvest their profits above private, public and voluntary sector providers”.

Big Society Bank

Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude has endorsed outline proposals for the development of a Big Society Bank presented by the Independent Advisers, Sir Ronald Cohen and Nick O’Donohoe.  It will invest capital in intermediaries so that they are able to invest in frontline organisations. It will not make grants itself.  Francis Maude has also directed the Big Lottery Fund to establish an interim Investment Committee which will use dormant account money it has received to start making investments from this summer.  Comment from the Social Enterprise Coalition.

Digital economy

The Cabinet Office has today announced the recruitment of 100,000 Big Society ‘Digital Champions’ by UK Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox.  The local volunteers will support millions of adults online by the time the Olympics comes to Britain. The champions are employees and users of a range of services – from Age UK to local libraries.

Government launches single government website prototype

11 May 2011

The Coalition Government has launched an early prototype of a potential single government web domain, aimed at making public services easier to use.

The prototype single domain, named alphagov, was recommended by Martha Lane Fox in her review of government digital services published last year. Prototypes are a normal way that large organisations, such as the BBC, test their web services, but this has never before been done in Government.

Alphagov is available on line for comment for two months and aims to provide a single place for all central government department information.

In the long run it will include a whole range of government services such as tax return and car tax applications. The prototype currently just contains answers to the top 100 most frequently asked questions in government such as what to do if you lose your passport.

By moving departmental website information into one place, the Government anticipates that it would save over 50% of the £130 million it spends on internet publishing each year.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has welcomed the prototype as an opportunity for the public to tell us what they think.

Healthy Places, Healthy Lives

Speaking at the Delivering the Reduction in Health Inequalities conference in March, Sir Michael Marmot spoke passionately about fairness being vital at the heart of all decision making and why urgent action is needed to tackle the social determinants – the causes of the causes – of health inequalities in today’s society.
Watch Sir Michael’s speech here. You can also see a film of the HPHL partnerships talking about their experiences from the programme, as well as posters from the lunchtime session and presentations from the day.

See the rest of the healthy places, healthy lives newsletter.

Changes to TheyWorkForYou.com

TheyWorkForYou.com has, until now, only covered things that have already happened, be that Commons main chamber debates since 1935, Public Bill committees back to 2000, or all debates in the modern Northern Ireland Assembly.  From Friday 13^th may they are taking the UK Parliament’s upcoming business calendar and feeding it into their database and search engine, which means some notable new features.  Visit www.theyworkforyou.com and www.mysociety.org for more information.

Future of local public audit

DCLG has issued a consultation paper on the future of public audit after the announcement of the abolition of the Audit Commission. The paper deals with a number of important issues for councils and the LG group want to work with you to develop a strong sector input into the proposed new arrangements. If your council can contribute to this work then please send us your relevant contact details. In addition we will be responding formally to the consultation, so please send us your views on the proposals by Friday 10 June. Email info@local.gov.uk. Further information can be requested from Nick Easton in at nick.easton@local.gov.uk.

Creative Councils

A reminder that the LG group are looking for creative councils to join the aptly named Creative Councils programme. Involving a small group of creative, pioneering councils and their partners across England and Wales, we want to help develop and implement radical innovations to meet tomorrow’s challenges. The first stage is an open call for ideas, with the closing date for submissions being noon on Monday 23 May. We will announce the 20 most promising ideas in June.

Lastly, this was fascinating watching last night http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8501690/Nick-Robinson-How-I-gave-power-to-the-people.html

Weekly update 10.05.11

Weekly update 10 May 2011

Here are the best bits from this week’s update.

Community First

The Office for Civil Society would like to update Local Authorities on the Community First programme which we envisage to be up and running by September 2011. The programme is currently out to procurement, and Government expects to appoint a National Partner in mid June.

The Coalition Document states that the government “will take a range of measures to encourage charitable giving and philanthropy”. Community First aims to achieve this by making £80m of public money available for match with money raised by communities, volunteer time, or donated goods and services.

Community First will focus on the communities and neighbourhoods which lack the social capital needed to take up the powers and opportunities that the Big Society might afford them. As set out in the Green Paper, Community First will encourage more social action in neighbourhoods with significant deprivation and low social capital by making the following funding available:

• £30m Neighbourhood Match Fund Programme will provide financial support for community-led projects, in targeted neighbourhoods of England with low social capital and significant deprivation.

• £50m Endowment Match Challenge will be made available throughout England for local endowment building. The Government has committed to match £1 for every £2 raised, plus Gift Aid. In the long run these endowments should create a sustainable source of grants for neighbourhood projects.

The office for Civil Society will be writing to Local Authorities shortly to involve them in the process of choosing the neighbourhoods that should benefit from the programme. Until then, if you have any questions please send them to CommunityFirst@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk.

UK investment in family benefits is failing to improve outcomes

Joe Lepper writes

‘The UK government is failing to improve outcomes for families despite being one of the biggest spenders on family support, latest research has found.  The study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that the UK government spent on average £138,000 in family support on each child from birth to the age of 18. This is more than most OECD countries, which have an average spend of £95,000.

But in terms of gender pay equality, child poverty and employment opportunities for parents Britain falls behind other countries, particularly in Scandinavia, that have a similarly high investment in family support.

One factor is that countries such as Sweden focus funding on universal support services such as affordable childcare, whereas the UK’s focus is on cash benefits direct to families.

For the full article, visit Children and Young People Now.

Community budgets website launched

To mark the go live date of the 1^st April, Local Government Leadership launched the Community Budgets website.  It features details of the places taking part, live news feeds, FAQs and much more.  We hope the website will help field enquiries to places by providing a one-stop shop for all you need to know about community budgets.  The link is http://www.localleadership.gov.uk/communitybudgets

Please take a look and let us know what you think.

BWB weekly review of government websites

Red tape

The Government has launched a website challenging the public to identify unnecessary regulations. Every few weeks it will publish all the regulations affecting one specific sector or industry. For example:

• From 23 June to 7 July:  Health living and social care.
• From 7 July to 21 July:  Media and creative services

Information

The Information Commissioner has published an updated version of its guidance on the exemption for personal information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations.  There is no direct link to the document but if you go to www.ico.gov.uk and type “the exemption for personal information” into the search, of the documents found you want the second one (which is shown as being added to the website on 31 March 2011 and the document itself is dated 18 March 2011).

Funding cuts

On 13th April the Department for Communities and Local Government launched a consultation on new guidance “setting out clear expectations when councils consider cutting funding to local voluntary and community organisations”. See comment from Compact Voice and comment from NCVO.

Health and social care

This webpage brings together various updates on the Government’s Listening Exercise and has interviews with the four Lead Members of the NHS Future Forum, one of whom is Stephen Bubb.

On 13 April David Cameron hosted an event with representatives from the voluntary sector to share their views as part the listening exercise on NHS modernisation.

Also see this press release about pilot projects in social care.

Ageing Well place based offer

The LG Improvement and Development Ageing Well programme is offering free, intensive support to a limited number of top-tier councils. It aims to help them and their partners protect outcomes for older people, whilst making the required budget reductions.

The Ageing Well team will provide a small team of experienced senior professionals that will, over a defined period of time, carry out:

• diagnostics
• options development and / or appraisal
• change planning processes.

The offer will be designed according to the individual needs of each area.  For further information, please visit the LG Group website.

Birmingham Cityscapes

‘Birmingham Cityscapes’ is a one-day, interdisciplinary conference, organised by Birmingham City University. Focusing on Birmingham and the region, this conference will act as a platform for knowledge exchange, creative thinking, discussion and networking. ‘Birmingham Cityscapes’ will provide a forum for academics, researchers, practitioners, community leaders, and local residents to discuss urban research in the city. The conference will explore urban research from a number of angles, including:

• the use of urban spaces
• community relations in the city
• urban regeneration and development
• representations of the city in the media
• crime and deviancy
• urban art and design
• Urban language and city narratives

There will be 14 speakers split across two parallel sessions with keynote speeches from Paul Slatter, Birmingham Chamberlain Forum and Dr Mike Beazley, The University of Birmingham. The range of papers promises to generate some interesting discussion across a number of different disciplines and sectors, including:  Graffiti on Urban Landscape, Literary Birmingham, Urban Guerilla Gardening, Urban Violence – Birmingham and Beyond, Comedy Performance Media, The Growth of Online Shopping vs. Concrete Shopping, Trans-culturalism in the city, Urban Art and Urban Photography, Falling Cities, and Gangs, Guns and Baby Mothers

For further information and tickets, the conference website can be found at: www.bcu.ac.uk/cityscapes.

What can we learn from jury service about engagement with public services?

by Claire McEneaney

Last week I fulfilled my civic duty by undertaking jury service at my local Crown Court. Despite comments from friends and family about it being onerous, dull, and something to get out of (!), I was actually really excited to have the opportunity to see inside the criminal justice system and understand how it worked. I wasn’t disappointed.

Despite a fair bit of sitting around on the first day waiting to be selected for a jury, the whole experience was fantastic. The case I sat on was complex but interesting. The judge, prosecution, and defence were all very clear communicators and presented the evidence well. The judge in particular was brilliant at engaging the jurors in the whole process, clarifying points for us, giving us directions in law to think about, and doing a very objective summation of the evidence at the end, which really helped us jurors pick out the salient points and details from 4 days worth of evidence to ultimately reach our verdict.

Before I went on jury service, John Craig told me that jury service consistently has the highest satisfaction rating of any public service interaction. Reflecting back on my experience, I feel very satisfied with my experience, privileged even, and it got me thinking about what it is about jury service that means that interacting with it is so much more a rewarding experience than so many of our other public service encounters?

Read Claire’s full analysis.

District Councils Spring assembly

Greg Clark, Minister for Decentralisation and Chris Williamson MP, Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government spoke at the District Council Network’s spring assembly on 24 February. The Localism Bill was up for discussion, and both speakers answered questions about the bill and about their own party’s policies – you can download the minutes here.  The assemblies are a great opportunity to network with other districts, share ideas and best practice, and to help the network develop.  For more information visit http://www.districtcouncils.info

Local Authority Funding Cuts & the Voluntary Sector

On 13 April 2011 the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) launched a new consultation on draft “Best Value” guidance. This can be downloaded from the DCLG website.

The intention is that the final document will set out clear guidance for local authorities who are considering cutting funding to local voluntary and community organisations.

The draft guidance builds in particular upon a local authority’s duties of consultation, early engagement with the bodies affected and consideration of the “wider impact” that the cuts may have on the relevant service, the body in question and the community. The core of the guidance will be that the local authority must “seek to avoid passing on disproportionate cuts” and “actively engage” with the body before making the cuts.
The guidance will have statutory force so that if it is not taken into account and acted upon by a local authority, unless there is a very good public interest reason not to, this will form a good basis for challenge in judicial review (high court proceedings).  Much of what it provides is already the case under basic public law principles, but it will undoubtedly strengthen the arm of an organisation facing a cut where the authority has not meaningfully consulted or engaged with them and the impact is disproportionate.

The DCLG have made it clear that the guidance will not change decisions that have already been made, but is intended to mitigate the effect of further cuts.  To have your say about the draft guidance you can respond online or by email to bestvalue@communities.gsi.gov.uk

The closing date for the Consultation is the 14 June 2011.

The Munro Review of Child Protection Interim Report: The Child’s Journey

‘It’s all about relationships. We are talking about dealing with people with problems, with painful stuff. You have to know someone, trust them. They must be reliable and be there for you if you are going to be able to talk about the things you don’t want to. The things that scare you.’ Parent

For those who didn’t catch it in February, here is the full interim report (PDF).

Lastly, Social Innovation Marketplace ‘Simpl’ has launched.  Click on this link to find out more http://www.simpl.co/about-us

Total Information

LGL and CLG ran an engaging workshop yesterday on data sharing.  For me, the most intriguing part about it was not what information can we share and with whom, but what’s stopping us sharing in the first place?

The Data Protection Act legislation is designed to protect information about individuals being used unscrupulously.  We don’t have to look very far back in the past to see horrific examples of how personal data can be used against the people it’s held on.  But, when you’re working across organisations towards a common aim e.g. tackling the issues of families with complex needs, what’s the problem with sharing data?

Barriers to data sharing between local agencies were brought up as a serious hindrance to effective collaborative working by almost all of the pilots who worked on Total Place in 2009/10.  There was a recognition that data sharing between organisations should be improved and technical barriers e.g. the different IT systems used, should be removed.  But delegates yesterday talked more about what seems to be the ‘real’ issue; culture.  People are often scared to share data for fear of losing their jobs – a genuine fear which is exacerbated by how complex the picture is from the practitioners point of view and inconsistency in approach at ‘grass roots’ level.

We heard from Leicestershire CC whose co-location project in Melton is developing working relationships between agencies with a sharp focus on outcomes.  They have removed some of the technical and cultural barriers by co-locating teams.  It’s clearly a lot harder to refuse access to information when you sit next to each other on the same floor and use the same IT system. But there’s a huge amount of work to do yet.

In the context of community budgets and families with complex needs, the question of whether data protection is actually harming these families seems to be a legitimate one to ask.  If data is not shared at the start of the project, how do we know we’re working with the ‘right’ families?  I’m sure if asked, the families would think ‘we’ already do this, and if we work on a consent based model, many of the problems with sharing individuals data go away.

Maybe what it boils down to is purpose.  What is the purpose of keeping, sharing and using this data? The Welfare Reform bill clause 123 allows social security data to be shared with local authorities for welfare services purposes.  Could we use this principle more widely in helping families with complex needs?  And what about those families on the brink, the ‘amber’ families on the cusp of becoming ‘red’? Data seems to be more freely available once families are at risk of losing their freedom, housing or children but we ought to be identifying them and supporting them before they fall into the ‘complex’ category.

Thanks to everyone who took part. It was a lively discussion. Look out for next steps in this work soon.

Weekly update 12.4.11

Weekly update 12 April 2011

Here are the best bits from this week’s update.

DWP meeting on community budgets: 13^th April

During 2011 the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will run an open competition to procure a new programme of support for families with multiple problems funded by the European Social Fund (ESF). Working jointly with local partners, providers will help move families further down the road to work or into a position where the support provided by the Work Programme can get them into employment.  DWP believe that aligning ESF provision with support for families with multiple problems delivered by local authorities will help provide a seamless continuum of support.  In order to align the new ESF-funded provision with current and planned local authority-led activity in a locality, DWP have begun a process of local engagement.

The full consultation document can be viewed online.

Chris Grayling MP, Minister for Employment, will lead a workshop tomorrow on community budgets at DWP, Caxton House.  Chris Grayling MP offered to meet councils to discuss community budgets at the meeting that took place between council leaders and ministers on 24 March to discuss DWP engagement in Community Budgets, particularly the relationship with the Work Programme and ESF-funded provision.

Data sharing workshop: 14^th April

Thanks to everyone who has confirmed they can attend the workshop on Thursday.  It will be an opportunity for places to share their experiences and get feedback from Whitehall data sharing experts, and also a chance for Departments to listen to local views on specific elements of data sharing and gather views.  We hope that together we will reach a better understanding of what needs doing, and from that, start some solution co-design.

Those places who are unable to attend may like to feed into the workshop by sending John Jarvis a few notes giving examples of where in the process the data sharing issue is coming up,  what information you are asking to share and with whom, and the purpose that having this information would serve.

If you’d like to feed in to the workshop, please contact John at john.jarvis@local.gov.uk Notes will be available afterwards on the CoP.

“No stone left unturned”

06 April 2011

Every local authority has to adopt a new approach to delivering value-for-money services in a way that is less reliant on central government.  Jon Rouse, chief executive of Croydon Council, suggests a cocktail of creative solutions is required.

“Last year, Croydon was one of the Total Place pilot areas are now a Community Budget pilot.

This will allow us to pool different funding streams single programme tackling social problems which involve families with complex needs. It will also build on similar work we have done to align resources around other complex needs groups such as people with dementia and young offenders.

By being able to redesign services for Croydon’s vulnerable residents the local authority and its partners will be better able to meet their needs while making cost savings across the board. This will also make sure that resources are closer to the needs of communities and that we can redirect them towards solutions.

Finally, we are also trialling “payment by results”. This involves working with the Ministry of Justice on a scheme that will reward us if, in partnership with probation and our local prisons, we can reduce adult reoffending rates”.

Read the full article.

Councils pilot payment-by-results

By Neil Puffett Tuesday, 05 April 2011

“A groundbreaking six-month pilot project is under way with three large local authorities to assess how payment-by-results models can be successfully adopted in children’s services.

Essex County Council is among those looking at social impact bonds.

Social Finance, an ethical investment bank, is working alongside Essex County Council, Liverpool Council, and Manchester Council to investigate the potential for social impact bonds (SIB), a form of payment-by-results, to fund services targeted at vulnerable children, young people and their families.

The scheme, which follows an ongoing SIB scheme at Peterborough Prison based on reducing re-offending rates, will attempt to reduce numbers of vulnerable 10- to 15-year-olds going into care. The project will try to prevent time spent in care by adolescents experiencing behavioural problems or family breakdown through initiatives including intensive family support and therapeutic approaches.

One project in Essex is investigating how current preventative work to keep children out of care can be funded by social impact bonds.

“We have got high numbers of looked-after children in Essex and we are trying to reduce that number,” said Roger Bullen, head of partnership and business support at Essex council’s schools, children and families department.

“The first thing to do is get all the information about the group you want to work with and target.

“We have done a lot of work identifying that cohort and seeing what interventions work. You also have to understand how you are going to measure outcomes and associated savings.

“The investors are going to be people who are socially motivated, it won’t be a purely financial consideration. I think that is why it is important that these first social impact bonds provide the evidence base and demonstrate how they might work.”

Read the full article.

BWB weekly review of government websites

Social care

The Government has set out a new approach to quality and outcomes in adult social care with the publication of the first Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework.  The framework “signals a move away from top-down performance management and centrally driven process targets towards a system focused on quality and the issues that matter most to those with care and support needs.”

On Monday 4^th April, the Supreme Court begins hearing a case about whether Kensington and Chelsea Council was justified in withdrawing funding for a night carer from an elderly woman.  Ms McDonald has a condition that requires her to use a toilet up to three or more times a night – the Council decided that her need for assistance at night to use the commode (which could only be met with the provision of an overnight carer) could be met instead through the provision of incontinence pads.  The case is supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Arts

Last week Arts Council England unveiled its new National Portfolio of funded organisations, which will come into operation in April 2012.  Under the National Portfolio 695 organisations will be funded (replacing the previous portfolio of 849).  £18 million a year has been immediately earmarked to support “the priority area of touring – an area that has been identified through the application process as requiring direct intervention”.

Social enterprise

See this press release for the winners at the Social Enterprise Awards.

Health

The Government has announced a £200 million a year Cancer Drugs Fund that will “help cancer patients get greater access to cancer drugs their doctors recommend for them”.

The Department of Health has published:

• guidance for NHS and care services staff who under the “Right to Provide” scheme want to set themselves up as an independent organisation to run the services they deliver.  This link takes you to the press release http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/right-to-provide/ which has a link at the end to the new guidance.  To give staff the financial support necessary to do this at least £10 million additional funding is being given to the Social Enterprise Investment Fund. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/Pressreleases/DH_125649

• A press release on the role of social enterprise in health.  http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/social-enterprises-show-impact-of-investment-funds-on-health-and-care/

• Guidance on developing local HealthWatch groups, along with a timetable for the transition from the current patient involvement groups.  http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/guidance-on-developing-local-healthwatch-groups/

• a press release about more GP consortia joining the “Pathfinder” programme http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/nine-out-of-ten-benefit-personalised-care/

Connected Councillors

“At TweetyHall we’re all about councillors making the most of the web to connect with the communities and citizens they represent.  That’s why we’re pleased to hear Connected Councillors, a social media guide for local politicians is to be republished.  So why do it over again?  Well… things have changed and some bits of the guide are a little out of date. More councillors are getting online and engaging with their electorate, so there are now even more great examples of councillors using social media. More of the electorate are turning to social media first for information and influence – as sites like Facebook overtake Google.  Twitter is now a standard part of the communications scene, even if it’s not as widely adopted by local people (in most places). Open data is becoming increasingly important, and we barely touched on that last time.  And of course, we’d also like to tell councillors about the Knowledge Hub and how they can use that networking and learning resource.  Consultation on the new publication is open now.  Click here and start commenting http://socialmedia.21st.cc/the-guide

Also, here is the LGC’s list of the top 50 most influential people in local government (PDF).

Weekly update 6.4.11

Weekly update 6 April 2011

Here are the best bits from this week’s update.

Community Budgets ‘go live’

The sixteen first-phase community budget places went live on the 1^st April.  We’d like to thank colleagues in the sixteen who have worked so incredibly hard over the last six months to get to this position, despite sometimes overwhelming pressure on resources, time and people.  Rapid progress has been made since the Spending Review to turn the concept of a Community Budget into firm commitments to tackle well over 10,000 troubled families in line with the Prime Minister’s aspiration for turning around the lives of all troubled families by 2015.  Progress of the first phase places, next steps, and evaluation will be discussed at the Community Budgets meeting today, chaired by Lord Michael Bichard.  We’ll bring you more news on those conversations next week.

Eric Pickles’ speech at the Capita conference on the 29^th March can be read online. Edward Twiddy from the Treasury also spoke at the conference, emphasising the importance of pooling budgets ‘as a prerequisite to payment by results’, and significant evidence going forward.

Community budgets website launched

To mark the go live date of the 1^st April, Local Government Leadership has launched the Community Budgets website.  It features details of the places taking part, live news feeds, FAQs and much more.  We hope the website will help field enquiries to places by providing a one-stop shop for all you need to know about community budgets.  The link is http://www.localleadership.gov.uk/communitybudgets

Please take a look and let us know what you think.

Baroness Hanham’s Community Budgets working group

Baroness Hanham (CLG) has established a working group that will tackle key issues impeding ambitious Community Budgets.  Baroness Hanham, with the support of Tim Loughton, DfE and other Ministers, will chair a working group consisting of number of leaders from community budget places to:

a)      Provide political leadership to the Community Budget agenda;

b)      Intensively work through some of the key priority barriers that are getting in the way of Community Budgets having a transformative impact on services; and,

c)      Develop a radical vision and model(s) for Community Budgets which can feed into the second phase

All partners on the group will commit resources over the next few months to make real progress in busting barriers and developing a radical vision and model(s) for Community Budgets. The first meeting of the group will be this afternoon where partners will develop a shared ambition for Community Budgets, agree the priority issues to be addressed in order for Community Budgets to be transformative and will look specifically at what a radical Community Budget might look like.

Some issues identified by Community Budget areas as needing to be tackled are already being driven forward – the group will want to follow the outcome of this work to inform its own but, equally, the group may focus its primary attention on issues that are not already, to some extent, being addressed.

Child Poverty Strategy launched this week

The Child Poverty Strategy ‘A New Approach to Child Poverty: Tackling the Causes of Disadvantage and Transforming Families’ Lives’ was launched this week and is accessible online at www.education.gov.uk/childpovertystrategy. It sets out the framework to tackling child poverty from 2011-2014 and a new approach for ending child poverty by 2020.  It encompasses a broad and comprehensive set of policies which target the drivers of poverty, such as Worklessness and incentivise action.  The strategy is founded on the understanding that poverty is about far more than income and must also build the life chances of children by increasing opportunity, supporting families and raising aspirations.

Local partners will play a vital role in taking forward this work because experiences of poverty and how you best address them will vary from area to area. The strategy reiterates the requirements of the Child Poverty Act for local authorities and partners. It sets out the actions that Government is taking to enable and empower local partnerships and local communities to go further to support the neediest families in their areas, including through the development of Community Budgets.

A short online guide highlighting the innovative work that has already taken place in local areas through the child poverty pilots has been published alongside the strategy.

‘Undercover launch of public service transformation’: Publicnet

April 1st, 2011

“Today is the starting point for a new approach to delivering public services. The uninspiring title of ‘Community Budgets’ gives no indication of the radical and far reaching changes that will follow from the pilot schemes which have gone live in 16 areas. The initiative could be described as the undercover launch of a paradigm shift in delivering public services.

The pilots will all focus on families with complex needs. The traditional approach to helping these families is for each agency, eg social services, education, housing, police, probation service, Job centres, to provide support from their own resources and to liaise with each other. The difference now is that each family will receive support from a team of people which will bring together all the appropriate skills. There will be a single pot budget made up of contributions from the main budget streams. This is the Community Budget.

The first 16 Community Budgets pilots will look to bring local agencies together to get straight to the heart of the problems facing some of the country’s most chaotic families. They expect to help at least 10,000 families by 2015.”

Read the full article.

‘Why community budgets are worth watching’: Institute for Government

‘Today marks the launch of 16 community budget pilots that promise to pool local budgets around families with complex needs. Eric Pickles has said: “My message to local areas is: don’t be afraid to think big – to be as bold and as innovative as you can. This is the future for public services.”

The issue Community Budgets is seeking to address is well documented (not least by Total Place.) Families with complex needs often depend on many different public services. But separate chains of command can mean these services are not joined-up in a way that best addresses their needs.

The result is significant cost to the taxpayer and poor quality services for the families concerned. Community Budgets aim to address this by giving local areas the freedom to pool money across budget lines and design services to reflect local needs.

Some may ask whether this is some kind of April fool. How can something as technocratic as reallocating funds across budget lines really lead to big innovations in public services?

If you can get past the management speak you may be surprised. At the very least, Community Budgets offer an opportunity to tease out some of the thorniest issues that continue to challenge the government’s decentralisation and public service reform agendas. Specifically, how can government both devolve power and join-up at the same time?’

Read the full article.

Building efficiency on a shared history

04 April 2011 Public Service

“Collaboration doesn’t happen by accident, writes Trafford Council chief executive Janet Callender who says that Greater Manchester’s history of partnership working is a strong foundation for service reform.  The 10 Greater Manchester authorities have a long and successful history of working in partnership in a relationship spanning many fields and all levels – political, strategic, tactical and operational.  We built on this strong history of collaboration in our collective response to the challenge of the local government finance settlement and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) has reviewed its improvement and efficiency agenda in the light of the debate on specific cuts in public services.

We have identified key lessons from our improvement and efficiency review that we feel are essential to successful collaborative projects:
• Collaboration doesn’t happen by accident
• Maintaining pace is essential
• Strong governance
• Realism about achievable savings
• Benefits realisation critical to evidence success
• Shared goals and objectives and a clear vision
• Consultation and engagement with key stakeholders to secure buy in”

Read the full AGMA story.

Living without the formula grant: Localis research

‘The balance of funding between central and local government is, arguably, the greatest challenge this government faces in achieving genuine decentralisation.

Central control of local finances undermines councils, creates needlessly complicated lines of accountability and produces an unnecessary and wasteful standardisation in the provision of public services.’

Localis, working with Ernst and Young, will be exploring this issue in more detail. In this pamphlet (PDF) they describe the problems with the current system and touch upon some of the potential solutions, particularly looking at the use of business rates, to ask the question: Can councils live without the formula grant?

But this pamphlet is merely the start of the discussion. They will be conducting extensive research into the questions raised by this pamphlet, and publishing a definitive report in early 2011.

Lastly, Croydon Council has responded to the challenge of coping with the toughest Town Hall financial settlement in memory by winning a top award for efficiency.  Congratulations!

Community Budgets website goes live

We’ve heard an increasing amount about Community Budgets in the press recently. As Eric Pickles introduces the next phase of work, the Community Budgets website has been launched to provide more information about what’s going on.

Visit www.localleadership.gov.uk/communitybudgets for the latest announcements, details on what the 16 places are up to and answers to your frequently asked questions.

Remember you can also follow Community Budgets on Facebook and sign up to the weekly email update by leaving us a comment or emailing nicky.debeer [at] local.gov.uk.

Weekly update 30.3.11

Weekly update 30 March 2011

Here’s the best bits from this week’s update.

Community Budgets: Proposals for First Phase Stocktake

With community budgets due to go live on Friday, David Prout, CLG Director General Localism, wrote to all 16 first phase places yesterday to invite them to share their learning gleaned from the journey so far, to help inform the scoping work for the next phase of Community Budgets.

This is intended to be a ‘stocktake’ exercise, very light touch and complementary to the wider and ongoing work of the full evaluation of Community Budgets, which is due to report in March 2013.

Over the next couple of weeks colleagues from DCLG, DfE and Local Government Leadership will be getting in touch with a selection of Chief Executives, Leaders and working level contacts from across the first phase places to undertake a short and informal telephone interviews, in which they will be probing your thoughts on three overarching questions:

1. What factors have significantly impacted on you creating your Community Budget?
2. What do you think the practical benefits will be in terms of outcomes?
3. What do you think the next steps should be for Community Budgets?

Views will also be sought from a small sample of key contacts in the government departments and their delivery partners to get a sense of how the process have gone so far from their perspective, and their thoughts on how Community Budgets should go forward in the future.  The views taken from these interviews will be anonymised and drawn together to identify the key themes and learning points.  A summary of these findings will be presented to the Community Budgets Group.

If you have any questions about this approach, or would like to offer to be interviewed, please get in touch with Linda Bullivant (linda.bullivant@communities.gsi.gov.uk or 0303 4443524).

Capita conference: delivering community-based budgets

Capita’s 3^rd national conference went ahead in London today.  The keynote speech was given by Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP.  He called for places to be bold and make the most of the freedom local communities now have to spend their own money.  He talked about trust between Whitehall and local communities and between local agencies.  Mr Pickles also talked about the tests of CBs success – more local control; partners developing local solutions, better use of resources, straight to the frontline; robust local accountability; local agreed outcomes; and being able to show obvious progress in delivering radical solutions.

Other speakers included Lucy Makinson, Director, CLG; Nick Lawrence, Deputy Director, DfE; Edward Twiddy, HMT; Katherine Kerswell, Kent CC; and Neil Matthewman, NHS Blackburn with Darwen.

Presentations will be available on the Capita website shortly www.capitaconferences.co.uk

Community Budget innovation and investment: additional funds

Community Budget areas will hear shortly which of their their proposals for additional DfE funding to test out new approaches and invest in the redesign of local services have been successful.

To help areas develop more innovative and ambitious proposals, DfE is also able to offer some additional funding to test out new approaches and invest in the redesign of local services.

Funding is not intended to replace mainstream funding for service provision, it will not be ring-fenced, there will be no separate grant application process and there is no intention to create a new funding stream.

The offer may be rolled out to all areas in future but as yet no decision has been taken. At present it is available only to the 16 CB areas. There will be two sorts of funding:

Invest to save: Additional payments can be requested in 2011-12 to help meet the ‘up front’ cost of planning and redesign of local services for families with multiple problems.

Test out new approaches: Local areas planning to test and disseminate new approaches to supporting families with multiple problems can seek contributions towards the cost of doing this within their Community Budget proposals.  Plans which build on existing evidence, address a particularly challenging aspect of provision and will be of wider interest to other areas will be prioritised.  Current “exemplar” projects include Emma Harrison’s Working Families Everywhere, www.workingfamilieseverywhere.com

Contact sean.hilditch@education.gsi.gov.uk for further information on funding opportunities.

DfE’s Family Delivery Team is now ‘Interface’

On the first of April Interface Associates a brand new social enterprise will be offering advice and support on running services for families with multiple problems.  The new organisation will include members from DfE’s Family Delivery Team which closes this month.

To get in touch with Interface visit their website at: www.interfaceassociates.co.uk or contact info@interfaceassociates.co.uk

Interface’s new Director Wendy Weal said: We were delighted to secure funding from DfE to help set up our social enterprise and excited to be able to keep supporting the approach – we have witnessed at first hand the transformations it can achieve and are looking forward to renewing contacts, working with old friends and making new ones!

Interface is currently discussing the details of its contract with DfE, but it is expected to include hands-on advice and support to family intervention services, alongside sharing good practice and helping ensure services base their intervention on the most recent insight. Although DfE’s grant will cover some of the support available local authorities will be asked to pay for anything over and above this since funding for training and service support was devolved to local areas in DfE’s Early Intervention Grant.

Budget announcement – LGA on the day briefing 23 March 2011

• Local government has recently been handed one of the toughest settlements across the public sector. Formula grant (excluding police grant) is being cut by 12 per cent next year, but cost pressures in areas such as adult social care, children’s protection, waste management, and flood defence will continue to mount.
• As a result, we estimate that local government faces a funding gap in the order of £6.5 billion in 2011-12. This gap reflects the difference between what local authorities across England would need to spend to maintain frontline services in their current form and the income they will be able to raise from grants, fees and charges, business rates and council tax.
• No further reductions in public expenditure beyond those contained within the Spending Review were announced in the Budget.
• Repairing local roads – the LGA has been lobbying for additional funding for local authorities to repair damage to local roads caused by the recent winter’s severe weather. We are very pleased that our work has been reflected in today’s Budget announcement which confirmed an additional £100m for councils to deal with road repairs. The additional money is on top of the £100m announced in February, meaning councils will have an extra £200m for road maintenance.
• Enterprise Zones – the creation of 21 Local Enterprise Zones should help promote private sector growth by stimulating businesses to locate inside them. We are pleased that government has decided that Local Enterprise Partnerships should determine their location. This will require local knowledge and careful consideration – not least because of the impact of an enterprise zone on adjacent areas, where there is a risk of displacement. The ability to retain business rate growth inside the zones over a 25 year period is a welcome source of funds to local councils in the local enterprise partnership area.
• Small Business Rate Relief – councils welcome the extension of the temporary increase in Small Business Rate Relief, announced in 2010, until October 2012.
• Planning reform – councils have no wish to block growth and development and welcome the Government’s emphasis on existing commitments to reduce national prescription and bureaucracy, including drastic reduction in the 2,500 pages or more of national planning policy.

To read the full briefing, please visit the LGA website.

Call to unite health and social care budgets: a report by the King’s Fund

The impact of funding cuts to the NHS has been widely reported and discussed, but less attention has been given to social care – and, most importantly, to the inter-relationships of health and social care.

Social care funding has increased in real terms for the past decade, but there has been considerable variation in how that funding has been spent – in part because spending on social care is handled by local councils, whose circumstances vary. The wide geographical variations in cost and performance across a number of measures – for example, emergency hospital admissions, delayed transfers – reflect different relationships between health and social care. The government has pledged to facilitate closer integration so that people can receive a more joined-up service.

Social care funding and the NHS: an impending crisis? examines trends in spending on social care, looking at three scenarios arising from the 27 per cent real reduction in the central government grant to local authorities that between 2011/12 and 2014/15, social care spending will be fully cut, will receive some protection, or receive no protection. This suggests that there could be a funding gap of £1 billion by 2014 unless councils can achieve unprecedented efficiency savings.  This would have a knock-on effect on the NHS, with cuts to frontline social care services leading to fewer people getting the help they need, causing more emergency admissions, delayed discharges and longer waiting times.

Read the full report.

North Earlham service evaluation project

The North Earlham service evaluation project focused on eight families living in a specific locality – the west neighbourhood area in Norwich. However, the issues the project addresses are typical of many families living in deprived areas. These families are often complex and will be engaged with a range of support and intervention services over a period of years.

The project was designed to:

• assess the current costs of support and intervention to a small number of identified families, including analysis of preventative and reactive spend
• identify duplication and gaps in service delivery, opportunities for leaner processes and alignment of services
• identify opportunities for earlier signposting to appropriate and preventative interventions
• understand customer insights and provide a model for improved service provision
• consider new ways of working for agencies, including community owned responses and increasing the capacity of families to look after themselves.

A small multi agency project group collectively identified families who had a high level of contact with numerous agencies. Consent was obtained from these families to share their information for the purposes of this project. As a thank you for participating in the project, the families received pantomime or cinema tickets and a seasonal hamper.

Information was obtained from the statutory and voluntary agencies providing support and intervention to those families. This information was pulled together to provide a composite picture of the family. It includes factual data, approximate costs and valuable insights from the families and the service providers. The information is presented in an anonymous format and names have been changed.

Full details on the project including the eight families.

English Indices of Deprivation 2010

The Index of Multiple Deprivation 2010 combines a number of indicators, chosen to cover a range of economic, social and housing issues, into a single deprivation score for each small area in England. This allows each area to be ranked relative to one another according to their level of deprivation. As with the 2007 and 2004 Indices, the Indices of Deprivation 2010 have been produced at Lower Super Output Area level, of which there are 32,482 in the country.

There are also six district summary scores for each Local Authority district (there are 326 districts in England). A relative ranking of areas, according to their level of deprivation is then provided. There are also supplementary Indices measuring income deprivation amongst children and older people: the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index and the Income Deprivation Affecting Older People Index.

The methodology underpinning the 2010 and the 2007 and 2004 indices are largely the same though there have been small changes to some of the underlying indicators. Comparison between the three Indices is therefore acceptable.

The Indices are used widely to analyse patterns of deprivation, identify areas that would benefit from special initiatives or programmes and as a tool to determine eligibility for specific funding streams.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/research/indicesdeprivation/deprivation10/

Hidden talents: exploiting the link between engagement of young people and the economy

This report produced by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) for LG Group, identifies opportunities for local authorities and businesses to work together for mutual benefit and illustrates how to create linkages between engagement work, economic development and business support to achieve improved outcomes for young people and employers.

Read the full report.

BWB weekly review of government websites

Reform of public bodies

The Government has published a response to a House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee report on public bodies.  If you go to their webpage, Footnote 5 has further links to:

• the Government response
• a Written Ministerial Statement by the Minister for the Cabinet Office which includes an updated list of reforms.
• a checklist to “support departments and public bodies in implementing reform”
• a summary of the new proposed approach to triennial reviews of public bodies

Families

The Government has published a Foster Carers’ Charter.

Lastly, you can test your resilience and take part in a national survey to monitor the impact of the current austerity measures on people working in local government currently being conducted by business psychologists Nicholson McBride.  The link is http://www.testyourrq.com/local (answers are strictly confidential).

Weekly update 22.03.2011

Weekly update 22 March 2011

Roundup of Community Budgets meetings and events

The Community Budgets Group chaired by Lord Bichard met last week. They discussed places’ evolving proposals; data sharing; and the ongoing work with Departments to identify and address barriers.

Leaders from the 16 places will be meeting key Ministers on 24 March to address specific obstacles to progress. Additionally, Baroness Hanham, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State, DCLG, is convening a working group of Leaders, senior officers, LG Group representatives and Ministers to make rapid progress in tackling the complex issues associated with Community Budgets.

In partnership with MiNet, Local Government Leadership last week hosted a Community Budgets event for the voluntary and community sector. Many thanks to all those who attended and helped make the day a success. We hope to hold a follow-up event to build on these encouraging beginnings.

LG Leadership also held a workshop for the Community Budgets leads and key Government departments to work together on refining places’ proposals; explore common themes and requests and plan the next stages of the Community Budgets work.

Greg Clark: attention will turn to Community Budgets

In an interview with The MJ, Mr Clark said:

“‘There’s a recognition that we need to operate in a different way. Take the local government arena, and the removal of ring-fencing: the old system was mainly a legacy of Treasury insistence that every pot of money had to be separately accounted for and minutely controlled or supervised from the centre.

‘The fact that we were able to get rid of ring-fencing…required approval from the Treasury and in fact they did it with some enthusiasm,’ he said.

Mr Clark also revealed that, with arguments over local spending cuts beginning to dissipate, attention would turn to the coalition’s ‘community budgets’ plan – involving cash pooled from a range of local public services – over the next 12 months.“

Read the full account of the interview.

Breaking the Cycle – Social Impact Bond

Addaction has secured a significant amount of funding from Zurich Community Trust to support the delivery of ‘Breaking the Cycle’ on a payment by results basis and to develop and establish a Social Impact Bond to take its ‘Breaking the Cycle’ programme forward. It is now looking for a number of willing councils to help it pilot this new model of funding. ‘Breaking the Cycle’ is an innovative, evidence-based, payment by results programme that enables councils (and their partners) to target families with multiple problems; to both change their lives for the better at the same time as generate significant cost savings. It is a proven, cost-effective intervention programme that has been independently evaluated by Bath University. The evaluation acknowledged both the impact delivered and the potential social return on investment – which is significant.

Addaction, in partnership with LG Improvement and Development, is organising an information session for interested councils to find out more about participating in the programme. This free information session for leaders and chief executives is being held on Thursday 14 April (11am to 2pm) in London (venue tbc). Places can be booked via Gloria Simon at Addaction on 0207 017 2721.

The Big Lottery Fund – Improving Futures funding

Following extensive consultation with public and voluntary sector organisations, [the Big Lottery Fund] have decided to fund partnerships that can offer joined-up support and provision for families with multiple and complex problems at a local level. Interested parties need to be aware of the following:

• Partnerships must be led by voluntary sector organisations, but will need to be supported by or include local authorities in Wales and England, Community Planning Partnerships in Scotland, and Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland
• Because every family is different, partnerships will need to be able to draw on a broad range of expertise and services to meet their needs, including setting out to help those families considered ‘hardest to reach’.
• We have limited funding to support up to 20 partnerships across the UK, and no more than one expression of interest should be made per local authority area.

More information can be found at the Big Lottery Fund’s website.

Budget Guide

Ahead of the 2011 Budget Statement tomorrow, Wednesday 23 March, HM Treasury has made a Guide to the Budget available online. This includes overviews of each area’s economic climate; the key themes of the Budget; a glossary of terms and details of how to get the latest information on the day.

Explore the website.

Smaller Government: Bigger Society?

The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has launched an inquiry into the Government’s Big Society policy.

Bernard Jenkin MP, the Chair of PASC, said:

“Everyone seems to agree that empowering communities, opening up public services and encouraging social action are good things, but what does this mean that government and local government should be doing? This is a huge challenge against the background of sharp reductions in state spending and state support for the voluntary sector.”

“The Prime Minister’s project has faced a barrage of criticism in recent weeks. We will be looking to separate the inevitable hostility to spending cuts from the positive elements of the Big Society policy.”

“We will draw on the public debate and take fresh evidence to try to identify actions which the government can take to promote the Big Society. This is potentially a huge culture change for government and how it goes about the business of government. I don’t believe that the Whitehall machine or the Civil Service has really started to understand the implications of the change which is required.”

A call for written submissions is in process, and full details are set out in the issues and questions paper.

LGiU on the Big Society Bank

Robert Dale at the Local Government Information Unit has written a short briefing on the role of the Big Society Bank:

“The role of social ventures is radically expanding in British society in a way that encourages a capacity for financial self-sufficiency. To achieve this, it needs to be easier for these organisations to access the capital and advice they need. Government initiatives to open up public services should drive demand for social ventures. The government commitment to create incentives for prime contractors to invest in their sub-contractors is cited in the strategy. However, the most important role will be played by the ‘Big Society Bank’.”

The post has been updated this week with a written Ministerial Statement from the Cabinet Office on the next steps for the Bank. The full post is available online.

And finally, two games to keep you on your toes! Test your driving skills with Essex County Council’s Drive Essex and get ready for 27 March with Census Man.