What can we learn from the Community Budget pilots?

Paul GallagherInclusion

Tom HardingWestminsterCity Council

Introductions Paul Gallagher

Associate Director, Inclusion

Tom HardingSenior Policy Adviser , Westminster City Council

Overview of Session• Background to Community Budgets– What are Community Budgets?– Importance of Community Budgets?

• Community delivery– Community Budgets in practice– The Westminster experience– Challenges to Community Budgeting

• Future-gazing – where next?– Discussion and Conclusions– Policy and delivery implications for the future

Government Perspective – Part 1

‘We can no longer afford the luxury of fruitless, uncoordinated investment. The damaged lives and communities. So don't dither or fret. Um and ah. Don't pass the buck. This is it....Think of this as a race to deliver by 2015. If you motor along then we'll play catch up. But if we get there first - you'll find yourselves behind the agenda. And I'm sorry about people who tell me they've already got a programme that deals with this. Well, if it was all dealt with we wouldn't be here. One or two projects along the right lines isn't nearly enough to solve this problem. So be in no doubt - we are in a hurry, we mean to deliver. You don't need to talk about it or show empathy. I want you to get on with it’.

Eric Pickles Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

October 2011

Background to Community Budgets

What are Community Budgets? Less ring fencing and direction over budgets Localisation and redefining service delivery Pooling and aligning of budgets of local partners Targeting Families With Multiple Problems

(FWMP), ‘rocket boosted’ since August 2011 Builds on LAA’s, Total Place, co-design pilots,

Family Intervention Projects etc

Community Budgets in Numbers

£8bn estimated spend on FWMP – ‘welfare millionaires’

120,000 FWMP in England16 Pilot areas covering 28 Local

Authorities – 25% of English population 10,000 families supported by end of

this parliament

Numbers in ContextCost per family between £150,000 -

£330,0003.88m households where no-one is in

workHouseholds where no-one has work

= 297,000Children living in households where

no-one has worked = 330,000

Background to Community Budgets

Importance of Community Budgets?- Key initiative for the coalition to manage reduced

budgets and deliver more effective public services- Step change in the way that services are

commissioned and funded – route for delivering on localism and devolution

- Testing ground for Payment By Results (PBR)- Repositions policy to consider models of non-

traditional family- New approaches – prevention, early intervention,

outcomes

Community deliveryOver view of the 16 Pilots:– Variance in approaches and progress– Key workers/lead agency– ‘Shared pot’ – pooled or aligned budgets?– ‘Whole systems’ not ‘individual services’– FWMP loosely defined – drug & alcohol,

reducing recidivism, early years intervention etc

Government Perspective – Part 2• December 2011 – Focus on ‘troubled families’

• £9 billion spent on 120,000 most troubled families (England)

• £448 million announced in Dec 2011 via Troubled Families Unit for next three years. Has to be match-funded (40/60) and follow a Payment by Results model

• Key measure – linked to DWP ESF support - getting parents onto a work programme, to stop them committing crime and ‘that they stop being such high cost to the taxpayer’.

• The Government will also fund a national network of troubled family 'trouble-shooters' in each area to oversee the programme of action.

View from Westminster Piloting community budget

programme for troubled families

Nationally recognised Family Recovery Programme

Pooling v DWP’s Framework

 Glut of recent commissioning has created a blossoming flower of employment support provision

Key issues1. We need evidence that the Work

Programme is serving the most troubled families and that ESF will.

2. Reconciling the troubled families ‘market’ - The buyers & commisisoners - Their offers and price- The suppliers and relationships

Hurdles for Community Budgeting

Scale of transformation - Longevity of approach?

Change in working/professional cultures Consistency – local/national Bureaucracy and complexity of ‘government’ New actors and approaches Data sharing Simple analysis; simply solutions Is the challenge only about FWMP?

Discussion and Questions

Conclusions

Future-gazing – where next?

Policy and delivery implications for the future– Need for consistency over what is trying

to be addressed – size of challenge– Need to be more ambitious and to move

at a faster pace– From intervention to saving to re-

thinking service provision

Future-gazing – where next?

Policy and delivery implications for the future– Best practice and models that work– Removal of barriers– Evaluation – understanding what works,

but more importantly why– Data sharing

Contact DetailsPaul GallagherAssociateInclusion

Paul.gallagher@cesi.org.uk

M: 07976 081003

Tom HardingSenior Policy AdviserWestminster City Council

tharding@westminster.gov.uk

T: 020 7641 2244