Children’s Wellbeing:

The Future in

Herefordshire

WELCOME

Councillor Jeremy Millar

Cabinet Member Children’s Wellbeing

• Opportunity to network and talk to others here today

• Commissioners and support services in the room

• Slides will be available on council website • Please provide feedback

Introduction

• Protecting children and young people and give them a great start in life

• Enable residents to live safe, healthy and independent lives

• Invest in projects to improve roads, create jobs and build more homes

Council Priorities

• Council faces unprecedented cuts in government grants

• £33m savings over next 3 years• £34m savings already made since 2011/12• Budget consultation currently live – we want to

hear your views

Financial context

• Encourage individuals, communities and organisations to do more for themselves and their local area

• Radically reduce the costs, breadth and level of services that the council provide

• Ensure the services that we do provide are cost effective

To meet our priorities we need to

• Start of conversations about what the council will and won’t do in future – and what you can do

• Highlight commissioning activity over next 2 years

• Achieve better value for money• Accelerate personalisation• Market Development

Today’s event

Children’s Wellbeing: Priorities & PrinciplesJo Davidson

Director of Children’s Wellbeing

Our mission

Protecting children and giving them a great start in life

Children and young people are at the core of the council as our future in Herefordshire

• Safeguarding services are judged good by 2016

• Education and health outcomes in top quartile by 2016

• Significant spend is moved from highly specialised safeguarding and complex needs models to more cost effective family and community based models

Our three priorities

Council’s role

• Advocate for children

• Protecting the most vulnerable

• Securing good educational outcomes

• Strategic planner enabling access

Financial Context for Children’s Wellbeing

• Already reduced council budget by £3.5m since 2011/12

• A 20% reduction in spend is needed over the next three years - £4.9m

• £2.5m of this to be realised in 2014/15

BUT – there are other sources of funding available for services in Herefordshire

Financial Context for Children’s Wellbeing

Council focus is on:

• Quality and impact of safeguarding services• Improving educational outcomes for vulnerable

children• Reducing numbers of young people not in

education, employment or training (NEETs)• Children and young people with disabilities &

special educational needs (SEN)• Children who are in care/leaving care

We need to solve problems together

• Our financial position means the council can only work with the most vulnerable children

• Use the strengths and assets families and communities have – because they are the ones who bring up children and protect them

• Use the strengths and assets early years providers, education and training providers, businesses and the voluntary sector have

Future options: doing things differently

Chris Baird

Assistant Director of Children’s Wellbeing

How to do things differently• Managing demand and resource

– Better information, advice and guidance - so people can help themselves

– Sector led improvement – sector helps themselves– Proactive use of data and intelligence to target

resource - focused on need– Council focussing on targeted and specialised

services - others will provide universal services– Focus on self-reliance, personalisation, choice and

control

How to do things differently• Reshaping services to address needs, quality,

national agenda and reduce cost– Children’s Centres– Safeguarding and early help– New service models for meeting the needs of Looked

After Children and those with complex needs– Renegotiating contracts– Move to payment by results– Joining with other partners to reduce cost and

increase resilience, specialisms and quality

How to do things differently• Maximising income sources

– Benefits and grants take up– Commercial and charitable models

opportunities for others– Social impact bonds/sponsorship– Charging

Commissioning

The Council’s vision is to be an “innovative, agile commissioning organisation that secures better outcomes by commissioning the right services from the right provider, at the right time and at the right price.”

Commissioning is the strategic planning process to decide how to use and prioritise the total resources available to deliver better outcomes in the most efficient, effective, equitable and sustainable way.

Commissioning Intentions 2013-15Implementation of the Children and Families Bill:

– joint commissioning arrangements

– single education, health and care plan

– personal budgets

Mental Health Services:

– Therapeutic services to prevent residential placements

– Support local Looked After Children (LAC) and Special Educational Needs (SEN) arrangements

Commissioning Intentions 2013-15Disability Strategy:

– Short breaks

– Integrated service models i.e. 0-25 year olds service for children and young people with disabilities, including paediatric therapies

Systems to ensure appropriate funding for LAC placements from other Local Authority areas

Healthy Child Programme

Commissioning Intentions 2013-15Getting to Good – safeguarding:

– Effective services that meet needs, reduce demand at different thresholds of need e.g.

– Early help

– Support for foster carers

– Therapeutic support

– Support for the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub

Commissioning Plan 2013-15Plan for Universal Needs (typically developing children)

What we will be commissioning:

Healthy Child Programme 0-5 years including health visitors and children’s centres

Healthy Child Programme 5-19 years

What we want to develop with others to provide:

Wide range of universal services that offer choice and support for families

Information and advice for families

Commissioning Plan 2013-15Plan for Children with Additional Needs

What we will be commissioning:

Short breaks and respite care services for children with disabilities

Integrated Equipment Store (jointly with adults services)

Mental health services

Services that support “troubled families”

Services to address alcohol and substance misuse

What we want to develop with others to provide:

Wide range of universal services that offer choice and support for families who have a personal budget / direct payment

Family support services

Commissioning Plan 2013-15Plan for Children with Complex Needs

What we will be commissioning:

Locally based specialist services for more challenging looked after children and children with complex needs;

Targeted support for children who are “open” to social care

What we want to develop with others to provide:

Local arrangements with regional and local partners to provide specialist services

Commissioning principles• Commissioning for outcomes, rather than commissioning of services

• Involvement of children, young people and families

• Work in collaboration with residents, service users, volunteers and voluntary groups, community bodies, businesses and other partners to help people be more self-reliant, devolve services and build stronger communities

• Ensure safeguarding and quality is prioritised

• Provide flexible services allowing choice and control

• Support local delivery, diversity of suppliers, partnership and consortium approaches and support the local economy where we can

• Ensure commissioning decisions are based on evidence of local need, best practice and innovation, effective services that provide value for money

• Utilise flexible contracting approaches with proportionate tendering exercises

Market DevelopmentChallenges:•Recent procurement exercises show lack of responsiveness•Breadth of services not available•Need to accelerate options of personal budgets for families•Communities doing more as Council funds less

Business opportunitiesWill be advertised on Council’s e-tendering portal

General commissioning and procurement advice available on:

www.herefordshire.gov.uk/commissioning-and-procurement-doing-business-with-the-council

Short Breaks and Respite Services: How we did it and what we learnt

Bridget Cameron, Lead Commissioner

Maria Munday, Parent

Julian Reeves, HVOSS

Background Children with disabilities review 2011•Services did not meet the needs of the children, young people and their families•Services did not offer choice•Services did not offer flexibility•There was only one overnight option

Short breaks/respite care provision•Grants model – where organisations submit ideas for a project or service rather than tender focusing on outcomes.•Contracts were for multiple aspects of service delivery e.g. buddying and playschemes

Historic service delivery model• Commissioners - specify what the services will look like, work with

service specialists and service users to assess need, procure them and then monitor the services using targets

• Providers – are allocated service users, ration resources and deliver services to recipients

• Service users and communities - are defined by what they lack and receive care based on how needy they are perceived to be

Co-production model• Commissioners, providers and service users have a

role in:– assessing needs, – mapping the current service and its assets, – agreeing outcome targets, – planning allocation of resources, designing services,

and – monitoring and evaluating impact

• Professional and experiential knowledge are valued and combined

Co-production model

Commissioner

Provider Service user

Existing model

Co-production modelCo-

production model

Commissioner

ProviderService

user

What we learnedInvolving parents and carers throughout the process•Service users designing the outcomes produces a closer match between the service itself and the needs of those who use the service•Having parents and carers on the panel brings a real insight into the service from the service user perspective•Service users understand the legal requirements and restrictions which apply to the commissioning process

What we learnedSocial Value Act

Having a question focusing on social value causes confusion to many providers.•Social value•Social capital•Added value•Value for money•Social return on investment

Were we successful?• Award a number of contracts as a result of the process.• We will be able to offer more choice for our children and

their families.

The process• Outcomes-based contracts can be designed effectively

with the service users.• Co-production models can better meet the needs of

service user.• More support needs to be offered to providers around

social value.

Julian ReevesPolicy and Support Services ManagerHereford Voluntary Organisations Support Service (HVOSS)01432 343932julian.reeves@hvoss.org.uk

The Tender Panel

ConsensusAnonymisedNo Prior KnowledgeModeratedScoring 0 Inadequate

1 Limited 3 Acceptable 5 Superior

Key Points

Make the word count countRTQ/ATQWhat difference does it make?Evidence-evidence-evidenceNon-transferableAnother pair of eyes

Maria MundayParent Carer

Why did I get involved?

Future tenders•Commissioners•Providers

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

Speed Dating and Networking• Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group• HVOSS – third sector support service (including funding

information)• Healthwatch Herefordshire• Social Enterprise West Midlands• Council reps:

– children’s wellbeing– public health– economic development– communications and social media - join our Facebook page!

Please give feedback• Use the notice boards available in the room• Feedback on the budget consultation• Evaluation questionnaire will go out shortly – please respond• Future events ideas:

– How to tender events– Sustainability and business models– Personalisation– Feedback on budget consultation results

• Please let us know your ideas too

Date for your diary - 10January 2014

Thank you for coming