EALING LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP REVIEW
Initial Draft Report - v0.2
July 2010
CONTENTS
1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction
3. Setting the scene: the local context
4. Setting the scene: national context a. statutory requirements b. national policy change
5. Research findings: Best practice from other areas
6. Research findings: Stakeholder interviews
7. Conclusions and recommendations
8. Implementation planning
Appendices
Ann Griffiths July 2010 With research and analysis support from Tristan Hardman-Dodd and Emily Inman
1 Executive Summary
Overview
Ealing’s LSP is an ambitious partnership comprising the key public and voluntary sector organisations working together with an aim from all partners to deliver effective public services to improve outcomes for local people.
In January 2010 the LSP Executive agreed to conduct a review of the partnership and how it can best respond to the challenges that face us, ensuring that the partnership works as best as possible to deliver what Ealing’s residents want and need.
This review has found that there is genuine buy-in and support for the LSP and recognition of its value in bringing people together to share ideas and information.
However, at the same time partners recognise that there is considerable scope to improve it and ensure it delivers results that make a real impact on local lives. Partners wish to move the LSP clearly from its present position of some value in sharing information and encouraging discussion, to a much stronger one of delivering clear outcomes and success at meeting local priorities.
There is also a strong belief that the partnership has real potential to help local organisations work together to respond to the financial challenges of coming years and deliver value for money.
In order to do this the LSP must be focused on a small number of core priorities, and use its resources in targetted project work that genuinely brings partners together to jointly solve problems and deliver effective and efficient activities, minimising the use of any standing boards which conduct only theoretical or discussion-based work.
This report sets out a series of recommendations for the future direction of the LSP to achieve these opportunities and position future partnership working in the best possible place to respond to the challenges all local organisations will face in the coming years.
Review Findings: National and local context
Secondary research into factors affecting local partnerships and good practice in other areas identifies a number of potential impacts of the changing national context for local partnerships.
We conclude from our research that the change in national government, while not yet fully worked through or predictable in the detail of its impacts, may create some additional freedoms which could enable development of partnership working locally,
2 including the scope to develop more localised performance management systems, or developing new ways of delivering services alongside local people.
However, it will also create significant challenges in relation to responding to changes in the roles of partners in education and health particularly, the success of which can be supported by an effective LSP drawing partners together to provide joint solutions. The anticipated cuts in public service budgets will increase the need to work together to deliver unprecedented savings over the coming years.
Locally, we know that the demand for services is ever increasing, our population is growing, and that the number of dependents within that population is also growing. Capacity and resources within organisations at the same time is shrinking, and ever- increasingly needing to be focussed on core, priority activities. The need for an effective understanding of what local people want, and effective working together to achieve this, has never been greater.
The partnership must be a body which can facilitate achievement of this, rather than add a drain on resources or maintain bureaucracy that fails to deliver value for money for anyone involved.
We suggest that a move towards action focussed task groups will ensure that the chance of value for money in the work of the partnership is increased.
A specific focus of one of these projects on how we can improve efficiency through partnership working will help all partners to deliver the savings they need in coming years. Other projects focussing on key priorities would help target resources at the core areas of importance where most value can be added.
Review Findings: Views of partners
A series of structured interviews and engagement with key partners has sought to capture the views of a wide range of different organisations operating to different degrees and at different levels in the current LSP. Several strong key themes emerged from these interviews.
Partners involved in the LSP generally agreed that Ealing’s partnership working should be about the following key principles in the future: Focus on core issues and priorities on which all partners can make a difference Responding to core drivers of change affecting local organisations – not least the unprecedented financial challenges Action and direction informed by residents needs and priorities Outcomes on the ground to improve lives and reduce inequality Work to enable and empower local people and communities Ensure local members are at the heart – participatory and representative democracy working together, ensuring accountability Local solutions to local issues – no ‘one-size-fits-all’
3 On the whole partners were positive about the overall value of the LSP as a concept, commenting on its working well to: o Build relationships between partners o Bring people together to share ideas and info, and learn from others o Achieve capacity building and give all representatives ‘a voice’
However, almost unanimously partners felt that there were significant areas for improvement in relation to the principles of future working.
Many partners were not clear about the role, purpose, vision and ambition of the LSP. Even those partners who felt that current structures worked well recognised a need to consider their relative value for money in the increasingly tight financial climate, and that the current structures and operation would not necessarily be the best way to facilitate more efficient and effective partnership outcomes in the future.
Other key features of the areas for development included: o Deliver joint actions and outcomes - not just documents and meetings o Ensure clarity over accountability and decision making – who does what, where? o Ensure equitable input and opportunities to contribute o For some - clarity over the ‘offer’ each partner brought to the table
When asked to consider the future opportunities to develop in these areas and to ensure the future LSP offered true outcomes and value for money, partners identified a range of key opportunities, including: o Partners bring considerable assets, resources and skills – refocus, streamline and prioritise o Opportunities for joint work on efficiency, reducing duplication and bureaucracy o Encourage individual and collective responsibility
The review has taken the range of research findings and developed recommendations to ensure we can achieve the future partnership that helps deliver the high quality services local people deserve.
Summary Recommendations
The recommendations of this review are intended to ensure that future partnerships in operate with a primary focus on delivering improvement for local residents and service users, and efficiency in public services locally.
Focus on priorities
This report recommends that the LSP for Ealing should be a largely action-focussed partnership, with a focus on a maximum of three to four key priorities in any given year.
4 Based on key areas of concern raised in discussion with partners, key areas of concern for local people, genuinely cross-cutting areas where all partners can contribute effectively, and a political steer, we propose that in the first year of its operation the priorities should be:
o Crime o Worklessness, skills and poverty (including responding to the need to maintain a strong local economy) o Health and social care (including ensuring we can respond effectively to changes in the national and local governance and structure for healthcare)
With a particular focus throughout on the needs and opportunities for young people, (including consideration of the context all partners should play in delivering outcomes for young people following the likely changes in how schools are run locally.)
Underpinning these priorities should be the fundamental principles of empowerment and equality, including seeking to increase the role of volunteering and using the goodwill of local people in co-producing and delivering services, and rising to the challenges of the ‘big society’ agenda.
We also believe that the LSP has a considerable and fundamental role to play in facilitating delivery of value for money and efficiency across partners, and that a key piece of work for the partnership over coming year should be to develop a ‘Total Place’ approach-based project considering the potential for cross-partner work to generate the savings that all local organisations will need to find in the current financial climate.
We believe there is considerable potential for partners working together to investigate opportunities for shared services, rationalising assets and resources, joint procurement, collocation, and ensuring that the best possible use is made of the resources and goodwill of our communities, in shaping and delivering effective services.
Future working arrangements: Leadership Board
We propose that the LSP Executive should be recast as a Leadership Board consisting key players who provide an overall steer on the work of the partnership, sign off project proposals to meet the key priorities, including key objectives that the projects are aiming to meet in order to deliver outcomes and improvements in these areas, and consider the progress of these projects. They will also retain a strategic overview of decisions taken by partner organisations which will impact on other local service deliverers.
Future Working Arrangements: New Project Groups
We then propose that each year, a series of priority projects delivered by groups of partners should be established to add value on areas where work may be already occurring, but where additional working together could solve problems, reduce duplication, facilitate greater capacity, or enable new ideas and activities to be developed.
5 Proposals for such projects would be developed through a reasonable formal project management system, bringing together representatives from different partners to ensure that the work is genuinely cross-cutting and value adding.
Future Working Arrangements: Coordination of Projects
In order to manage and monitor the development of such projects, we propose the establishment of an action-focussed Delivery Management Group (DMG) consisting the project managers of the key projects in any one year, plus key individuals involved in performance development in different organisations.
This group would unblock issues, facilitate sharing of information across projects, offer peer challenge and monitor the overall development of projects, in order to report coherently to the Leadership Board on progress.
We propose that this group should so take a lead on equalities for the partnership’s work, increasing the primacy of consideration of equalities issues in the partnership and ensuring that the work of partners is focussed on reducing inequality wherever possible.
This group should also lead on performance management of the work of the LSP, which will, in the first instance, be through monitoring the project objectives set. Performance management of wider partners will need to be developed as a longer term programme of work, building on LAA targets and other local targets to focus on delivering agreed priority targets that reflect local needs in the coming years, and considering the opportunities to increasingly work together to monitor, analyse and target performance improvements.
Future Working Arrangements: Standing boards
We propose that the future partnership beyond these groups and the project groups should begin from an assumption that there are no other standing boards beyond those which are statutory. On the whole, partners felt that the current focus of standing boards meant that while they often added value in terms of information sharing, or in some cases, providing an opportunity for service users to feed in, we suggest that such roles do not offer value for money as the sole focus of work in the formal partnership arrangements we wish to achieve in the future.
However, recognising that some partners feel there is value in some of the existing boards, should other partnership groups and boards wish to exist, there will be no reason for this not to occur, particularly at the third tier level where boards are designed to meet specific local or service-related needs.
However, in feeding into the formal LSP arrangements they will be expected to produce outcomes that meet the LSP’s priorities, and have an agreed work programme that clearly demonstrates achievement of these goals. It may be appropriate for some current
6 boards to reframe themselves in light of the future focus of the LSP, contributing to the overall priorities, in which case these would be considered as part of the overall arrangements.
Statutory boards will clearly remain to some extent shaped by their legislative requirements and roles, but will continue to be able to feed into the partnership through reporting to the leadership board, and involvement in the delivery management group, which should include representatives from any other standing boards to ensure a cross- over. The programme management function fulfilled by this DMG should also enable maximum sharing of information and avoid duplication as far as possible, by keeping a high level oversight of the work occurring across the partnership.
Maintaining the role filled by existing standing boards
In order to maintain the value of having pools of local partners on whom to draw for input into strategies and information sharing, we will maintain a series of contact lists to be used as networks by partners wherever they wish to distribute information to groups of partners interested in any given topic, and provide a pool of interested parties for contact and meetings to be convened in the event of an item requiring an outcomes- focussed discussion by representatives across partners.
Partnership Support and Administration
Future support for the partnership at a strategic and programme management level will continue to be provided by Ealing Council’s P&P team, contributing to overall work to drive improvements and efficiency in local service delivery by supporting the Leadership Board, DMG and work of value for money.
However, we believe that as partnership, the administrative and resourcing requirements for support of the LSP should be shared across partners. In light of this, if any partners wish to maintain boards which are not active projects in the future, the resource for these will have to come from the respective lead organisations or service involved in delivery of these service areas. We would also expect that projects would be led by, and project teams consist in, key representatives from across the partnership as most appropriate to the issues under consideration.
We believe that this future model for the partnership will enable the focus of resources across partners to target issues of core priority, delivering actions and resulting in tangible outcomes for local people, and ensuring the partnership is best placed to deliver value for money in the coming years.
The detail of these recommendations, additional considerations around additional areas such as governance, performance management, and empowerment, is set out at the end of this report in chapter 7.
7 Introduction
In January 2010 Ealing’s Local Strategic Partnership agreed to conduct a review based on ensuring that future partnerships in the Borough would be able to effectively respond to the following challenges and needs:
o economic challenges o performance and efficiency o focus on residents’ priorities and needs o community empowerment o resident satisfaction and confidence in public services o delivery of responsive services in the community o effective joint working and reduced duplication o enhanced democratic accountability o opportunities to respond to changes in national policy o tackling cross-cutting issues - particularly inequality and disadvantage
This report summarises the findings of this review of Ealing’s Local Strategic Partnership between January and the end of June 2010. It outlines the information gathered through secondary research and sets out key messages and suggestions from stakeholder discussions, providing an overview of the themes and ideas emerging. It then proposes a way forward for the partnership, setting out a series of recommendations for the future of Ealing’s partnership working.
Based on initial discussions and steer from key stakeholders, the review focussed around an hypothesis that a particular focus should be given to the opportunity to move towards a more project based approach for the working of the LSP, enabling the partnership to be more action-focussed around specific interventions and work that will directly deliver to meet community needs. This would reflect a wider move amongst partners to develop clear evidence-based and solutions-focussed approaches to all work.
This report will form the basis of ongoing discussions and debate by LSP Executive, the LSP Review Steering Group, and other leading politicians and officers, to agree the way forward for partnership working in Ealing and deliver this in practice.
It is intended that implementation of the practical aspects of the future direction will be achieved by the end of 2010, with ongoing improvements to the detail of activities in 2011.
8 Methodology
This project was commissioned to help Ealing’s LSP deliver an increasingly effective and efficient role in the context of changing priorities and challenges nationally and locally.
The initial PID for the project, which set out the initial expectations of the project, is attached as Appendix 1 to this report. Inevitably there has been some variation in focus as the work has developed and as the steer from key stakeholders has informed next steps.
In preparing this report, the key source of information has been from interviews and meetings with a range of stakeholders consulted through this work. These include:
a. The political leadership of the Council – Leader and Cabinet b. The Chief Executive and Executive Directors of the Council c. All participants in the LSP Executive, including the Borough Commander, PCT Chief Executive, and Chief Executive of ECVS/ECN d. Representatives from second and third tiers of the LSP, from a range of partners e. Staff involved in supporting the LSP’s activity f. External contacts in other Councils and the DCLG
A full list of the stakeholders consulted can be found at Appendix 2.
In addition to this primary research, a series of secondary research exercises has been undertaken, including a review of relevant publications and past work on LSPs, analysis of the changing national policy context in regard to its potential impact on partnerships, and a study of best practice in other areas. The review also aims to make use of the good practice already present in Ealing and to build on the strengths of our existing work.
We are very grateful for the time and thought given to our enquiries by the wide range of people consulted in the preparation of this report. The findings reported here do not identify those individuals whose ideas we have gathered, to ensure that they had freedom to let us know what their views are, but rather focus on the key messages and themes emerging from the research.
The LSP now has the opportunity to consider the findings in the report and determine how best it wishes to implement the proposals and recommendations.
9 Setting the Scene: Local Context
Establishment of the LSP
Ealing’s LSP, the ‘Partnership for Ealing,’ was formed in January 2002. It aimed to bring together local statutory organisations including the Council, Police, Hospital and NHS Ealing, to work alongside the voluntary sector, business and community groups.
It set out with a purpose to identify and understand the major challenges for Ealing in the medium and long-term, and to make sure that these are tackled in partnership, with a particular aim to: o Set a shared vision for the borough through the Sustainable Community Strategy and Local Area Agreement o Co-ordinate service delivery to ensure agreed goals and targets are achieved o Improve quality of life for Ealing residents
Its successes in achieving these aims has been somewhat mixed. The LSP has overseen considerable achievements, including the development of a focussed Sustainable Community Strategy and Local Area Agreement, good performance on many LAA targets, improvements in community cohesion indicators (just under 90% of residents feel the area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together);, and strong engagement with VCS, with investment in capacity building through Neighbourhood Renewal and Migration Impact Funding, sponsored and delivered through the LSP.
At the same time however, partners have noted and feel that the LSP has failed to make any significant, quantifiable impact above and beyond the work that partners would have achieved anyway. While considerable value is seen in the relationship building role of the LSP, partners have been concerned for some time that the partnership is not fully effective in delivering results for local people, and interest levels have been waning, with attendance at boards reducing significantly and the discussions at boards focussing largely on discussions and sign off of documents, rather than joint problem solving or action.
Current structure of Ealing LSP The partnership underwent a significant reconfiguration 2005, resulting in the outline structure of the LSP which has operated up to the initiation of this review. The structures of the LSP, as it operated 2005 – 2010 can be found at Appendix 3. Current Terms of Reference and membership of boards as they existed at the outset of this review are also available for consideration separately to this report document as required.
At the outset of this Review, the LSP Executive Board has responsibility for leadership of the LSP and the boards operating within the wider partnership structure. It met every 6-8
10 weeks and was intended to oversee delivery of the Sustainable Community Strategy and Local Area Agreement. In recent years it has made recommendations to the Council’s Cabinet around the allocation of Area Based Grant. It has been perceived as becoming increasingly Council dominated, with agendas often focussing on key strategy and performance developments in which the Council has been involved.
We suggest this may be reflective of the fact that the support for the LSP has come from within Ealing Council, and the relative lack of engagement of other partners at significant a level to wish to input into and control aspects of the agenda.
Seven thematic partnership boards have operated at the level beneath the LSP Executive, based on the themes of the Community Strategy, and responsible for performance on LAA targets in those areas. These began by meeting on a quarterly basis, though in recent years some of these boards have developed into much wider partnerships meeting more frequently, and others have ceased to meet at all. At the time of writing this report the only second tier boards still functioning are the Health and Wellbeing, Children’s Trust, Safer Ealing, and to some extent, Stronger Communities. The ceasing of other boards has created no discernable difficulty or concern amongst the partners who were previously involved in these.
At the third tier, operations continue in many areas outside of the formal LSP support structures, which we suggest represents a need for these boards as groups of partners coming together to discuss issues which do not necessarily need to feed formally into the work of the partnership’s leadership, except on issues of very specific priority concern.
Management and support arrangements The LSP Executive and the thematic partnerships have historically been managed and supported by the Council's Policy and Performance (P&P) team, originally including a small team focussed on strategic partnership support, an explicit capacity which no longer exists.
Support to the partnership has included performance and project management, agenda management and coordination of the majority of arrangements for meetings, reviews of partnership membership and effectiveness, facilitating meetings and awaydays, helping to co-ordinate bids for external funding, management of externally funded programmes (e.g. NRF; WNF; MIF), managing partnership discussions around allocation resources such as Area Based Grant, and leading design and development of partnership plans and strategies, including Sustainable Community Strategy, Local Area Agreement, and lower level plans.
The cost of this support over the previous years has been roughly calculated and details of the estimated costs of maintaining the LSP in any given financial year are available for consideration as required.
11 We suggest that in the future, to ensure value for money in resourcing arrangements, partnership support should be sourced from a range of partners working together to deliver an effective partnership, though note that Ealing Council’s P&P team is well placed to provide an overarching strategic programme management function and to support work on efficiency and effectiveness on behalf of the Council as lead organisation.
Local context: challenges and opportunities
Ealing’s LSP operates in a context of needing to serve the specific needs, concerns and priorities of local people, and ensure that partners are working together to deliver the services that local people need as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Organisations that serve the Ealing population need to take into account the challenges and opportunities of the diversity of the borough, with its mixture of town centres, suburban areas, and open space, its diverse ethnicity, its multiple cultures and its relative prosperity – but with areas of real disadvantage and inequality.
The LSP must operate in a way that helps organisations rise to the challenges of the nature of Ealing as a Borough, and leverage its considerable strengths, also looking forward to meet the challenges of the growing and transient population, with large numbers of older and young people, and the key challenges to the local economy over the coming years as budget reductions cut across all organisations and affect the local workforce. Throughout these challenges it must work to do its utmost to help partners to secure jobs and support public services across the borough. At its heart it should he the core aim of reducing inequality for local people and communities, as set out in our Sustainable Community Strategy.
At the same time it should seek to facilitate effectiveness in the work of local organisations to rise to the ongoing challenges of ensuring sustainability, regenerating our towns, providing local people with access to and decent homes, and responding effectively to transport challenges and developments such as Crossrail.
Perhaps most importantly however, the partnership must play a central part in enabling all partners to respond effectively to those concerns which cannot be tackled by one or two partners alone – issues which rank highly for local people, such as crime and anti-social behaviour.
In an environment where all local partners must be looking towards change and improvement, and reviewing ways to make themselves substantially more efficient, as budgets are cut and the financial climate becomes increasingly tough, the LSP must rise to a challenge of supporting and adding value to this.
It can and should play a key role in avoiding “cost shunting” between partners, facilitating strategic and effective forward planning and efficiency work, and working to its best ability to reduce the need for organisations to adopt “salami slicing” approaches or
12 cost cutting that are not part of a wider strategic vision for the long term. For example, it should seek to play an active role in facilitating the joint working of the PCT and Council in responding to the need to ensure health and social care are truly integrated in working effectively together to respond to the associated needs of so many vulnerable people in our communities.
In responding to these local needs and the context in which it operates, the LSP should also seek to consider and respond to a further development which is likely to continue to develop at an ever-increasing pace, regardless of the constraints on finances. Expectations of residents as users of public services and ‘customers’ to our organisations has increased in recent years, at a pace faster than corresponding perception of improvements. Many local service providers are left in a position of largely continuously increasing performance yet challenging progress on perceptions of satisfaction.
The increase in use of the web and other technological developments, the availability of comparisons in other boroughs and other organisations, and the increasing expectation of personalised service, creates a rapidly developing context in which we must work. The LSP must play a role in facilitating the fast, joined-up, high quality and tailored services that are necessary to respond to these expectations.
We know that local people are on the whole satisfied with their local area, with 83% of respondents in the most recent Residents’ Survey1 expressing satisfaction. Satisfaction with key agencies is also relatively high – the Council rating currently at 70%, and satisfaction with local policing as measured by this survey increased 9% since last year, now at 62%.
42% of local residents feel they can influence local decisions, comparing favourably to national averages around 30%, and 89% feel that people from different ethnic backgrounds get on well together, a positive sign to see.
However, these figures do leave significant scope for improvement which the LSP should see itself as key to achieving. The 58% of residents who do not feel they can influence decisions locally gives us scope for empowering these people – or at least enabling them to feel they have an opportunity to contribute, even if not actively pursued. Satisfaction levels in the 60-70% range give scope for increasing scores by ensuring that the best possible services are delivered to people in the way they want and need and as efficiently as possible.
Partners show a lot of evidence of doing their utmost to improve and engage local people; further improvements should be seen as residing in the scope for better working together to give residents and service users more of what they need and want, more effectively, more coherently, and more efficiently.
In the coming years with unprecedented financial pressures alongside the rising social and demographic challenges, Ealing Council as lead partner has committed to a focus on five
1 http://www.ealing.gov.uk/services/council/consultations/past_consultations/council/resident_survey/index.html
13 key priorities2, leading locally and delivering services as driven by six key drivers of change:
The LSP will face many of the same challenges as Ealing Council and the recommendations of this review take into consideration these core drivers of change and improvement for the coming years, ensuring that the work of the partnership will enable the Council and all local organisations to rise to these challenges effectively to meet our borough’s priorities and needs.
2 See the Ealing Council Corporate Plan, agreed in draft at Cabinet and Council in June/July 2010.
14 Setting the Scene: National Context
Research to inform the project included a literature review of reports and studies on local partnerships published in recent years, and consideration of the evolving policy agenda under a new government.
Key themes from national studies and policy developments have been drawn out and applied to our current situation, to inform an approach to partnership working for Ealing that takes full account of a range of thinking on the agenda.
Literature on partnership working is vast and wide-ranging. Local partnerships are implemented in a range of ways, though tend to be approached in a similar pattern of strategic tiers, thematic tiers and operational tiers across the country. There are few examples of radical deviation from this model.
From their origins in Neighbourhood renewal funding through to their use to coordinate Community Strategies, through to more recent changes, LSPs have continuously evolved to reflect the nature of the priorities of the government and the economic and social context in which they operate. There may be opportunities to consider how we can ensure our LSP is truly locally focused rather than taking too great an account of the national trends – though it is clearly worth considering the responsibilities we have and are likely to have in the future in our partnership working arrangements.
In recent years, partnerships have become increasingly focussed on opportunities to share power, influence and involvement while driving efficiency and improvement across organisations working locally, to deliver joined up solutions for local people.
At their best, partnerships are at the heart of ensuring services properly meet the needs of users and other local people, enabling responsive service delivery and customer choice, generating trust, satisfaction and organisational accountability3. Partnership working can also drive efficiency for organisations through sharing work, reducing duplication, sharing resources and informing effective prioritisation and targeting of resources based on informed evidence. Such aims can be clearly linked back to our Community Strategy and corporate planning objectives across all organisations as Ealing responds to increasing economic challenge.
Existing Statutory Responsibilities
Local authorities and their partners are currently under no statutory obligation to have an LSP. They have neither statutory duties nor legally binding decision-making power, and
3 See for example, Public Value and Participation: A Literature Review for the Scottish Government, Alexandra Albert and Eleanor Passmore, The Work Foundation, 2008. http://openscotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/03/17090301/13
15 exist as 'unincorporated associations', with no legal capacity and creating no legal relationships between LSP partners.
All target-setting, and consequent financial, commissioning, or contractual commitments proposed by LSPs must currently be formalised through the relevant local authority or other LSP partners.
Current legislation prevents local authorities delegating their functions, including their responsibilities for allocation of government grant or funding streams, to bodies other than committees or joint committees set up under relevant legislation. LSPs or their partnership boards cannot be constituted as ‘joint committees’ under local government legislation because they include a wide range of agencies outside local government.4
This legal standing means that LSPs find themselves in a position where the need to clarify their roles and the extent of powers and accountability is very important. It also puts the emphasis on ‘added value’ involvement, beyond simply the discussions and decisions that take place elsewhere. This will be important to consider in setting out a clear role for the LSP in the future, and clear accountability and responsibility for the work done through its groups.
LSPs were recommended in 2000 as a way of facilitating effective joint working to develop and deliver support Community Strategies, a recommendation strengthened by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, introducing statutory LAAs and a duty on named partners to cooperate with the LAA. In practice the LSP is the usual vehicle for achieving this, but there is no explicit requirement for this to be the case.
Previous government guidance5 recommended that LSPs should: identify the needs and ambitions of local communities, and resolve, or arbitrate between competing interests coordinate the consultation and engagement activities of partners produce an SCS with a shared local vision and priorities for action (based on data and evidence from the local area and its population) produce an LAA based on the priorities identified in the local SCS oversee local resource planning and alignment to achieve more effective commissioning and better outcomes review and manage progress against the priorities and targets agreed in the LAA, and ensure delivery arrangements are in place.
Within this, the Local Authority was expected to exercise a leadership and governing role in achieving these outcomes, being the responsible organisation for the SCS and LAA, taking on the role of democratically-elected strategic leaders and responsible for being the
4 http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=15294413
5 Government guidance
16 community leaders in providing strategic and political leadership, and involving the full range of stakeholders in developing and delivering a shared vision for their area.6
Councils have previously been granted some powers which may be used to support partnerships, including: the wellbeing power – the discretionary power to take actions necessary to promote or improve the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of the area opportunities under the Sustainable Communities Act to put forward proposals for greater powers or flexibilities to improve local outcomes powers to pool budgets powers to trade within the public sector or on a commercial basis powers to charge for discretionary services
Also, despite the lack of statutory requirements to have an LSP, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 placed public sector partners under a ‘duty to co-operate’ in the preparation and implementation of the LAA for the area.7
Co-operation in the context of the Act means: duties to consult and cooperate, applying specifically to the processes of drawing up and agreeing targets within an LAA expectation of "a continuous process of planned engagement, rather than a one-off event" – partners are expected to continue to be involved or even to lead in determining the implementation arrangements for the LAA and the monitoring of progress against targets cooperation is expected to take place within the framework of the LSP responsible local authorities and partner authorities* are required to ‘have regard’ to all those targets which relate to them. This requirement operates for all LAA targets, not just those that have been designated to a specific organisation.
In practice, such guidelines can and have been used to steer the role of the LSP in ensuring partners work together on key local issues. The duty to cooperate offers a tool for all partners to emphasise the importance of partnership working beyond the benefits that it can bring, and in the absence of a more formal or statutory accountability process, offers all partners a point of reference to hold others to account for their involvement and contribution.
There is still however a large scope for achieving outcomes above and beyond these, few powers and statutory rules on partnerships, and focussing beyond these recommended roles on practical activities that will make a difference locally.
We must also bear in mind the likelihood of changes to our local working arrangements under new government legislation over the coming years. This is explored in more detail
6 http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=15219398 7 Ambitious local government: changes since the 2006 White Paper, IDeA, 2009 * See Appendix C for full list of partners
17 later in this chapter, but is anticipated at this stage to remove statutory responsibilities to have specified board arrangements, rather than introduce new requirements in this area.
Statutory 2nd Tier Boards
Currently the only statutory partnership boards sitting at the second tier of the LSP are the Children’s Trust and the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership. At the third tier, the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board is also statutory.
Other boards that are used widely in other areas, and which have in the past been recommended but not at this stage statutory, include the 14-19 partnership8, DAAT, JAGs, the Learning Disabilities board and the Safeguarding Adults board, though in most of these areas in practice the duty to cooperate is operationalised through boards, and in some cases discussions as to their statutory footing is ongoing,9 and may be subject to consideration as part of wider changes to legislation in coming years – though this is likely to reduce statutory requirements rather than increase the number of statutory boards.
It is therefore necessary that our future LSP is flexible to respond to change, and has effective processes to allow it to take into consideration the advice and recommendations of the statutory partnership boards that will remain and be involved in delivering partnership responses to local challenges, alongside the LSP. It will be worth considering how this can be conducted effectively, whether by reporting, monitoring or activity as part of the wider LSP work.
CDRP
The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 required that the Local Responsible Authorities in each local authority area form a partnership to produce, implement and monitor a strategy for reducing crime, disorder and the fear of crime in the district.
Their role is outlined as to: Establish types and levels of crime and disorder in the area through an audit Consult widely with the borough population to make sure that the partnership's perception of crime and disorder matches that of local people. Devise a three year strategy and action plan (reviewed annually) to tackle the priority problems. (National government strategies and national policing plans should be considered).
Each CDRP is directed by a panel of local representatives and partners, from which a chair and deputy chair are elected. Membership of CDRPs includes: Councillors, Crown Prosecution Service and courts, Drugs Action Team, Fire service, Health authority, Local
8 www.dcsf.gov.uk/ 14-19 / partnership s-and-planning 9 for example, government referred to plans to make Safeguarding Adults boards statutory in the future: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/01/26/113646/mandatory-adult-safeguarding- boards-on-the-cards.htm
18 authority CDRP team, Local authority departments, e.g. housing, social services, education, Other voluntary organisations, Police, Probation, Victim Support, Youth Offending Team.
The future for CDRPs under the current government is currently uncertain, but the value of such partnerships, particularly in their most action-focussed roles, is generally accepted.
Children’s Trust
The Children’s Act 2004 introduced the recommendation for Children’s Trusts, bringing together partners to improve outcomes for young people and children. The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 placed Children’s Trusts on a statutory footing from 1 April 2010, including the introduction of the requirement to:
Have a strong integrated governing board or structure representing all key delivery partners at senior level extend the “relevant” key partners under a duty to cooperate to include schools, colleges, PRUs and Job Centre Plus have the legal responsibility for producing and securing delivery of the Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) monitoring the extent to which each partner contributes to the outcomes of the CYPP
It is also expects that Children’s Trusts should inform and influence the work of the Local Strategic Partnership, ensuring that children and young people’s issues are fully integrated into actions, and that the CYPP should be consistent with the strategic vision of the Sustainable Community Strategy and help drive its delivery.10
Some indications suggest that the new government my wish to remove the statutory requirement for having a Children’s Trust11. In the event of this it may be appropriate for local partners to consider the relative added value of a Children’s Trust in addition to other existing and issues-focussed forums dealing with children’s issues, and consider whether in light of these changes they believe that the board should be continued, preferably with a focus on the priorities of the wider LSP, in a way that effectively feeds into the work of other LSP projects.
Local Safeguarding Children’s Board
LSCBs have a statutory role in co-ordinating the work of all agencies to safeguard children and promote their welfare.
10 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/Childrens%20Trust%20Statutory %20Guidance.pdf 11 See for example, http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/ByDiscipline/Education/994779/Tories-abolish- childrens-trust-obligations-win-election/
19 The Local Authority, including Director of Children’s Services, and other Children’s Trusts partners will be represented on the LSCB, but it will form an independent view of the quality of local safeguarding activity and provide challenge when necessary. This means the LSCB must have a clear and distinct identity.
However, LSCBs are expected to cooperate with other local partnerships, including the Children’s Trust, as an independent body to promote effective safeguarding, contributing to and influencing safeguarding decisions of the Children’s Trust and its broader children’s trust commissioning and delivery arrangements. Such a specific issue and task focussed board is anticipated to be seen as valuable across the board and at this stage there are no suggestions to future changes in its arrangements.
Future Requirements: The future of LSPs under the coalition government
The exact direction the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition government formed in May 2010 will take in its approach to local working structures and partnerships is as yet undefined in detail.
However, we can develop a reasonable picture of the sorts of proposals the government may be likely to pursue by considering the announcements and policy developments to date and their expressed direction of travel on local partnerships and ‘localism’ in recent months.
The outline of policy described below draws on several sources of Conservative thinking; our starting point is the Control Shift green paper published in February 2009, which set out the Conservatives’ vision for local working, and building on this, more recent speeches by key players on the frontbenches.12
We know that the coalition government has promised a Decentralisation and Localism Bill in the Autumn, where many of these areas are anticipated to be set out and discussed in more detail – it is at this stage that we will know for certain the context in which our future partnerships must operate, but until then, it appears that on balance we would be justified in assuming that the future statutory requirements on local authorities and their partners will be reduced rather than increased by way of duties to have specified partnerships, targets or processes, but increased requirements to report to local people on our progress, and to ensure our activities and performance management is truly locally focussed.
Ahead of the 2010 General Elections, the Conservatives set out the following vision for local service delivery and local working:
12 This summary draws on key points from Control Shift: Returning Power to Local Communities, Conservative Policy Paper No.9, February 2009. www.conservatives.com/~/media/Files/Downloadable%20Files/Returning%20Power%20Local %20Communities.ashx?dl=true, David Cameron’s speech on Localism in May 2009 and Guardian articles http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/david-cameron-a-new-politics, Caroline Spelman’s Conservative Party Conference Speech, and Can Localism Deliver, report by Localis think-tank, launched at Party Conference http://www.localis.org.uk/article/436/Can-Localism-Deliver?.htm
20 ‘Our vision of localism is one where power is decentralised to the lowest possible level.’
. “Fewer central controls, more power to local people” o End to capping; local residents can veto council tax via referenda o General Power of Competence: no action beyond local government’s powers in meeting statutory functions, unless illegal or raising taxes o Abolition of CAA and Standards Board o No reorganisation in immediate future – priority is efficient cooperation, e.g. joint working, sharing chief executives, back office pooling and co- procurement o Monopoly of state education removed – local control over schools o Requirement to publish online details of expenditure o Establish directly elected commissioners o LAs free to devolve unlimited funding to local Councillors o Local people can choose organisational structure of Councils . Removing regional government o Regional government, Regional Spatial Strategies ‘gone, lock, stock and barrel’ – planning and housing powers will need to be fulfilled o LAs to gain power to establish local enterprise partnerships to take over RDA development functions . Local control over funding and sharing in local growth, including o Power for LAs to retain financial benefits from new local business activity o More transparent government funding settlement; ring-fencing phased out – all decisions made by LA / local people.
The Liberal Democrat approach, meanwhile, is likely to draw on their core philosophies of the dispersal and distribution of power, a notion of freedom, and a belief that people will mostly make the right decisions for themselves, their families and community. For Nick Clegg, “Empowerment is a by-word for liberation”, based on building people's capabilities, resources, and understanding.13
In practice, the party is committed to "a democratic and devolved political system where decisions are made at the lowest appropriate level," taking a twin approach of reducing centralisation and increasing empowerment, based on a belief it is better for decisions to be made locally to meet communities' differing needs, and seeking to reconnect people with politics and with their local services, to rebuild faith in politics. 14
The similarities between the two parties suggest a core for future policy which focuses on the principle of subsidiarity; the belief that local people and representatives know best what will work for their local areas; and that more could be done to drive empowerment at a local level.
13 Ch 1, http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Liberal_moment_-EMBARGOED_18.09.09.pdf?1253118265 14 http://consult.libdems.org.uk/new/localismdecentralisation/about/
21 The coalition agreement both parties drew up in May this year formalised their commitment to specific aspects of this, including ‘promoting the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups’, ‘e a full review of local government finance’, ‘a general power of competence’ for Councils, and ‘new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure, and give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services’.15
We can expect from the commitments made to date that the future will also almost certainly make moves to cull quangos and devolve services to democratically elected organisations, scrap nationally set targets to make way for genuinely local LAAs or successors, potentially remove the requirement to have Executive / Scrutiny split in Council decision-making, increase the accountability of local organisations, and encourage more decision-making by community level bodies.
CAA has already been scrapped, and while there remain questions over the detail and extent to which the government will enact its wishes, and at what time it will do this, we can work towards an expectation that increasingly the emphasis from the centre will be on proving that local methods meet needs, rather than meeting central objectives and targets. We may expect to see in the forthcoming decentralisation and localism bill move to consolidate the focus on less inspection and fewer nationally-directed targets, potentially freeing up local partners to develop genuinely local targets and monitoring to reflect local need, opportunities which we must rise to as partners.
While a likely increasing focus on the power of local people to veto decisions may pose some challenges, the need to develop political structures and strategic aims that reflect the identity and requirements of areas can be tailored to fit well with our ambitions.
We must also ensure that we take the significant opportunities likely to be offered to us by an ongoing and cross-party support for developments such as Total Place; working together to deliver efficiencies through programmes such as this, focussing across all partners on areas of duplication and efficiency, must be core to the future of partnership.
More widely, and perhaps somewhat speculatively at this stage, dependent on the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves, the potential for increasing flexibility in central funding may provide opportunities for targeting our resources more strongly at areas of priority need, opportunities for revenue generation, new opportunities for Local Authorities and other local partners to take on powers of regional bodies or quangos, or devolve or commission out existing services, and work with partners to deliver these effectively.
Reduction in bureaucracy is also likely to be key, and to need to be responded to, both from the centre to the local and from local government down to communities and individuals. Pooling budgets, sharing resources, and joint commissioning are likely to only rise up the agenda in the coming years.
15 See http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/, analysis available at: www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/external-link.do? redirectUrl=http%3A//www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/11333336
22 Such moves would bring Britain more into line with key elements of approaches to local government in other countries, with more local control over some services and finance, performance management and decision-making structures, potentially addressing the current imbalance of a fairly broad range of powers with low self-sufficiency.16
We suggest that in the future, local partners might want to take the opportunity of a prevailing national approach to partnership informed by a new ‘localism’ to examine particularly how to respond to the opportunities potentially provided by future change around: Opportunities to develop truly localised and partnership based performance management and research capacity Opportunities of Total Place and working together to deliver efficiency ‘ Power of General competence’: could enhance freedoms, including around revenue raising, income generation and external funding, increased capacity to commission services to new providers locally; Changes in relationships with organisations such as schools as they become increasingly independent; Increased freedom to choose governance structures and decision making processes; Opportunities to devolve unlimited budgets could provide opportunities to look at more radical models for local spending; Collecting and using and collecting data and information effectively at a local level;17 Increasing opportunities to work at a sub-region level – exploring partnership opportunities outside the borough.
Local partnerships need to be placed in an active and task focussed role which enables them to respond to these opportunities and to the functions that can be fulfilled by such bodies locally: . To inform decisions, . To monitor the performance and scrutinise the delivery of services . To deliver change and improvement for local people.
It is for us to use the learning from recent years and to develop this to meet the new challenges that lie ahead in terms of driving efficiency and value for money, while still serving communities’ and service users’ needs, driving prevention and securing local services, while taking any new opportunities that we are presented with.
16 Comparison table is available at With a Little Help from Our Friends, http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/1542751, 29. 17 See also government paper on the importance of localised data and information and use of this to identify local needs and targets http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1388043.pdf
23 Research Findings: National perspectives and good practice
A detailed background report summarising the case studies and information sought from other local authorities is available as an appendix to this report.
There is little variation in LSP structure nationally: virtually all LSPs with LAA responsibilities have adopted a model of a main board or core group to oversee the preparation and delivery of a Sustainable Community strategy (SCS) and the LAA, ad have thematic partnerships operating beneath this correlating to the themes of the SCS.
The wide range of partners within an LSP with varied degrees of skills, time and resources has meant that councils have had to adopt a more sophisticated approach to involvement. After early attempts to invite all LSP partners to meetings proved unworkable, other options to engage beyond the ‘core group’ have been developed.
Some LSPs run a ‘community conference’ or forum, held once or twice a year, often linked to wider programmes of community consultation and engagement.
Other LSPs are now reviewing their current arrangements with a view to potentially changing requirements in the future, to make better us of the ‘total place’ type approaches engaged in in many areas, or to look at the potential for LSPs to facilitate a borough-wide strategic commissioning approach.
Some of these changes and ideas are set out in the case studies attached as an appendix to this document, with the potential for further development and analysis on areas of specific interest as this work is implemented.
Leadership of LSPs
In practice LSPs across the country tend to be dominated by local authorities, particularly as the responsibility for developing, implementing and monitoring LAAs has fallen on councils.
The 2008 DCLG LSP survey indicates that local authorities are taking an increasingly strong role within LSPs year on year.18 Nationally, Councillors are the most common representatives to lead LSPs, chairing 69% of LSPs with LAA responsibilities.
The remainder are chaired as followed: 8% are currently chaired by business or private sector figures 4% per cent from the third sector 4% per cent by primary care trust (PCT) or NHS managers 2% by church leaders
18 Long Term Evaluation of Local Area Agreements and Local Strategic Partnerships: Report on the 2008 survey of all English local strategic partnerships (Volume 1), Communities and Local Government, 2009
24 One chair from the fire service The remainder are academics or other independent figures of local standing.
However, whilst there are clear structural and contextual reasons for councils having a prominent role, it is important that all member organisations feel to be full partners and that council dominance is avoided. In practice this may be achieved by encouraging all partners to bring items for discussion and to commit to actions around cross-cutting issues – a key aspect of the proposed future for Ealing’s LSP.
Membership
Nationally, LSP partners are distributed as follows19:
o 80 - 99% of LSPs included local authority executive councillors and officers; health; police; higher/further education and voluntary sector umbrella groups. o 50 - 80% included government office (GO), Jobcentre Plus; the LSC; the fire service; the Chamber of Commerce; individual businesses; housing associations; and faith organisations. o Less than 50% included the regional development agency (RDA) Connexions; transport authority or operators; sport and leisure agencies; the community network; residents’ groups; and black and minority ethnic groups.
The list of suggested partners from whom LSP membership should be selected is available at Appendix 4.
Findings of national surveys suggest that LSPs have found it particularly difficult to keep private sector partners interested in their work. This seems to be the case in Ealing, where private sector input has been minimal in recent years. Private sector partners may want a return for involvement, be put off by bureaucracy or are unable to adequately represent the varied private sector interests. Those areas where private sector collaboration has been successful are often where there has been a history of joint working on major regeneration and economic renewal schemes for the area – but involvement of all the key players who can make a tangible difference locally and drive change is absolutely essential to success of projects.
Key to achieving this is evidence to prove the benefits for local people in delivering successful work, and working together to deliver mutual incentives and benefits for different organisations.
We will need to consider in more detail the key players who are essential for success in the future of our local partnerships and the approach we need to take to effectively and sustainably engage and involve everyone who can make a difference locally on our priorities, if we are to really impact on improved local outcomes on the cross-cutting issues which cannot be tackled alone.
19 Long Term Evaluation of Local Area Agreements and Local Strategic Partnerships: Report on the 2008 survey of all English local strategic partnerships (Volume 1), Communities and Local Government, 2009
25 We will also need to ensure that those who participate in the future LSP are committed to its aims and to playing a full part in LSP meetings and projects. Membership of any group operating in the partnership will come with a requirement that partners agree to their part in achieving the goals set by the partnership, are clear about their role and responsibilities, and will attend whenever possible, and if not, will commit to sending a substitute who can make decisions on their behalf.
Effectiveness in LSPs – national research and commentary
The outcomes of findings of national research on LSPs 20 suggest that the following can be said about the effectiveness of partnership working in general:
Partnerships work best when they focus on the needs and priorities of local people, rather than acting solely as delivery mechanisms for national agendas Those partnerships which have managed resources (e.g. NRF programmes) are typically more advanced and mature than those who have no experience with managing funding programmes Increasingly, more mature and successful partnerships are moving away from national targets as measures of success, and towards measures that reflect local people’s feelings and attitudes to local services LSPs which invest resources in branding their activities and establishing branded identities have achieved questionable value for money results in terms of driving up resident satisfaction with services (see Ipsos Mori review 2007-8) Although many areas have reported that establishing a small list of priorities has been helpful in terms of clarifying the purpose of LSPs (particularly in those areas where previous to LAAs mature partnership arrangements were not in place) there is no strong evidence from national evaluations that implementation of Local Area Agreements have in and of themselves contributed to improved performance against priority areas identified by strategic partnerships.
Such findings seem to back up our direction of travel towards action and priorities focussed work, with locally focussed objectives and performance management. These findings will be considered and applied to our future working, along with the findings from wider research into good practice elsewhere and effective working in partnerships.
20 see for example, the Audit Commission’s Working Better Together studies.
26 Risks and Success Factors
Literature around partnership working highlights a range of evidence around the risks and success factors common to approaches to partnership in different areas. In developing our future approach to partnerships, it has been key to take into consideration the risks, challenges and factors for success identified by the research conducted to inform thinking around this agenda.
The core elements to the risks of working locally in partnership have be summarised as follows:
RISKS21
. Lack of resources, capacity or skills – Councillors, officers, communities, and staff . Tensions between representative and participative democracy . Accountability and performance – appropriate regulation, legality, risk management . Unrealistic expectations – outcomes, involvement, resources . Social issues and increasing division and inequalities between some communities . Challenge of defining roles and responsibilities . Benefits not necessarily seen in cost reductions . Challenge of balancing meeting strategic objectives and allowing local discretion . Inflexible national standards limiting local flexibility
These risks generally reflect the core issues and challenges identified to us in our survey work with partners, councillors and other authorities, and are reflected on in our recommendations.
More specifically, the IDeA identifies some key institutional barriers which have affected LSPs and LAAs:22
the domination of ‘vertical’ lines of accountability between local agencies and central government departments – these regularly prove stronger in practice than the ‘horizontal’ relationships that local agencies build between themselves different policy, budget and planning cycles which inhibit collaborative working as a result of varying timetables and deadlines ring-fencing of budgets and resources, directed from above target and performance management regimes that look upwards to Government Offices (GOs) and Whitehall, rather than focusing on citizens minimum national standards and targets for certain services, in some cases fixed through legislation continued legal uncertainties over the powers and competencies of local government.
21 Managing the Risks of Neighbourhood Governance, Young Foundation, Oct 2006 22 http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=15337603
27 In creating successful partnership working in the future we have considered these constraints and risks and developed proposals that take into consideration how we may best overcome such challenges, and ensure mitigations are in place should such issues arise.
The changes in national government are likely to ‘move the goalposts’ somewhat in some of these areas, though as referenced earlier in this report, will be intended at least to reduce the central control and requirements and encourage freedom from some of the constraints outlined here. We must ensure our partnerships re fit for purpose to seize the opportunities any such developments create in a way that can meet our local needs and issues in the coming years.
Unsurprisingly, studies emphasise that good partnership working requires systems and structures that give local representatives from a range of organisations and communities strong and equitable voices in decision making, in ways that are responsive and flexible to local needs and differences.
The key elements that result in successful local working by organisations in general have been summarised as follows:23
“Rather than constantly seeking to increase the numbers of people taking part, the objectives should be to build trust in the participation process and to create strong accountability relationships.”24
SUCCESS FACTORS . Clear links and commitment to engage between partnerships, local governance, services and strategic and delivery planning . Clear links between top-down and bottom-up decision-making . Role of elected representatives clear and understood . Responsibilities set out clearly; terms of reference, formal protocols and agreements minimum standards, and quality assurance ensured . Residents involved in decision making processes where relevant, with expectations of their role clear25 . Governance structures / techniques should be sustainable to change . Membership of local bodies / partnerships clearly defined . Local delivery and decision-making structures have credibility . Staff time dedicated to work to provide capacity to work in partnership . Investment of time and resources in building capacity of residents, members, staff . Clear delivery mechanisms for delivering local actions . Councillors have been supported by training and development programmes, and have officer support
23 Critical Success factors identified by Exemplars Neighbourhood Governance, DCLG 24 Skidmore et al, quoted in Designing Citizen Centred Governance, JRF 25 Designing Citizen-Centred governance, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2008
28 The West Midlands Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership has taken such findings on the generics of successful local working further, to identify the specific following cultural characteristics favourable to effective LSPs. They suggest that if all partners agree to these areas and are signed up to mutual involvement and consent to a way of working and behaving, partenrship working will be successful in delivering its aims.26
Talk of 'us', ask, and listen Plan the future Accept responsibility – and act Be willing to be held to account – and report honestly Challenge each other constructively Seek robust evidence to inform decisions Seek shared understanding of the reasons behind partnership interventions Question assumptions in the light of feedback on what’s working and not working on the ground Be positive about change Ensure that partners see local leadership: not domination or control
We have sought in the recommendations of this review to establish an action focussed and accountable partnership where such behaviours will be the norm. However, individuals contributing to the partnership will need to ensure that they take personal responsibility for the success of the partnership as a whole, through their contribution, their relationships with others and their commitment to joint working. If all partners can achieve this successfully we should be able to look forward to considerable success in delivering our outcomes.
26 Working Better Together?: Managing local strategic partnerships, Audit Commission,2009
29 Findings from review of good practice elsewhere
A full summary of the case studies and research compiled on other areas’ partnership structures and partnership working mechanisms is available as a background report. The summary below draws out some key lessons and good practice from these case studies and highlights the issues and considerations we will need to take into account in developing our future LSP.
This summary recognises that there is always room to further develop our knowledge of work occurring elsewhere, and that, where other areas have implemented particularly successful techniques to achieve a goal that we are also striving for, there may be scope to consider in more detail the work of other areas throughout the implementation of the recommendations of this review.
However, it also recognises that in making recommendations on a future for Ealing’s LSP, we have focussed primarily on designing a future partnership structure and mechanisms that will work for Ealing, based on the wishes and needs of our local partners, seeking to serve local service users and residents.
Our interpretation of lessons from other areas therefore has been structured in a way that takes account of the specific local environment in which we are operating, and appreciates that there will be no ‘one way of delivering our local partnerships in a way that would work for every area, and while we can learn from good work elsewhere, we should primarily focus on our own strengths and partners’ views.
The summary below is also caveated with the context that there are no apparent examples of other areas who have adopted a specifically practical projects-based partnership structure at this time. Areas almost exclusively have an Executive Board and multiple tiers of boards operating beneath them, often with few tangible outcomes adding value beyond the work already occurring.27
Some of the best models have clear links into other local decision-making structures and some areas have started to use their LSPs a lot more practically in the local strategic commissioning process – for example in Hackney, where their whole ABG has been allocated to specific projects commissioned through a strategic commissioning framework.28
Some areas do have apparently more mature partnership arrangements, clearly investing considerable resource into establishing clarity of structures and information flows that enable effective communication and joint working within often complex structures.
For example, in Essex, with multiple tiers of government and complex arrangements, a cooperation framework states the principles of subsidiarity and how local partnerships
27 A range of detailed case studies of LSP delivery models can be found at: http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=15505235 28 http://www.teamhackney.org/commissioning
30 will interact, setting out paths and structures under which all partners operate. An online partnership portal29 draws together information for and about partners and their work in one place accessible to all.
The ‘Essex Partnership Forum’ are the main decision making body, bringing together all of approximately 80 key partners, meeting twice yearly to take decisions but with much negotiation and work between meetings to ensure that decisions are genuinely effective. An Essex Management Board, bringing together a smaller number of key partners, makes recommendations to the Forum to formally agree. The partnership also owns well developed ‘parallel pilot’ Total Place initiatives occurring locally.
In increasingly tight financial circumstances it is suggested that areas will need to be considering focusing their partnership support and arrangements on facilitating savings and efficiency.
This review concludes that there is significant scope for Ealing to lead the way in delivering an innovative response to the challenges all our local organisations face by developing a streamlined and action-focussed LSP. There may be opportunities to raise our profile and reputation through such work if there is commitment to doing so – but fundamentally we believe that adopting a projects-focussed approach as set out in this report will deliver the best possible results through our partnerships.
Learning from Success: A Whole Partnership Solution
London Borough of Lambeth; ‘Lambeth First’
The main focus of Lambeth First’s Sustainable Community Strategy is to tackle worklessness across the borough, translating into the core focus of the LSP’s activity – the partnership is prioritised around tackling this one key issue.
The Partnership Board provides the strategic leadership for the partnership. Membership of the Board is designed to reflect political, community and institutional leadership, and includes the voluntary sector and local education and employers organisations. The Chair of the Partnership is elected on an annual basis. Where this is not the Leader of the Council, the appointment must be ratified by the Leader.
The Worklessness Delivery Group was formed in 2010 to focus on Lambeth First’s key priority for the borough of reducing worklessness. This group reports directly to the Lambeth First board and is coordinating the partnership’s development of the work and skills plan and pulling together and strengthening activities across the partnership that are addressing this priority. Membership is drawn from each of the thematic partnerships, and key partners including Jobcentre Plus and the VCS; it is a fairly small group which allows it to stay focused. As the Group has only been in operation for 6 months (and did not meet during the election period) it is difficult to assess its impact so
29 www.essexpartnershipportal.org
31 far. Its work so far has been managing programmes including the Future Jobs Fund and Working Neighbourhoods Fund. The local Work and Skills Plan, being prepared for April 2011, will become the action plan for the Group in future.
An Executive Delivery Group sits below the Partnership Board. Members are those who have a statutory responsibility for the various elements of partnership delivery e.g. Director of Children’s Services, Chief Executive of NHS Lambeth etc. It may establish sub groups for specific issues; currently there is a Social Inclusion Board.
The LSP has 4 theme partnerships: Safer Lambeth Partnership; Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership; Health and Wellbeing Partnership; Place Partnership.
These Boards report into the Partnership Board. Each of these Boards has a number of smaller groups/boards that sit below them and focus on specific issues e.g. Mental Health, Older People. Theme partnerships have also set up workforce development groups who provide leadership and co-ordination of workforce development activities and initiatives addressing the national and local agendas within their remits. A Lambeth First wide Workforce Development group is currently overseeing this work.
Lambeth has been successful at engaging with the private sector and with employers. There is a separate Enterprise Board, which brings together people from the business community who are interested in being involved in the partnership. This board is generally used for consultation and ideas, rather than being involved in the strategic planning side of the LSP.
Going forward, Lambeth is looking at reviewing its Sustainable Community Strategy, in light of the changing political and financial landscape. There may also be changes to the LSP itself, including a consideration of moving to a programme board approach.
Lambeth is also looking at whether there is any flexibility within the current legislation on statutory boards, and whether for example the statutory functions of the Children’s Trust and the CDRP could be discharged through one board.
The work of Lambeth First also ties into the new ‘co-operative Council’ proposals Lambeth have put forward, which aims, amongst other things, to renew governance and service delivery in a way that focuses on residents’ needs.
Lambeth feels that although the current partnership model has delivered improvements in services, overall partnership working is inconsistent and not understandable for residents. They therefore propose that the future should take the shape of strengthened joint commissioning for the borough, taking partnership to a new level by:
Strategic commissioning goals agreed by a single senior management team drawn from across the borough’s public services. This group would be responsible for all strategic commissioning decisions, which would then be implemented by “delivery
32 agencies”. This would “explicitly involve local political leadership through the council’s Cabinet” – although it is not yet clear exactly how. Sharing some services across partner organisations, including customer services – so a person’s needs/requests can be captured in one place, regardless of which organisation delivers the services they need; and research and intelligence – to carry out needs assessments across the borough, as requested by the joint commissioning process, and to carry out policy and best practice reviews and analysis.
This model represents a considerable development of partnership into much stronger integration and joint delivery, an area which Ealing may wish to consider specifically in relation to the opportunities for future efficiencies.
We believe that we have much to learn from core aspects of the Lambeth model, including a focus on specific priorities, streamlined structures, focus on activities that draw all key partners together in taking action, and working together to achieve joint efficiencies, delivery and commissioning. We have used some key elements from this model in our recommendations, and through implementation will ensure that the lessons others have learned in successful LSP working in Lambeth and other areas will be put to maximum effect to shape Ealing LSP’s future success.
Learning from Success: Specific Good Practice Areas
Successful performance management
LSPs are becoming more systematic in the techniques and approaches they use to plan and execute delivery. Methods such as Outcomes-based accountability (OBA) are helping to keep the focus on improved outcomes for citizens, rather than on the inputs of individual institutions involved along the way30.
Given the range of available delivery methods, it can be hard for councils and partnerships to determine what will work best for them. No single model will provide a universal answer. Most partnerships will want to look at a range of techniques. These can then be tested and refined to suit their needs. However, a national failure to align planning and reporting cycles makes it difficult for local agencies to align performance and resource management systems.
There has been significant research into local partnerships, their governance, accountability and overall impact. But there has been less evaluation of ‘what works’ for partnerships that are trying to improve their effectiveness by using specific methodologies, systems and tools.
30 More details on various delivery frameworks can be found in the detailed IDeA guidance New Routes to Better Outcomes (Part 2): http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=11796919
33 Being able to easily share information on performance, or research and consultation work that one organisation has already undertaken, would make the partnership as a whole more efficient, as well as assisting individual partner organisations. The implementation of MOSAIC consistently across the Council, PCT and Police would go some way to linking up the data organisations have access to and how it can be analysed, but in the longer term we should consider the opportunities to develop consistent and coherent research and analysis processes to ensure our work on understanding residents is coherent. Alongside this, with the scope for increasing localisation of performance, we suggest that the partnership should consider the development of a single shared performance management system in the long term.
Accountability31
Unlike the access to information and freedom of information legislation that governs the workings of local government, there are no legal requirements on LSPs in terms of the openness and transparency of their activities.
Some LSPs choose to make their meetings open to the public; some ask members of the public to give prior notice of attendance, and make clear that this is as an ‘observer’ rather than a participant in the meeting. In Ealing, currently all agendas, papers and reports for the LSP executive and second tier partnership boards are available on the Council’s website. Members of the public are able to attend meetings, although this information is only given in the “FAQs” section of the website.
We may wish to consider the relative benefits and costs to opening up our LSP meetings to the public more obviously in a move towards ensuring increasing accountability; though this review suggests it will be more important to ensure that local people are engaged and involved in the practical project work occurring through the LSP wherever relevant, as top priority.
It is worth considering however that there may be ever increasing requirements on local organisations to publish and make available increasing amounts of information to the public, with increasing emphasis on local accountability to local people, and that a move to open up access to partnership meetings may be in line with these developments.
Partners will also need to consider to what extent they want the partnership to be governed by formal agreements and procedures. Some local authorities have developed partnership protocols and/or frameworks that set out the expected standards of behaviour, decision-making procedures, data sharing agreements etc32. These may be felt to be unnecessary where good working relationships and informal procedures are already in place, and it is worth noting that Ealing has existing data sharing protocols which it can continue to use in a new structure.
31 http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=15300422
32 Examples include Leeds City Council, Birmingham City Council, Hull City Council.
34 More important will be the practical implementation of such agreements; in light of this we suggest that at least for the interim, the new partnership should operate with the only initial amendments to formal protocols (beyond those associated with project management) being new agreed Terms of Reference, with any other formalised procedures should be considered and developed in the longer term.
Role of scrutiny
Councils need to be clear about their objectives for overview and scrutiny of their LSP. Potentially, overview and scrutiny can help the LSP to develop by: Focusing on scrutinising one-off activities or events; Reviewing LSP systems and risks; Assessing performance on different LSP priorities; and Reviewing performance data and developments.
The Audit Commission identifies key aspects of scrutiny practice that could be adapted and adopted by councils:
Using scrutiny at the strategic, executive, and operational levels to reduce the democratic deficit in the LSP. Involving partner organisations on scrutiny panels. Developing training for overview and scrutiny members that include introductions to the work and governance of key partners. Developing joint training for overview and scrutiny members and members of partner organisations to encourage mutual understanding. Using overview and scrutiny to identify risks to LAA delivery and to recommend action to mitigate those risks. Organising joint council scrutiny of the LAA in a multi-tier area.33
With issues around the overall accountability of a non-statutory partnership, and with a need to ensure effective engagement and evidence-based decision making across the LSP, the opportunities to involve and make the best possible use of scrutiny are important in our future developments.
We therefore propose that there may be a role for scrutiny in the development of projects and in some cases, establishing task-focussed groups, as ideas are developed and refined. Good relationships already exist between partner organisations (in particular, members of the LSP Executive) and Overview and Scrutiny, which would provide a good foundation for an increased role in the formulation and testing of ideas.
Neighbourhood Governance
The majority of local authority areas operate some form of area-based governance. While there seemed to be few really radical solutions to devolving power or budgets to local
33 Working Together Better? Audit Commission Report on LSPs
35 governance structures, innovative practice is increasing the power of local working structures in many areas.
Examples include devolution of scrutiny powers to local committees, the development of local action plans signed off by local committees and performance monitored at a local level, increasingly large devolved budgets, or increasing partnership working through joint area-based structures. In some areas, joint panels are working at a lower level than local authority boundaries, bringing together all key partners to respond to local needs and issues at a ward or neighbourhood level.
Particular examples of effective practice in linking local governance structures to LSPs include formalised routes for reporting between partnership bodies, cooperation frameworks, formally recognising neighbourhood level action plans (often produced by residents’ associations, community development workers etc) through ward-level committees / forums and feeding these up to LSPs, or working with streamlined Public Service Boards and Partnership Assemblies. The Total Place approach is providing many councils with new opportunities to work together and identify efficiencies and new opportunities for joint working, but there is still room for further development of this, and a real opportunity in taking a more commissioning-focussed approach.
Some areas have developed very detailed and integrated neighbourhood governance, management and engagement mechanisms, providing a whole systems approach to working at a neighbourhood level – for example, Blackburn with Darwen’s integrated and co-located partnership teams operating at a neighbourhood level to deliver services, combined with joint ward forums, and an integrated approach to engaging with local people.
In Leicestershire34, an approach has been adopted which aims to draw together both local service delivery and governance approaches, Total Place, and a Public Service Board reviewing all local spending and feeding into LSP, with a virtual programme team of senior officers across organisations. They are working towards shared services and joint back office functions, partnership efficiency programme including joint training, flexible and pooled funding based on needs, building on previous work to establish local forums for all tiers of government, and neighbourhood boards consisting councillors, residents, service providers, VCS. These local structures develop delivery plans and hold community meetings. Parishes have also been empowered and neighbourhood management structures are operating in some areas, with neighbourhood action teams of frontline workers, neighbourhood managers at district councils or CVSs, and shared engagement, data collection and performance management locally.
We may wish to pursue opportunities for ensuring that neighbourhood governance and our future partnership structures are more formally aligned and inform each other. Suggestions for better joining up with ward forums and other governance structures used by other organisations range from ensuring partnership representatives attend meetings,
34 http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/
36 to considering whether the work carried out as a result of ward forum funding could be integrated into partnership projects, or used to further support partnership work.
We suggest however that the LSP should ensure it is first established in a fit for purpose way to facilitate an effective move towards potential joining up of structures, and should establish a clear structure and strategy itself before seeking to fully bring on board and integrate further with our local governance mechanisms. Nevertheless there is the scope for much further development in this area which should be explored in more detail in the implementation of this review.
Funding and commissioning
Going forward the partnership will also need to consider how best to support the funding of its activities, and consider how this links in to the work ongoing through other neighbourhood governance, management and engagement mechanisms. Organisations delivering services locally will not be able to escape the need to ensure that money spent across all sectors is used as effectively and efficiently as possible, including and increasing need to ensure that money spent is not going into duplicated or contradictory work or goals.
In order to achieve this, some areas have started to work with pooled budgets for specific projects or priorities, used to facilitate genuine joint working through collaborative funding of activity – such as the pooled budgets used between County Council and PCT in Leicestershire and the work towards a joint intelligence unit in Blackburn. There are fewer examples of many partners all pooling some of their resources to tackle local issues, or commissioning services as and LSP – examples tend to be between two or three partners for specific issues, or relatively small-scale projects commissioned using grants funding. However, as work to explore the totality of funding going into and being used in areas increases through ‘Total Place’ type activity, the opportunities to consider all working together to pool budgets around specific issues, and commission service jointly more widely than the existing practice well developed in areas such as PCT/Council services, will also be worth examining.
In the shorter term, it may be worth considering the opportunities to better align our separate budgets setting and service planning processes – either opening up each partners’ budget setting process to challenge from other partners to ensure priorities are reflected consistently wherever possible (as done in Hammersmith & Fulham) – or developing a consistent timetable for business and budget planning across organisations, and sharing information between partners about their operations and priorities for the coming years. While the Community Strategy takes steps towards this, facilitating a formal process of linking planning across organisations could help deliver our priorities more coherently, ensuring that any contradictory plans and duplication issues are identified and resolved.
Reducing Inequality
37 Many other LSPs have some explicit reference to reducing inequality as an objective of their work, with some, such as Hammersmith and Fulham, explicitly focussing on health inequalities as a central part of its Community Strategy, informing the work that partnerships do. In focussing on specific priorities which have an impact on inequality in our communities our proposals should also achieve this focus.
Some LSPs have specific equalities monitoring groups, often twinned with performance management – for example, Hackney’s LSP has a Performance, Intelligence and Equalities group that feeds direct into the Executive Board, tasked with “helping the partnership to monitor delivery, addressing areas of under-performance and learning from the impact of decisions, actions and interventions. The group is made up of participants from across a variety of sectors who work to ensure that Team Hackney is effective at a neighbourhood level, bringing about better outcomes for individuals and communities”.35
This review proposes that the role carried out by this sort of group is worth considering within our future structures, raising the profile and importance of a focus on reducing inequalities and improving performance in delivering outcomes for local people. We suggest that the role should be carried out by the group of project managers whom we propose will meet as a ‘DMG’ in the first instance, with the scope for specific work to be commissioned around equalities in the longer term if appropriate.
Community Empowerment
A separate study of community empowerment and its application to Ealing is available as a detailed background paper.
Information on empowerment mechanisms used by other areas is vast and wide ranging, from effective consultation, through to participatory budgeting and ‘planning for real’ where members of communities get involved in actively designing future planning arrangements, through to citizens’ juries called upon to make decisions affecting their local areas, and interactive online engagement mechanisms allowing local people to tailor local organisations’ websites to their needs36.
35 http://www.teamhackney.org/aboutus-performance-intelligence-equalities.htm
36 Perhaps the most fully developed version of this is Redbridge-i - http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/, using google mapping, blogs, and interactive discussion boards, along with technology commonly used on sites such as Amazon, Wikipedia, eBay, MySpace and Google to give residents unparalleled access to information tailored to individual needs / interest - shows users content based on their user history (‘we recommend’), can be readily customised (e.g. through drag, drop and re- size) and allows users to prioritise what they are most interested in - enables locally focussed, up-todate information on services closest to where user live.
38 Diagram taken from Surrey Community Engagement Framework and Toolkit
We suggest that the evidence indicates that Ealing is already implementing a wide range of empowerment mechanisms reaching out to at least a majority of groups in our communities, in a range of ways to meet capacity and needs, representing the range and depth of engagement evidenced by good practice elsewhere. While there may be scope to consider the detail of specific engagement tools and techniques to fit specific unmet demand, there is at this stage no compelling evidence to suggest that there is any one section of our communities not enabled to be empowered in a range of different ways.
Where there may be scope for development lies in the effective coordinated use of information from engagement and action as a result of it. Some other areas operate coordinated engagement events, calendars37 and conduct joint research on their communities38; for example, as part of the development of our effective analysis and use of residents’ survey information, we may wish to consider the benefits of conducting more coordinated and potentially even joint research and analysis to establish a consistent and holistic picture of the views and needs of our communities.
More widely in the longer term we may be able to learn from other joint arrangements established in often complex local governance and service delivery structures – for example, more than one area operates ‘single point of contact’ help points across the county for any queries about local government – e.g. West Sussex operates 23 help points located variously in district, parish, town councils and libraries across the county; in Oxfordshire local officers working on the ground join up in 14 localised areas, holding
37 See for example, the joint consultation calendar run between Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Cheltenham Boroughs: http://consult.gct-jcs.org/consult.ti/system/calendar? 38 For example, Leicester City Council conduct surveys in collaboration with NHS Leciester http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/council-and-democracy/consultations-homepage/residents-survey-2008/; Surrey County Council conducts Neighbourhood Surveys with Surrey Police http://www.surrey.police.uk/asb/public- confidence.asp?area=6
39 ‘locality summits’ to bring together relevant players on key issues to target and deliver improvements.
While we believe that there is no explicit need to seek to develop the branding and publicity of the LSP as a discrete body from its component partners, we may also wish to consider in the longer term how the LSP may be able to facilitate the effective engagement of partners with our communities through engaging local people in projects and ensuring that the positive results of these are publicised, by all those involved in delivering positive results.
40 Stakeholder Interview Findings
A key element of the review’s research consisted in a series of structured interviews with stakeholders involved in the LSP and whose services were affected by the LSP’s work, regardless of their current level of active involvement.
The chapter summarises the findings of discussions with stakeholders and sets out key messages and suggestions from these stakeholders, providing an overview of the themes and ideas emerging. These views and suggestions have been taken into account along with the other research conducted throughout the review in order to inform the proposals.
A list of stakeholders involved in the work of this review, and a summary of the questions used to structure these interviews, is available in the appendices. All interviews explored individuals’ perspectives on benefits and success of the LSP to date, areas for improvement, and specifics around the proposals for the future, including identifying areas for potential projects that the LSP could lead over the coming years. Individual discussions have varied in the supplementary areas explored dependent on initial answers and areas of interest, aiming to capture the range of views across different organisations, and enabling individuals to provide their specific perspectives as representatives of those organisations’ interests.
Individuals’ comments are not identified throughout this review in order to protect the confidentiality in which the discussions were conducted. However, the breadth of partners involved in this work has sought to ensure that a full range of views from across statutory and non-statutory organisations has been captured.
Summary Views
The vast majority of stakeholders involved in discussions agreed that there is a need for change within the LSP to ensure that it can genuinely respond to local needs and deliver improvements for local people.
The overwhelming majority thought that there is much potential to ensure that the LSP is genuinely focussed on adding value, rather than checking or commenting on what is already occurring; the LSP should be less a group of people coming together on occasions to give their personal viewpoints and perspectives of local issues, and sign off documents, and more partners coming together to focus on genuinely joint solutions to cross-cutting issues, understanding more about what everyone can bring to the table, making much better use of each others’ resources and strengths, and working out practical ways to deliver change together.
There is, overall, a clear feeling that the LSP should be more actions-focussed, with a general agreement behind the hypothesis tested through this work, that it should move in
41 the future to a more active, projects-based focus. The outline proposal, of an LSP with far fewer standing boards and many more time limited, task-based projects, was agreed as a positive way forward by all those engaged in the process; there was a strong feeling for many that the need for standing boards on specific issues meeting regularly was not necessarily the best way to achieve joint working on key concerns.
Partners on the whole recognised that issues of key priority, such as responding to the economic challenges that lay ahead, narrowing inequalities gaps locally and providing a coherent approach to other local challenges, would be best targetted by action-focussed work, with key partners who can contribute to the agenda meeting as required, to focus on tasks and outcomes.
Some stakeholders did however maintain that certain existing boards were worthwhile maintaining in their existing remit and operation. Throughout the duration of the interviews these were, beyond those boards that remain statutory, the Health and Wellbeing Board, and the Stronger Communities board. Of these, Health and Wellbeing was more widely perceived as adding value and there was a strong emphasis for many of those involved in it that it should remain regardless of future focus of work for the wider LSP.
If this is to be the case the future LSP leadership board will need to clearly decide which boards it wishes to remain and under what terms – e.g. delivering to a very specific sets of agreements and outcomes.
Indeed, there is a general feeling that we need to be much clearer about the role and purpose of the LSP as a whole and to ensure that all partners involved are aware of the outcomes desired from their involvement. This could begin with a strong TOR to which all partners commit and refer at regular occasions, setting out clearly what the LSP is and is not for, but would need to be developed and considered for individual boards and activities carried out by the LSP as well. The structure and operation of a future LSP must follow from the overall goals and strategy that the partnership is working to in order to deliver effectively.
Partners reflected very strongly that the relationship between the LSP and other decision- making bodies was still unclear; the extent of the LSP’s remit to truly have strategic leadership, with no formal decision-making powers, remained uncertain, and the role of the LSP in commissioning, locality-based decisions, and strategic decisions was often blurred.
Some stakeholders felt that the LSP tried to ‘do everything’ – to the detriment of the opportunities to add value - and that its remit should be focussed on the areas of local issues or policy which are most important and where the most value could be added. There was also some concern that it may not be able to effectively try to take on strategic, commissioning, and local decisions at the same time without being very specific about its remit – and that all members would need to be clear and committed to the future role they were taking on.
42 While there was some interest in increasing the role of the LSP in strategic commissioning, there was a general feeling that the initial focus of the LSP should be to concentrate on joint problem solving on key local challenges through working together, and that this area may be something to develop and focus on further down the line once an action-focussed partnership, where all partners genuinely share solutions and approaches to issues, has been established robustly.
There was however a strong interest in the opportunities that local partners in Ealing could take to respond to the economic challenges of future years, working together to deliver efficiencies and to ensure that the best possible outcomes are achieved for local people from the most effective ways of working and delivering services together. Several participants saw the benefit of partners working together to identify and eliminate duplication, inefficient processes, or areas where partners could share their approaches and work on related agendas to deliver better outcomes.
While there are differing views on the current membership of the LSP, there was a general feeling that the representatives sitting on the Leadership group and other boards could be reviewed with a focus on balance and targeting areas where a difference can be made and a significant contribution be brought, including the flexibility to vary membership according to the priorities at any given time.
Several partners have commented that much better use could be made of the strengths and resources of individual partners. There is a sense from some stakeholders that a full understanding of what everyone can offer and bring to the table is lacking – and a suggestion from many that the first thing a refreshed LSP should seek to achieve is a genuine understanding across partners of exactly what it is that each area and organisation can offer to the partnership.
It has also been suggested on many occasions that the partnership should be more community and resident focussed than focussed on specific services or organisations’ contributions, perhaps considering issues geographically. It is suggested that this could help to reduce the risk of individuals bringing only one perspective to the table and being unable to contribute fully on some items unrelated to their area.
This risk can also be reduced by ensuring that the executive leadership board considers genuinely cross-cutting issues, and that the agenda is genuinely open to items from all areas, on which all partners can work together to solve problems together.
There are several strong themes which emerge from consideration of potential future areas of focus and potential projects for the LSP. Of these, the most consistently mentioned and cross-cutting is poverty, including relating this to worklessness, skills and child poverty. There was a general interest in focussing on a few key priorities that could effectively narrow the inequalities gap experienced by many local people.
43 Other areas of interest that have arisen more than once include facilitating inter- generational work, focussing on specific equalities-related activities, responding to domestic violence, providing a forum for improving existing work ongoing to deliver an effective Census, and further increasing volunteering opportunities and take-up.
44 Detailed comments: Benefits and successes of current model and practice
All interviewees were encouraged to think about and share their opinions on the areas of the LSP’s current operation and work to date which worked well, and had achieved success. Stakeholders were asked to consider what aspects of the LSP were strengths to be built on in the future.
It was notable that those members of the LSP Executive and other partners who also attend the LSPs of other boroughs felt that Ealing was no worse, and in some aspects, better than other areas - in focussing on a reasonably wide range of issues, including a range of partners’ contributions, and developing positive relationships with partners.
Of the comments about the strengths of the current LSP Executive, it is the message of the value of bringing people together to share ideas that came through most consistently.
While many people felt that the LSP may not have achieved anything that wouldn’t have occurred without it, all those who were engaged in the process felt that the partnership added value to the things already occurring, by making it easier to share information, gain buy-in, and develop relationships. However, most partners also felt that there was considerable scope to add further value and to build on the current areas of strength to do a great deal more positive work through the LSP.
The following bullet points set out a summary of the general messages from stakeholders in their responses to this area of discussion, reflecting the broad range of those with whom discussions were held, but summarised to reflect the trends of discussion rather than to highlight comments raised by any one individual.
In general… The concept of the LSP is intrinsically good - bringing different partners together to share ideas/perspectives and work collectively on problem solving. The position of the LSP reflects a considerable improvement on its original direction several years ago. We should continue this development. There are opportunities to build on the relationships already built. Do need to be realistic about the LSP as a non-decision making body and make the most of the strengths is has to offer.
Structures, ways of working, and contributions Good that we invite agenda items from all partners (though need to ensure that all are genuinely involved and contributing.) There is benefit to having common themes which all partners get together to discuss – working to achieve the SCS. Brings people together collectively on many issues, not just bilaterally or on one issue. Good relationships with partners have been developed. Offers a good way of networking, and for some members of the LSP, participation has built capacity and experience.
45 Makes what we’re already doing easier – helps avoid contradictions across partners, and raises awareness on a range of issues. For example, organisations doing more around recycling because of awareness brought at LSP Exec. Has enabled collective discussion on strategies and collective sign off through a formalised process.
Joint commissioning The LSP has played an important role in deciding where ABG funding should be allocated. Council devolving responsibility to the partnership to make at least initial decisions – could be built on in the future. LSP may be seen to have a positive impact in raising awareness across organisations of where work is occurring which other partners can be involved in – this could be developed to consider opportunities for joint commissioning.
Empowerment and governance LSP has aided projects which enable better community empowerment; e.g. pump priming funds helped to set up the Police Extended Family unit, contributing to encouraging greater volunteering. Some feeling that some existing boards operate well in increasing community engagement, e.g.: o Stronger Communities Board has been mentioned as a ‘can do’ board facilitating statutory bodies and VCS operating on a level playing field; o HWBB was identified as a good role model for engaging with users; o Children’s Trust Priority Setting day identified as an opportunity that could be built on by others to draw key players together to solve problems and prioritise activities for the coming years. Communications between partners is good – need to keep communication channels open between the organisations through change process.
Accountability and performance management Focus on improving performance is positive - though it is suggested the LSP should look more at outcomes rather than just figures (outputs). Some feeling that the LSP has enabled successful delivery of the LAA targets by maintaining focus on delivery of these throughout year. The system for reporting exceptional performance is good. The use of P&P team to identify key issues/anomalies and report these to the Executive is welcomed. However, there remains scope to act better on what the LSP is being told.
Reducing Inequality User involvement forums and some boards have allowed some of the most vulnerable residents to have a say. Has also helped develop community voices and increased interest in some areas, e.g. volunteering. Achievement of LAA targets in some areas indicate a reduction in inequalities. However, LSP has not focussed specifically on this area as an explicit active goal.
Areas for development
46 A core issue identified by the majority of those engaged is the lack of clarity of the current role of the LSP. By its nature under current legislation, the LSP has no formal decision making powers and this creates varying interpretations of its role, and a level of confusion over its scope, its capacity to respond to local issues, and its ability to genuinely lead local decision making and action. This is turn leads to uncertainty over what its activities should be focussed, at what level they should occur, and who should best support and monitor these.
The desired role of the LSP varied across stakeholders – from very much a discussion group and opportunity to engage local people and service users, to one which can take its own decisions around spending and delivering services. The reality for the LSP under current legislation must lie somewhere in between these; but a core agreed aspect across Ealing’s partners was the desire to ensure that the LSP is a body that genuinely brings people together to solve problems and prompt action, on the issues that all partners can bring something to the table to resolve. Achieving this is generally seen a the key area for development which, if achieved, could add genuine value to partners’ work in the borough.
There is a need to ensure that the LSP does not try to do, or be, everything. At the moment the role of the LSP boards ranges from being a body for discussion, engagement, and public involvement, to one setting strategic direction, to one taking locality based decisions, to boards that no longer have any perceived value d are therefore no longer meeting. While it may be appropriate that the LSP acts as a coordinating body for all these aspects of the decision-making process, its role should be to facilitate from a single, coherent and consistent perspective the other work occurring on these areas locally.
In general… Majority felt that local successes could have been delivered without the LSP boards, including the effective delivery of LAA targets. Value was perceived in relationships and information sharing, and space to comment on strategies. If the LSP is to be genuinely value for money, it is recognised that its role should be greater than this, building on these strengths to achieve more effective outcomes for local people. LSP needs to face up to the reality of the current financial situation and be leaner - overall too many boards and lack of clarity, not efficient, need to do more – streamline the partnership and ensure that ‘Executive’ is truly strategic and focussed on areas for improvement, not information. LSP could be more effective at taking a strong lobbying voice, and having a good national and regional voice on areas of concern. Key opportunity in how the LSP can take a joined up approach to creating a demand reduction on the services provided by all the partners. This could include a strategic focus on where demand across services is highest.
Structures and ways of working
47 LSP as a whole needs better clarity of purpose - agree as partners what we are aiming for; set clear objectives for all aspects of the LSP; tightening TOR to reflect a greater emphasis on the achievement of key aims and objectives. LSP Executive does not function as effectively as a strategic overview group should - need to take a strategic approach to tackling issues rather than scattergun; based on SCS delivery as main driver with a focus on truly transferable and cross cutting areas where all can contribute. There is a real need to reduce bureaucracy and free up partners to take action and be creative. Consider how and when the LSP Executive – and other groups – meet; could it meet less frequently, for longer, to cover genuinely strategic issues in depth? The boards are reactive rather than proactive – at present agendas often cover areas that could just be circulated and signed off. Need to have effective mechanisms to forward plan subjects to consider which can genuinely make a difference. Recognition of burden of administrative work – need to deal with pressures of formalities of organising and running boards as a shared burden across the partnership. LSP at present is a wasted opportunity to do joint problem solving – siloed and often a personal agenda focus – need team learning and leading together on issues where everyone can make a difference, to problem solve jointly. Some evidence of ‘cross silo’ working, e.g. Children’s Trust Board working with the Safer Ealing Partnership on domestic violence, but it is felt this sort of work has been limited. LSP currently seen as extension of Ealing Council – admin, consultations, ABG etc – other organisations need to contribute more – a genuine partnership undertakes joint work with shared resources. Some perspectives suggested level of involvement from different organisations in taking decisions and seeking input varies – ‘everyone wants to be involved in council’s decisions but not council in theirs’? Current boards detached from Exec and not clear on different roles and interaction. Some boards are seen as ‘looking for a purpose rather than having a purpose’. Could use partnership more powerfully to attract inward investment by using some of the time to consider as a whole the opportunities for increasing income; for example through joint bids for external funding.
Membership and contributions Need to establish agree ground rules for participation that encourage contributions from all; consider identifying agreed identity and behaviours that all can sign up to. Need a sense of responsibility and privilege of being involved. All partners should clearly articulate their offer to the partnership and bring ideas to the table from their perspectives. Revisit membership – may be too heavily skewed towards some service providers currently. Needs to be dynamic and responsive to issues, and the right balance of expertise as priorities change; eg. consider involving the business sector and youth service representatives.
48 Could the leadership board be made up of just the key decision makers/high influence partners i.e. the Council Chief Exec, leader, NHS chief Exec and Borough Police Commander? There may be opportunities to make better use of the duty to cooperate in ensuring all partners contribute and bring offer to the table. Individuals often bring too much of their own agenda and not enough of a community-outcomes focus and what they can bring to solve problems. Some feeling that some areas of concern overpower the conversations held at boards In general - more ‘action and energy’ would be welcomed. Need to have more opportunities for creative thinking and idea development; e.g. more ‘off side engagement’ with not just the ‘usual suspects’ – e.g. awaydays focussed on specific issues. An introductory session or some form of training would be beneficial for new members of the LSP. New members can often feel ‘out of their depth’ and not want to ask questions as they feel they may be made to ‘look stupid’. No real clarity on what’s expected of some representatives on LSP Exec – everyone needs to know how to contribute and what’s expected. Often no clear links across different boards for people representing same agendas – e.g. enterprise and economy. Task groups for the LSP should be led and supported by different organisations, not just the Council. Call for more representation from grassroots organisations in practical work – projects need to include everyone relevant, right down to the ground. Make agendas more interesting for all. Use meetings for more than just monitoring – also advising on strategic work, and working out ideas for the future – with three to four key issues maximum. Consider more strategically the use of different partners involved, e.g. college has fitness centres and many community sites
Joint Commissioning No attempt at commissioning through LSP to date – though partners are sharing some resources – e.g. PCT/Cl do joint commissioning and working but some attempts have not been successful eg. sharing committee support, joint HR. However, LSP could be used to drive forward further work into joint resources. Need to understand to what extent shared budgets and pooled funding may be possibility in the future. Community safety, health and social care may be key areas for focus. Future joint purchasing or recruitment could occur through the LSP. Info sharing and data compatability is absolutely key for future joint commissioning work – need to develop shared data and analysis capacity.
Engagement and empowerment More effort needs to be made to involve people at the inception of policies and strategies, not just later in the process for consultation purposes. Successful engagement will depend on: visibility, accountability, clarity and action.
49 Significant opportunities for publicising what LSP is doing once it is delivering real results on the ground – may be worth having a comms strategy, though should be through organisations’ usual publicity mechanisms. Opportunities to take meetings of projects groups out to the community where issues are direct and relevant to local people, perhaps involve local people on project boards if this is appropriate for given subjects. We could engage in joint consultation to find out things that we all want to know, together, saving money and developing a partnership view of needs where appropriate – perhaps through joint surveys. Community empowerment while broad ranging is seen as disparate, with separate strategies for all organisations – consider agreeing as a partnership a single approach building on best practice from all, for core aspects in common? E.g. joining up events where appropriate. Try different approaches to meetings; e.g. partner showcasing has worked well. It is ‘different and appealing’. Could pilot participatory budgeting where possible as part of projects, actively involving communities in deciding the way forward, perhaps in relation to external funding attracted. May be useful to hold meetings across the borough, open to the public. Definitions of empowerment vary across partners; means different things to different partners and for different communities at different times. May be worth needs investment in capacity building and support for innovation and community-led activities.
Neighbourhood and geographical working
Neighbourhood governance varies in success – ward forums are emerging as way of providing voice for some residents but scope for improvement. There may be real opportunities for the LSP to lead neighbourhood working if sufficient resource and effort is committed to it. However, this will require considerable agreement between partners over exactly how we wish to progress with neighbourhood governance. Governance meetings need to be ‘accountability in action’ rather than ‘being complained at’ – for example, supporting people to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, at a genuinely small scale. What is already delivered on a geographical basis? Need to map out which services are being delivered by neighbourhood and where the duplication is. May be part of ‘Total Place’ type work. All local public service info together in one place would be helpful – for public too Need to ‘interlay’ different issues in different geographical areas to take a more holistic approach to solving. Should not be limited to working with partners within the immediate partnership. The involvement of other partners from other boards would be both welcomed and beneficial in tackling issues. .Focussing on geographical issues – could get people together round the table to focus on issues affecting an area – everyone relevant to that area
50 Accountability and performance monitoring Partnership has become about ‘getting others to do things’, and often hard to engage with targets relating to other organisations – should be about working together to achieve things jointly, all scrutinised on same outcomes and measurable benefits for all. Need better information sharing across the partnership and wider partners to enable effective performance monitoring There is too much reliance on meeting with targets set by Government and Government office for London (GOL), and focussing on CAA, Audit Commission requirements – focus on local priorities. All partners should be represented in LAA actions – currently some more than others. Goals should be set by representatives from all key organisations getting together to agree outcomes desired – not separately from the people who deliver The process of reporting performance is too complicated e.g. reporting on the National Indicator set. These often to do not mean much to partners or more importantly the public. Locally set targets would make more sense; e.g. taken from the residents survey. Monitoring should focus on genuine debate around key areas of concern and focus – not just a report but agreeing actions. Focus on projects aiming to make a difference locally – need to pick up on and challenge all stalling work. In a projects-focussed LSP performance scrutiny could be of progress against project plans and actions reviewed across LSP partners – based on targets agreed at outset by all. Measurement shouldn’t just be about residents satisfaction but about strategic leadership and taking corporate responsibility for vulnerable people. Need to be much better at sharing successes and raising awareness of these. Need to consider all residents’ views, not just from one survey – could we have a partnership residents survey focussing on cross-cutting areas? Some scepticism over how to incentivise local partners without reward grant. More scope to develop own targets and increase collective responsibility with changing government requirements.
Reducing Inequality
There may be more effective ways of involving disabled people, and representatives from other equalities groups, in making key decisions – e.g. need more facilitation to increase participation when key decisions are being taken. Opportunities to use the partnership to tailor services to very specific local needs, where it can benefit all partners, perhaps as part of efficiency work. May be a role for the LSP in scrutinising the effectiveness of different organisations’ work on equalities. May be useful to take a partnership wide view of existing work to target communities from equalities strands across Ealing – e.g. a mapping exercise – it is suspected it may be the case that there are some gaps in coverage and some duplication.
51 Future Partnership and Projects
There were no partners involved in the interviews conducted for this work who were against the general direction for the LSP of being more action and projects focussed.
Some partners did express concern about the loss of standing boards, for the value they were perceived to offer in some areas, and many comments and questions were raised regarding the detail and practicalities of the changes to the LSP being proposed. Nevertheless, there was considerable support behind development of the LSP and willingness to be involved in development towards the vision of a partnership which adds value to the work partners are already involved in.
Considerations and comments on the practicalities of the implementation of a future LSP model were outlined by partners as follows, and these ideas and considerations have been used to inform and shape the proposals of this review.
In general… LSP must involve everyone working together not just meeting together. Everyone should contribute to active strands. The proposed model should lead to a reduction in bureaucracy and can be more powerful and accountable by focussing on active work. A future LSP should focus on one or two key priorities identified from the residents survey, performance management and other top priorities partners agree. Need clearly defined roles, relationships, processes, and outcomes. Know what good performance looks like and measure it. Must be a significant role for LSP in avoiding ‘cost shunting’ across partners in future financial constraints Some partners sceptical about feasibility of setting up anything additional or separate from existing work and the lack of resources for this – some partners unwilling to commit to anything that would require any additional capacity. Projects must therefore build on what’s already happening or planned.
Project Ideas
Topics for focus could include: o Poverty – how partners can all contribute as a whole – e.g. health, crime etc – many different projects going on; opportunities to coordinate. Increase benefits take up, helping vulnerable people, worklessness and skills links. o Youth outcomes – other than just child protection which safeguarding will focus on – but engagement, prevention, links to PVE, sense of belonging, establishing community role models. o Domestic Violence and honour based violence – perhaps in hard to reach groups.
52 o Mental health – particularly in minority communities – again adding value through work already occurring. o Regeneration – a project looking at adding value to regen opportunities, e.g. South Acton task force workshopping solutions to neighbourhood issues. o Community engagement strategy – all have separate ones – consider how we could join up towards a common aim and principles o Community cohesion and interface, bridge building, e.g. on intergenerational issues – solutions to connect young and old in priority communities. Could LSP performance reward grant (PRG) be used to support/add value to projects/schemes currently underway? Could the LSP add value to the BSF programme or regeneration of Green Man Estate?
Delivering projects
Engagement Where relevant get the public involved in designing projects and activities as a result of them – and if we want to get the public involved we need to go out to them. Make use of community facilities; get community groups involved in projects
Performance management and coordination When a project is established need to agree across all involved partners what the aims and targets are, these then monitored by programme management group Council could facilitate programme management board and leadership board; other boards and projects can be led and facilitated by lead partners in that area as appropriate. Will need to be a process for signing off project proposals, agreeing resourcing, setting and measuring objectives and targets for these projects Need to consider risk of duplication of work – LSP Exec / project mgt board and support will need to programme manage and ensure.
Practical Considerations
Criteria for choosing projects should include their needing to be something all could contribute to. Accountability is key – particularly when cabinet will sign off decisions – need to be able to strengthen responsibility. Need to manage agendas carefully – e.g. time for monitoring, time for advising, time for ideas generation Make better use of external funding – work to attract this through partnership. There is likely to be winners and losers in the bidding for projects. This needs to be carefully managed; would organisations be funded to run projects, as a lead partner? This could lead to potential disputes/competition between partners. Especially within VCS, in light of current financial situation.
53 Think about consolidating admin and support to make it easier and efficient – distribution of roles could work but needs some consistency. Will be fundamental to fully understand what resource and infrastructure is already there to share and build on as a partnership. Sharing info about offer and understanding contribution from all organisations is key. May wish to focus on big ‘high profile’ projects rather than smaller scale projects - though smaller projects can be seen as of great benefit they can pass relatively unnoticed except by a very small number of people. May consider how LSP can add value to existing projects such as BSF. Challenge will be in knowing what is already out there when we agree a project to start up – first steps will need to be discussion and brief mapping of existing work – people will need to articulate their organisation’s offer and existing practice and contribution.
54 Conclusions and Recommendations: The future of partnership working in Ealing
Creating a single place for partnership working in a streamlined, action focused structure based around residents’ needs.
Overview
Ealing’s partners see a considerable value in local partnership working through a formalised structure, and see great potential for our local partnership to be of vital value for delivering effective and efficient services for local people. This review therefore recommends that regardless of any future statutory changes which may remove the requirement to have an ‘LSP’ type structure, Ealing should maintain a formalised partnership.
We see this as key to being able to deliver the future efficiencies all organisations will have no choice but to deliver; delivering future savings and effective working will not be possible without our partners, and a coherent framework in which to deliver this will facilitate success in our work to save money and deliver quality services.
However, we also believe that the current partnership structures and support mechanisms, while serving some valuable purpose, do not offer the best possible value for money. The partnership should therefore agree to refocusing its attention on specific action-focussed work targeted at priority local issues, and ensure that any work commissioned through it is delivering specific and measured outcomes.
1) The Role of Local Partnerships
The views of partners, best practice from other areas, and an understanding of our current context for operating partnership in Ealing, lead to a conclusion that our local partnership must be focussed primarily on enabling local partners to respond to the very significant challenges that face us over coming years in efficiency and improving outcomes for local people of top priority issues.
The partnership should, above all else, enable successful delivery of outcomes which improve local people’s lives, working together to add value beyond that any one organisation can achieve alone or working bilaterally. This must be the ultimate goal of the LSP.
55 The partnership’s leadership and other groups, currently constrained by legislation and the limitations of its role operating without discrete decision-making, budget setting, or spending powers, must be focussed tightly on those areas where it can add most value.
We therefore propose that the purpose of the LSP’s role should be seen as:
o Enabling joint problem solving on cross-cutting issues that no single partner could tackle alone. o Adding value to existing work by joining up solutions and reducing duplication. o Enabling future efficiency and effectiveness by facilitating increasing joint work and priorities.
Future ToRs and work programmes for LSP groups and projects should be based on these fundamental roles.
We propose that this will enable the future structure and operation of the LSP to follow these goals, and set a clear strategy to deliver them as effectively and efficiently as possible.
2) A Focus on Priorities
We believe that the best way to achieve our goals as partners will be to ensure that the partnership works through a clear focus on a maximum three to four priority areas each year, and ensuring that all work achieved through the partnership contributes to these local priority areas.
Discussions with partners and leading politicians suggest that three areas for focus for the coming year should be:
Crime Poverty, worklessness and skills (including ensuring we maintain a strong local economy) Health and social care
With a particular focus across these areas on enabling young people to fulfil their potential, and reducing inequalities in outcomes (including taking into consideration the need for all partners to respond to changes in the national and local policy context, e.g. through the changes to schools likely to occur in coming years).
These areas are proposed in reflection of a number of factors:
Areas on which all partners’ contribution and input is required to make an impact Priority areas for local people on which more than one partner are involved Areas which have the greatest impact on inequalities and life chances locally
56 Aspects of local service delivery which are likely to be affected by changes in government direction which it will benefit us to work on together Areas contributing a very significant cost in provision of local services Issues relevant to the opportunities available to young people of Ealing.
The partnership’s leadership should decide whether it agrees with this outline proposal and whether these areas reflect the priorities of all organisaitons for the coming year.
When priority areas are agreed, the totality of work undertaken under an LSP banner for the coming year should be targeted on making a difference on these areas.
57 3) Future Working Arrangements: Leadership Board
In order to deliver the future priorities in practice, we believe the LSP Executive should be recast as a ‘Leadership Board’, the title recognising the common position of those who form its membership, and its position in providing a clear steer and direction, rather than necessarily taking executive decisions.
The role of the Leadership Board will be to set clear strategic direction for the work of the partnership and to ensure that the work programmes of all those bodies existing within the partnership are aiming to meet the priorities that the LSP has set.
This will include considering and signing off project proposals, receiving reports (from statutory boards and the Delivery Management Group – see below) as to progress of the programme of work of the LSP, providing a strategic steer on focus of this work where required, and considering any other priority strategic cross-cutting issues affecting the borough.
Agendas for Leadership Board meetings would focus on three to four genuinely strategic, cross-cutting items that partners can make a genuine difference on at an early stage, and which are meaningful to all participants. The opportunity for all partners to add items to a forward plan for the Leadership Board will remain, though it is anticipated that the bulk of items for discussion by the Leadership Board will relate to the progress of priority projects occurring on the partnership’s behalf, considering opportunities for future priorities and projects, and considering new strategic developments flagged up for active discussion by partners, where the meeting will focus on each partners’ contribution to solving local issues or problems and how best to action opportunities and necessary developments as a partnership.
If necessary, the Leadership Board should consider splitting future meetings into discrete sections for consideration of key strategic decisions and advice on partnership projects, and an action-focussed forum for discussing specific local issues and partnership actions to resolve these.
Meetings should occur quarterly, in order to ensure that they are sufficiently strategic and can focus on top priority areas. The partners my wish to consider if they would like to explicitly indicate that meetings are open to the public, if it is felt that this could add value on engagement. It is more important however that the work done by action focussed projects of the LSP seek to engage the public and/or service users wherever appropriate, and make effective use of engagement information.
Membership of the Leadership board should consist a focussed group of senior officers and members from key organisations, and be determined by a clear and definitive understanding of which local representatives are able to deliver to this requirement at the highest strategic level.
58 It must also result in a justifiable balance of representation on the board from across different partners and sectors. Membership of the leadership and other boards should remain flexible and fluid for the long term, to reflect changing priorities, and should include representatives from all organisations who can make a difference locally, including those that are not statutory. The implementation of this review should include as an early step consideration of the best membership to deliver the priorities effectively.
In considering the future membership of the LSP Leadership Board, the current LSP Executive may wish to include consideration of the Chairing arrangements of this board. Some partners have suggested that the potential for rotating the chair and vice chair should be considered. However, this should take into consideration the need to ensure that the LSP maintains democratic accountability, and the role of the local authority as the coordinating and lead body for partnership performance and involvement in statute at present, in recognition of which this report suggests that the current arrangement with the Leader of the Council as the Chair of the partnership should be maintained, at least in the medium term.
This will be accompanied by the drawing up on an agreed ToR for the new Leadership Board, based on the outline set out in this document.
59 4) Future Working Arrangements: New project groups
In order to deliver a genuinely effective action-focussed partnership, we propose the establishment of task-focussed project groups to focus on specific issues the LSP chooses to prioritise each year.
We propose that the Leadership board should consider annually a series of key major projects on cross-cutting themes which it has greed as priority, identifying areas where all partners are taking action, but could work together better, or where there is partnership action that could be taken in addition to that currently planned.
The proposals would be put forward through a formal proposals structure, and Leadership Board would make decisions on resourcing projects based on a set of criteria. These will include ensuring that projects are focussing on genuinely cross-cutting areas all partners can contribute to, and that the aims include reducing inequality locally, as well as providing sufficient accountability proposals, such as ensuring a regular link to scrutiny. Suggested templates for this process are attached at Appendix x and y.
This would include agreeing a set of objectives that contribute to the overall priority areas set by the partnership and against which the progress of the projects can be measured throughout the year.
Projects can be proposed by any partner or group of partners who wish to make an impact on the areas of priority that the Leadership Board have agreed. The proposals would be expected to have already taken into account sources of resource to run the project, whether in terms of capacity from across partners or in considering budgets. It is not anticipated however that the projects should require additional staffing beyond business as usual capacity within organisations, as projects should be focussed on efficient solutions through joining up existing work, recasting current resources slightly, or developing existing work to deliver new ideas.
However, there may be scope to add additional financing of projects in the first year by use of any LAA reward grant which is forthcoming. While this should not be taken as granted, the Leadership Board may wish to consider in running the first year’s projects, whether it would be appropriate to provide additional funding from reward grant to help achieve the objectives set out.
The Leadership Board will be responsibility for holding the projects to account, though the work of project teams will ultimately also be accountable to their respective organisations for financial probity and delivering the outcomes required.
In the first year of the refreshed LSP’s operations, we propose that projects should focus on the areas of priority agreed by the Leadership Board, plus a project to focus explicitly on partnership-based efficiency.
60 Using the areas of priority set out above, the projects for year one of the operation of the new partnership could include:
Priority issue focussed active projects: on crime, economic wellbeing and poverty, and health and social care o The exact scope of this work will need to be planned out in more detail for agreement through the Leadership Board, but we propose that these priority areas, chosen for the aspects on which all partners need to work together to drive genuine change and outcomes locally. o We suggest that an appropriate lead should be identified for each of these areas to work up proposals for active projects that will deliver priority outcomes sought in these areas over the coming months. As these areas build on areas of key interest noted by partners throughout this work it is anticipated that support should be forthcoming to deliver work in these areas. o The LSP Leadership board will assess high level performance and outcomes against the priorities for the LSP’s focus. All work of the LSP should have some relation to achieving our priority outcomes desired on these areas.
Value for Money Project: Delivering efficiency and value for money through partnership working
Examining the underlying efficiency of local partners working together through a ‘Total Place’ type approach, contributing to wider savings work ongoing within partner organisations.
This should also work to ensure ‘cost-shunting’ between partners is minimised as savings are created in different organisations over coming years – encouraging key partners to consider a ‘whole system’ view of the impacts of budget reductions and developing solutions that deliver the best outcomes for local people, regardless of the organisation primarily delivering services.
The precise focus and scope of this project would need to be agreed in detail at a future Leadership Board, but would be likely to consider one of those areas more widely seen as priority for the LSP and would take into considerations some of the future possibilities for areas to explore in more depth, such as joint commissioning, income generation, collocation, shared services, and facilitating increasing use of community goodwill and capacity to coproduce and deliver services.
We believe there may be significant opportunities in these areas, to take the chances offered by the potential changes occurring in local government legislation, freeing up the controls under which services are delivered and the mechanisms for interacting with partners locally, to drive real efficiencies.
61 There is also scope to consider in detail the totality of services being delivered by all partners on some priority areas, and to look at the results these are currently achieving – and whether there may be more appropriate ways to achieve this. For example, mapping out the current spending locally on a service area delivered by statutory and voluntary services, identifying duplication and gaps, and considering how groups could work together more effectively to tackle the key issues, tagretted at priority needs.
There may also be larger opportunities for partners to work together to attract external funding on issues of top priority which are truly fit for purpose to fill gaps left by decreasring provision or rising or changing need.
5) Future Working Arrangements: Coordination of Projects
We recognise that a partnership focus on active projects will require effective programme management to ensure successful delivery against our objectives. We propose the establishment of a ‘delivery management group’ (DMG) which monitors progress of the projects in contributing to the overall goals of the LSP.
This group would monitor day to day progress of the overall programme of projects, ensure consistency in approach, offer programme management support, identify cross- cutting areas where projects should work together, unblock issues, and offer ‘critical friend’ challenge on the progress of work, helping project managers to meet their objectives and monitoring performance on priority areas.
The group may also wish to have in its scope ownership of the development of a long term performance monitoring system for the LSP, building on an initial focus on agreed project objectives, perhaps including development of more interactive joint performance monitoring across partners.
This group would consist initially in project managers for all key LSP project work occurring over the coming year and any other key representatives from across partners who will be involved in holding the progress of projects to account, as the Leadership Board determines appropriate.
In the first instance, for example, some representatives who currently sit on the LSP Executive may wish instead to participate in this delivery focussed forum, if they feel it would better suit the needs of the organisation they represent.
A s part of its role in monitoring the day to day performance and progress of the active work of the LSP, this group will also take the lead on ensuring equalities remain a key area of focus in all LSP activities.
In the process of project and programme management and reporting, it will ensure that the equalities impact of all key work conducted across LSP projects is assessed and actions to mitigate any unjustified equalities impact are taken in a timely and appropriate manner.
62 In response to this role, it may wish in time to commission specific work to target equalities interventions if required; for example, mapping out the existing work partners are doing to target specific equalities groups across out communities with a view to identifying gaps to act on.
The DMG will also ensure that the work of specific task-focussed groups takes into account the findings of previous work on the priority areas in relation to equalities; e.g. the Marmot Review39 of health inequalities, and will fufil the role of cross-referencing and flagging up to partners and projects information of interest and relevance from different organisations and work, facilitating information sharing.
It may be appropriate for the delivery management group to produce an annual review of the outcomes achieved through the LSP as whole, in its project work and its related developments. As time progresses this may include publication of performance information relevant to all partners as well as any annual recommendations to changes of membership, priority or performance monitoring, for consideration by the Leadership Board.
It is proposed that the delivery management group should meet bimonthly, and project groups monthly or more frequently dependent on their specific areas of focus.
39 http://www.marmotreview.org/
63 6) Future Working Arrangements: Current standing second tier boards
This review recommends that outside of the Leadership Board, DMG, and task-focussed projects based on agreed partnership priorities, the future formal partnership structure in Ealing should use as a starting point a model encompassing only boards which are statutory.
This does not preclude other groups and boards existing – recognising that many partners do see a value in some of the current standing arrangements – but the core work of the future LSP will be the active projects focussed on a few agreed priorities for the year.
Standing boards which partners wish to remain beneath the leadership board at second or third tier level, if they are to be part of the formal structures, will need to be clearly tasked and outcomes set based on their meeting the overall priorities of the LSP.
They will then be able to report back to the Leadership Board on the outcomes they have achieved to meet the priorities, and progress against a work plan signed off by the Leadership Board as part of that year’s work to meet its targets.
For example – should the work of any of the existing health boards in monitoring and actioning health and wellbeing strategies wish to be continued in a standing board format, it can be ensured that these activities report into the leadership board and delivery management group in a way that complements the wider priorities of the LSP and which ties in effectively with any projects focussing on these areas.
Should standing boards wish to maintain other elements and aspects of their current focus, which do not relate directly to the LSP’s priorities, they will not be required to report on these, and will be accepted as bodies that exist independent of core LSP work.
A number of the existing third tier partnerships currently exist largely independent from the work of the Executive and second tier, in many cases focussed on bringing partners together on specific issues, and we propose that their continued existence as groups of partners who wish to meet on topics of shared relevance will provide no additional challenge to the future structures.
However, these would not form part of the formal future strategic partnership structure unless their work programmes were to be specifically aligned to meeting the priorities the Leadership Board sets. There should be no commitment for the LSP to maintain or continue with any work or group which does not add value beyond existing meetings and projects occurring between partners. As the strategic partnership, the LSP’s focus must be on those major cross-cutting issues which cannot be resolved without action from all key local partners.
Clearly, the partnership will need to maintain those boards which remain statutory. At this time at the second tier this will constitute the CDRP and Children’s Trust. We propose
64 that the work of these bodies can contribute to the priorities of the LSP, particularly as their areas of focus will be core to the focus on crime, and the opportunities for young people, on which the future partnership will be focussed.
However, careful consideration will need to be given in the implementation of the future model to ensure that the work of the standing boards on these issues and the work of practical projects around the priority areas are complementary and work together to achieve the desired outcomes. It may be appropriate to achieve this by enabling these partnerships to put forward proposals on projects which are not currently occurring but which could add value, e.g. asking the Safer Ealing Partnership to put forward proposals on crime-focussed work on which the LSP could add value with new projects that draw together individuals working on priority agendas – perhaps a specific focus on preventing crime by young people, targeting domestic violence in a particular community, or increasing the effectiveness of the use of crime data across partners to linking into other agendas.
Alternatively, where any of the partners can see added value on priority areas which is not currently being overseen by the statutory or other standing boards, we should develop projects to meet these, perhaps specific, or perhaps efficiency-focussed needs, and simply ensure cross-referencing through engaging with our colleagues on the standing boards to ensure their full awareness and buy-in to the work due to occur. Partners should always be aware when developing project proposals and delivering projects that there is a need to engage with other partnerships that may exist tackling these issues, just as there will be a need to engage with colleagues across partners involved in the area, to ensure the work adds value, and draws together all the relevant key players, rather than duplicates.
However, as the future LSP projects are intended to be specifically action focussed on areas of top priority, we do not foresee a clear duplication between this and the work of the existing strategic boards, whose role is seen as largely one of information sharing, sign off and discussion of strategy work.
Standing boards should take a decision as to how often they wish to meet and how they propose to ensure their outcomes are fed into wider performance and progress monitoring, e.g. by having a representative in the performance group or producing reports for consideration by the Leadership Board, where their work programme is agreed by them as contributing to the wider priorities.
65 7) Maintaining the role fulfilled by current standing boards
We recognise that many partners see a considerable value in some of the existing standing boards that still meet regularly. However, we suggest that, as with the views of the LSP as a whole in its current operation, this valued role is largely seen as one of bringing people together to share information, to discuss and sign off strategies, and in some cases, to offer service users a forum to express their views.
This review proposes that this role is likely to be able to be filled by any of a whole range of other existing groups, projects and forums which can continue to exist without LSP- specific support, and, in as far as they contribute to the priorities on which the LSP will be focussed, can still feed into the delivery management group in relation to links to partnership projects, and/or the Leadership Board on issues which are of significant strategic importance.
However, in order to mitigate the risk that this is not the case and that a role which partners perceive as valuable is lost with the reduction of standing boards, we propose that as part of the programme management function for the future LSP, a set of ‘virtual networks’ of those who currently meet to discuss certain policy areas is maintained, with the existing contact lists available for any partner to distribute strategies for discussion, and with the scope for any partner to bring together a group of those interested in the same issue on a task-focussed basis independent of any standing structure, should they perceive an issue in the lack of a standing structure to whom to refer strategies for sign off.
These network details will be held by the DMG and available for consideration, reference or action by any partner or group of partners as required for consultation, engagement or calling a group meeting on any specific issue.
These contact lists can also serve as a pool of people to whom to distribute relevant briefings on new policy developments, and from whom participants in future projects could be drawn. To this end, partners may wish to consider whether they would like to adopt a formal distribution process for information relevant to all partners on a periodic basis, perhaps through a summary newsletter – but will need to consider carefully the value of this and the resource to maintain such a function.
66 8) Partnership support and administration
It is essential for the future success of the partnership to agree sustainable and value for money resourcing arrangements for future work.
We propose that support for the establishment and running of the future LSP should be expected to be provided from across a range of key partners. Project teams and support arrangements should reflect the fact that the LSP is a joint venture to which all contribute and from which all should gain, and which brings together an input from all partners to deliver better outcomes for local people.
As the lead organisation, we recognise that Ealing Council has a key role to play in supporting the partnership.
We propose that the Policy and Performance team, who have traditionally provided support to the vast majority of the partnership, will continue to provide support to the Leadership Board in its strategic capacity, including maintaining the forward plan of items for discussion to which partners can bring items of strategic significance on priority areas.
It will also enable and coordinate a programme management facility to ensure effectiveness in the projects of the LSP, establishing and coordinating the DMG function in the first instance, and maintaining an oversight of progress of all projects. In time, this facility should in the long term be managed by those key project managers involved in delivery of the LSP’s priority projects, which may provide opportunities for other partners to lead as required.
Ealing Council will commit to providing staffing resource to lead key partnership projects where partners agree this is the most appropriate solution, for example in leading work on cross-partner efficiency and effectiveness under a potential ‘Total Place’ project, though seeking to include key representatives from all organisations as a core element of success, and potentially on other key partnership projects, should other partners not wish to project manage these. However, we suggest that it will be appropriate for project managers to come from a wide range of local organisations engaged in tackling the priority issues.
Ealing Council’s P&P team will no longer provide purely administrative support for any other standing boards which choose to remain. We suggest that current support arrangements do not offer value for money in enabling strategic support to be focussed on delivering improvements and efficiency in services and outcomes. The respective lead organisations for those boards should provide the resource to maintain their continued existence. Where the lead organisation is Ealing Council, negotiation will need to occur internally to agree the best source of administrative support for the area of delivery. We suggest that this should be the service most closely involved with delivery on the area of concern.
67 This proposal is in line with the views of a large number of partners consulted during this review, who recognise that the administration of the LSP should be shared across partners, and that if boards beyond those specified in the core for the future partnership are sought to be maintained, the support from these should come from those who primarily wish to lead on these agendas through this mechanism.
68 9) Other Considerations
Neighbourhood Governance
This review has considered only at a high level the future of neighbourhood governance in Ealing. Partners generally believe that the initial focus of the partnership must be to first establish an effective working mechanism capable of taking on this role, ahead of more detailed considerations about how to deliver more joined up governance.
This report therefore proposes only the initial steps in the potential move to a future streamlined model of neighbourhood governance; the establishment of overarching LSP structures which we feel will enable the partnership to develop into a position where it can seek to take on a wider role in determining the future of neighbourhood governance. At this stage without further examination of the whole range of current neighbourhood governance models, we feel it would be inappropriate to make more detailed explicit recommendations on this area.
However, partners do feel that there is scope to rationalise and ensure that neighbourhood governance across organisations is more efficient in the future. Discussions and considerations from other areas suggest that there may be significant potential to deliver efficiency and reduce duplication in the medium term by adopting a single, coordinated approach to community and neighbourhood meetings. This would need to carefully consider the limitations of such a model, including the need for coordination of all partners at a single location, the need for delivering action as a result of such meetings, the need to establish political input where decision-making is involved, and the limitations of the delegation of budgets, decision-making powers, or accountability to these bodies as opposed to other formal committees.
There are examples of other authorities who have sought to establish such joined up models40, but in general have found the resource required to do so is considerable and the success depends very heavily on the capacity of all organisations to respond to the needs of local people raised in the meetings.
While this is by no means an unachievable or unworthy ambition we suggest that it will be appropriate to ensure that a sustainable and effective overarching partnership is established before we consider this route, to ensure that this capacity to respond in a coordinated manner to residents’ concerns and needs is available in the longer term.
We may however wish to consider as part of the future work programme, perhaps in the work proposed to be undertaken around efficiency, the opportunities for rationalising and adopting a single approach to neighbourhood governance across partners.
Performance Management
40 Reference to be included
69 The cessation of the CAA and ending of the current LAA targets leaves Ealing partners with considerable scope to develop a locally focussed performance management system. While we are currently unable to determine exactly what the current government will require of the performance management for local partners, it is anticipated that any future model will expect locally focussed targets to be core, with increased peer challenge and comparison to other areas at the centre of future accountability arrangements.41
It is also expected that the government will expect partners to work together to deliver the efficiencies and improvements in services required over coming years. Recent developments in the health arena42, moving towards a much more devolved model of health management and commissioning, and potentially moving the integration health and social care working more closely, suggest a strong direction of travel on behalf of the government that local service deliverers must coordinate and join up wherever possible to rise to the financial and social challenges we face. Expressions of the need to ‘localise’ services wherever possible, and broaden competition in the local market to deliver services43, indicate that we need to be working with the maximum number of local partners to deliver effectively.
The future performance management of local working can therefore be expected to need to reflect this, focussing on how well partners are delivering together and contributing in a joined up way to meeting local needs.
The expected future arrangements should enable the local partnership to act more flexibly and to reduce the dominance of unproductive bureaucracy. Our performance management of this new approach should reflect the same expectations and freedoms we expect of our treatment by Central Government - creating as far as possible a small set of core standards and increased opportunities for other targets and performance management to occur locally, built around the needs and priorities of local people.44
Partners generally feel that this would be a positive move – performance targets and monitoring should measure impacts and outcomes of relevance to local people on all areas, and not simply be shaped around one, or a few, organisations’ goals. Suggestions that current LAA monitoring is of relevance to only some partners, and that performance is far too focussed on statutory targets, featured strongly in interviews with stakeholders and can be tackled by using the increasing flexibility likely to be forthcoming from central government.
As a first step, we should ensure that performance management through projects run under an LSP banner is focussed on our knowledge of the priorities of local people, to which all partners are genuinely bought in and contributing. No work should occur
41 See for example proposals by the centre right thinktank Localis, events at which the then Shadow Secretary of State for local government Caroline Spelman expressed this wish. 42 Reference to be included: changes in health 43 References: localisation agenda and government focus on commissioning out to other sectors where most appropriate – examples to be incorporated 44 For practical examples of performance frameworks built locally, see Power in People’s Hands: Learning from the World’s Best Public Services, Cabinet Office, July 2009, 59. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/224869/world-class.pdf
70 under the future LSP on which all partners cannot play some role; and in setting the objectives for these projects and monitoring these regularly, an initial outline method of performance management for the LSP’s work will be established.
More widely in the longer term, partners will need to give consideration to the wider performance monitoring of the work conducted by all partners and how the partnership can add value on this. While the LAA is still running, we suggest that the Leadership Board should continue to consider this as one aspect of its role, but do so in conjunction with the development of a more holistic performance management framework.
In the interim while LAA reporting continues, it may also be appropriate for the monitoring to occur explicitly in the context of actively considering what other partners could contribute to improve performance on areas of concern – and not purely holding the lead organisation to account.
Ownership of development of a future framework should be agreed by the Leadership Board, but it is suggested this may be an appropriate role for the DMG to take on, with the potential to commission specific project work on this area from individuals working in related roles across partners if this is necessary on further consideration.
In practice, a locally focused, genuinely partnership-based performance management framework is likely to require contributions from key individuals involved in performance and outcomes monitoring and delivery across all key players, and the development of agreed core targets to which all can contribute. There will remain a need to set targets for individual organisations in addition to this, but we suggest that these too should be, at a minimum, shared effectively between partners to ensure that the goals of all partners are aligned and complementary, and that all inputs from other organisations have been considered and utilised.
In conjunction with the development of more aligned neighbourhood governance mechanisms, and the potential for increasing geographic focus in the longer term, consideration should also be given to the potential to consider setting some performance targets on a neighbourhood level basis – agreed specific local targets focussed on the things that local councillors, people and partners have identified as key to geographical communities. Such developments could be the responsibility of future neighbourhood governance mechanisms, perhaps as part of the development of neighbourhood-level action plans, and could feed into the wider performance management framework.
Alternatively, should such an approach be seen as too intensive at too local a level, it is suggested that the future LSP should produce a set of agreed partnership based indicators covering the key issues that all local partners believe demonstrate the effectiveness of local interventions.
Agreed indicators would open up the possibility of information on these indicators being collected at a neighbourhood level and translated into ‘heat maps’ accessible to all
71 partners to tell a coherent visual and statistical story of the current performance on key issues affecting different communities.45
When combined with analysis through MOSAIC or ACORN, such developments could provide an holistic picture of our communities on which all partners could act.
In conjunction with this, it is suggested that partners should consider the significant opportunities to develop increased coordination around their work to understand local communities’ needs. (see further below – Community engagement)
Such options should be considered in more detail and assessed for their relative feasibility, suitability and acceptability as work on this area develops. It is suggested that work by DMG around performance management, and work on efficiency and value for money opportunities across partners, should bring these areas together in greater focus and examine the substantial opportunities for genuinely working together to understand and respond to our communities’ needs.
Community engagement, empowerment and understanding our communities
Research conducted throughout this review suggests that a very wide range and scope of community engagement already occurs across partners, to meet the range of needs of different organisations, and that the partnership may not at this stage have a significant amount to gain from additional community engagement activity.
However, this does not negate the fact that there is considerable room for development in our coordinated analysis and use of community engagement data, our awareness and potential coordination of activity, and our development of a joint understanding of communities.
Because of the relative breadth and depth of existing work on practical engagement, we believe that these areas of coordination and use of findings, rather than practical activity, are the most important areas to develop in the short term.
Partners, though involved in a huge amount of community engagement and empowerment work, do not currently have any method of ensuring that this is complementary across different organisations, or that the information gathered is shared with all who may find it useful.
While work has been underway to share research across organisations, for example through ‘Ealing research and analysis’ network and through online consultation databases, there is much room for development.
45 Examples of other areas who have developed such neighbourhood level performance monitoring representations can be found here: ref. Surrey, Derby City etc.
72 We therefore propose that the partnership considers the opportunities for better sharing of information across partners on planned engagement activities and their results, including through exploring the possibility of establishing a single place for local partners – and potentially residents – to find information on forthcoming engagement work across all local organisations, and to record the findings of these.
This should be developed in the context of work within local organisations to improve customer insight and reduce avoidable contact, and streamline ways in which local people can contact local organisations. The Council in particular should consider the opportunities for partnership-focussed developments in its work on customer contact and development of ICT infrastructure to support effective customer engagement, and ensure that any developments relating to web-based access for local people are considered in their position in a wider partnership.
The above suggestions are made recognising that the development of shared stores of information on engagement activities and outcomes will require resource to establish and maintain. This area will therefore need further consideration in relation to its costs and benefits, but should bear in mind that areas using shared ‘data observatories’ and joint engagement calendars have reported efficiencies in ensuring that their work is not duplicated and that all information is shared and used as widely as possible.46
It is also likely that there may be opportunities to deliver a more joined up and efficient way of conducting surveys of local residents. Based on the understanding that the key interests of all local organisations are in the prime concerns and issues faced by local people and their opinions on how best to tackle these, and based on the knowledge that so many of these are cross-cutting issues such as crime, as well as the need to work increasingly closely together to tackle these in a climate of reducing resources, we propose that partners should consider the opportunities to develop and deliver joint neighbourhood surveys and other research and to analyse these either collectively, or by one partner on behalf of all.
Again, such developments are dependent on commitment of resource to establish and deliver this work, and will require some negotiation over the content and focus of such surveys, realising that not all consultation will be able to be conducted jointly. There may be opportunities to make better use of existing area-based organisations or infrastructure as a vehicle for carrying out local research work more efficiently; we should consider the opportunities offered by community based organisations in offering a direct route into communities in running these kind of exercises.
Such joint surveys are being delivered in other areas with tangible cost savings to all those involved47. Development in the longer term of the potential to analyse work collectively based on a consistent approach to surveying and conducting analysis (the first step towards which will be all having a consistent analysis tool such as MOSAIC), will further
46 reference to be included 47 References to be included
73 open up opportunities for more streamlined working reducing duplication across different organisations in this capacity.
We suggest that this area for further development should be overseen by the project on efficiency and value for money opportunities in partnership working.
There may also be opportunities for better publicising and sharing information on the successes of the work done by all partners. We recognise that several partners have raised the issue of the need to celebrate partnership successes more effectively, for example through web based bulletins and articles; however, we feel that such an approach would need to be considered carefully in terms of the value it is likely to add beyond the individual publicity partners do already. Therefore we propose that this, and the LSP Communications Strategy which had been developed previously, should remain an item for consideration by the DMG in relation to its role coordinating projects and ensuring that the outcomes of these are shared effectively, and publicised where this can add value.
Accountability and governance
A basic level of accountability will occur through the development of agreed objectives for LSP projects, which the DMG and Leadership Board hold to account, and which are ultimately also held accountable by their relative organisations’ leadership. In the longer term, development of an agreed performance management framework can also increase the level of accountability of each local organisation to each other and elected representatives.
We also propose that, in order to tackle the issue of the democratic deficit of local partnerships, particularly as it moves towards a far more action focussed model, that the role of scrutiny in informing the work of the local partnership should be increased. This will fit closely with the likely focus of central government policy on increasing the role of elected representatives in scrutinising the range of public sector organisations (as seen by the expansion of the role of scrutiny under the previous government and the expressed wishes of the current government to increase this capacity.48
In practice, this should occur initially by ensuring that the Leadership Board continues to report on a six monthly basis to Overview and Scrutiny, and the O&S are empowered to genuinely hold the partnership to account by receiving a full report of measured outcomes of the partnership’s work.
We also propose that it may be appropriate for each partnership project to report to relevant scrutiny panels, and that the proposed projects should include as part of their project management arrangements inclusion of how they will be held accountable, including reference to scrutiny’s involvement.
48 Reference to be included - indication, e.g. health and police
74 For example, in the coming months the work we propose should be conducted on exploring value for money and efficiency opportunities across the partnership, if agreed, should ensure it links into the value for money scrutiny panel as one method of ensuring its effectiveness in tackling this agenda holistically.
Projects will also need to include as part of their initial proposal their assigned project manager and sponsors, which will establish a line of direct accountability. It may be appropriate to consider the possibility for introducing a requirement that all projects have an elected representative as their sponsor, in order to ensure that decision-making is democratically accountable, though this should be seen as an additional mechanism to assure accountability, rather than a prerequisite at this stage.
It could also be worth considering the opportunities for projects to report to ward forums, where there are particular geographic aspects of interest or where a local input from elected representatives or local people could be valuable, though recognising the limitations of these forums.
The current accountability and governance structures of some projects and strategic action plans will need to be considered in light of the proposed changes to boards. For example, the current multiple boards considering health issues, to which different strategies currently report, may need to be recast in light of the need to ensure that the work of remaining partnerships in this area contribute to the overall future priorities of the partnership.
In practice however we do not consider this to pose a risk to accountability of such work – much of the action focussed work occurring to deliver specific strategies can continue to deliver to project groups drawing together the key representatives relevant to that area, without necessarily requiring direct lines into the future partnership; where issues are genuinely cross-cutting the reporting structures can incorporate the DMG or Leadership Board as a mechanism for overseeing all work to contribute to the partnership’s focussed priorities.
Joint Commissioning
Joint commissioning was seen as an area that the LSP itself had not ventured into (though selected partners were working together to deliver this in some areas), and was, by many, also seen as a ‘step too far’ for the partnership at its current stage. As with the partnership’s role in neighbourhood governance, this review recommends that initial development in ensuring the LSP is fit for purpose in delivering and scrutinising active work to improve local outcomes should precede any moves to increase its active role in joint commissioning.
However, the vast majority of those engaged in this work do feel that there is considerable scope for increasing joint commissioning in the long term, and this should be seen as a core part of the work that should develop around partnership based efficiency and value for money.
75 This is likely to include more detailed consideration by partners, and likely discussions through the Leadership Board, to produce a definitive decision on whether the partnership should focus on genuinely jointly commissioned services in the long term, or simply seek to ensure that partners align and coordinate their budget setting and business planning processes.
At this stage this review proposes that the latter should form the partnership’s first priority in this area, seeking to facilitate a genuinely joint and coordinated approach across all the key local organisations to ensure that each partners’ planning cycles align and consider each others’ plans, ambitions and activities.
While it is recognised that the Community Strategy is intended to facilitate this occurring, and does to some extent enable partners to strive for common goals, we suggest that there may be value in supporting a more practical joining up of planning so that partners can genuinely identify opportunities for joint work and shared information, learning or resources. In the longer term this will naturally lead to identification of areas where joint commissioning will make sense financially and in terms of effective service-delivery.
This can again be a specific area considered in more detail in relation to facilitating future efficiencies and value for money.
Reducing Inequalities
Partners on the whole felt that the work of the partnership to date had not been explicitly focussed on reducing inequalities, though the majority of work of partners did contribute to this agenda, by virtue of these aims being embedded in corporate and community strategies for different organisations. On the whole, it was felt that performance and developments were not often assessed by the LSP in relation to their specific role in reducing inequality, though the overarching aims of the community strategy, and therefore much work carried out by partners, did relate to this goal.
Some boards did consider issues relating to equality, but this was not consistent or coordinated in a way that suggests the partnership has reduction of inequality as one of its key areas of focus.
We therefore believe that there is significant scope to increase the focus on reducing inequality as a core aspect of the partnership’s work. The precedence of equality as an issue of concern for the partnership should be ensured through the focus that the DMG puts on assessing the equalities impact of the work occurring through the partnership. As well as ensuring that no work has an unjustified negative impact on any group, this will also draw out the opportunities for enhancing the positive impact of partnership work, and facilitate discussions between partners to achieve this.
All work conducted through the partnership should have as one of its objectives reducing inequality locally, and criteria for resourcing projects should include a requirements that
76 work conducted through the partnership aims to reduce inequality in some way (assuming the partnership does agree that this is an underlying priority for all its work).
Equalities and Diversity Impact
A full impact assessment of the overall approach to partnership proposed is under development and will be confirmed and provided with the next drafts of this report, setting out clearly how the needs of minority groups and communities will be considered in the future work of the LSP, and recognising that the projects the LSP engages in will need to be considered carefully in terms of their impacts, risks and opportunities.
In outline however, we believe that the proposed future for partnership working should not impact any group in an unjustified adverse way when measured against Equalities and Diversity standards. As an approach it is designed to enable decisions to be made that represent local needs effectively, and deliver solutions that are tailored to the priorities and issues faced by specific communities.
Taking a greater focus on areas of priority and inequality should improve outcomes for all, but particularly those who may find themselves disadvantaged. As such it is hoped that the needs of specific groups will be better met by an approach that targets issues of local priority in an action-focussed way and facilitates better joint working on these.
Proposals to develop work explicitly around efficiency will enable value for money across the board, and if in the long term targetted at areas of specific need, will help address variations in chances by focussing attention on specific issues and barriers faced by disadvantaged groups, and delivering services efficiently to tackle these.
However, we do recognise that at the heart of an effective LSP that delivers for its communities, including the most vulnerable, must sit effective systems which incorporate a full understanding of local need, and provide opportunities to build greater understanding of specific groups, targeting specific local needs. We believe that the recommendations for improving sharing information, analysis, and joint problem solving, should improve partners’ chances to do this effectively and therefore to access and understand as wide a range of groups as possible. The involvement of a cross-section of groups, including those from the community sector, in the work of the LSP, should serve to improve this further.
As the work is taken forward to implementation stages and actions are formally agreed, it will be necessary to examine the potential practical impacts of specific future projects in more detail. This will be the role of the project managers and DMG as set out previously.
In all our partnership working arrangements the need to reach harder-to-reach groups in our communities and ensure their needs are represented remains key.
77 78 Alternative Options Considered
This review has been explicit in stating from the outset that it set out to test an initial hypothesis that the LSP should move towards a much more action-focussed projects- based model. That we have concluded with a proposal that this should indeed be the way forward for the LSP should therefore not be unexpected, though it is hoped that the detailed proposals contained within this report show development and extension of this initial outline suggestion to take into account the findings of the work conducted.
The work has, throughout its development, also taken into consideration a range of other options across the areas outlined above. Recommendations are reached on a balance of the benefits predicted by the majority of those engaged in this work, and the positive outcomes seen by other areas who have delivered good practice, and the likely risks and costs to be included in developing along these lines.
The following table summarises the outline alternative options considered for the future of partnership working in Ealing. It highlights the high level directions possible at this stage and assesses these options for their relative feasibility (how achieveable they are in terms of their timescales, costs, technological and resourcing requirements), suitability (how well they meet the original objectives of the LSP review, including equalities considerations) and acceptability (how well they will be received by elected representatives, officers, partners, and the public). While this does not take into account the detail of the many permutations of our proposals for future partnership working, it demonstrates that compared to alternatives, the basis of the recommendations included in this report are those that best fit our needs as a partnership and as individual organisations in delivering services that meet local residents’ priorities.
OPTION Feasibility Suitability Acceptability
Maintain Med – will require no Low – will not tackle the Low – will not meet LSP in its change, therefore no issues aimed to be partners’ desire to see current additional resources or considered by this work, streamlining and action form time required at present. such as delivering practical focus. Will fail to increase However, will continue results or reducing the worth of the to require administrative inequality. Will exacerbate partnership. In the long support on an issues such as lack of term may contribute to unsustainable level momentum, interest or buy- decreasing satisfaction and which will fail to address in in some areas, and reputation by failing to overarching vfm continue to fail to deliver help partners deliver considerations for the considerable improvements improvements and value work of the partnership. in outcomes. for money.
79 Abolish LSP Med – as a basic move Low – would not tackle any Low – unlikely that there structures in would require no of the issues identified in the would be partner or their additional resource or original proposals for this political support for entirety time, and would remove review, or the objectives set complete abolition of the capacity required to out in the community partnership working maintain structures. strategy – while partners structures. Public However would result in would be able to tackle such perceptions may not be the removal of areas alone, and in adhoc immediately impacted but potentially valuable partnership working, we may be affected in the structures for facilitating suggest that a formalised longer term as work to effective working partnership is required to facilitate improvements together which in the facilitate this in an effective may stall. Risk of negative long term could lead to and coordinated way. perceptions if it is increasing complexity publicised that we are and duplication amongst among only few areas work of partners. doing such move. Run LSP as Low – would require Med – would create the Med – would target some a mixture of additional resource to opportunity for the LSP to of the concerns and existing maintain existing deliver action focussed requirements agreed by standing structures and to work. However, there would partners to be covered by boards establish new projects be risk of duplication, and a this review. Would also running as and groups, sometimes very likely lack of coherence enable those who feel currently, making demands of the across standing boards and strongly about maintaining and new same people. Would projects, with different current boards to maintain project create complexity that partners working to deliver them in exactly their groups would take considerable on the same agendas current structures. time to establish and to through a multiplicity of However, in longer term enable to work different boards and groups. would be likely to be less effectively, if this was This would overcomplicate acceptable as the possible. the focus on local issues, risk resourcing requirement failing to prioritise, and would be large and the therefore possibly reduce the likelihood of achieving impact of work. focussed, targeted outcomes may be reduced by complexity and need to maintain support for groups that are not action focussed.
Run LSP as Med – the proposals will High – we believe this model High – enables the future primarily still require commitment offers the best way forward partnership to meet goals action- of partners to contribute for the short term, enabling of this review, which focussed their time and resources the partnership to focus on partners signed up to. project to maintaining an LSP. delivering results through Enables sustaining of those groups with The new structures will action focussed work at the aspects of current working minimal take some time to same time as preserving the partners see valuable.
80 remaining establish and embed elements of existing boards Meets priorities of boards, re- effectively, anticipated at which partners see a value politicians in targeting tasked with approximately the in. This offers an initial step issues of top priority and priority coming 6 months. towards an action focussed enabling accountability to focus However in the long LSP with the scope for future increase. Should impact term the resourcing will developments in any public perception be no greater than would direction partners see most positively in long term in be required in any other relevant, learning lessons facilitating improvements model and will allow the from the developments over in services and enhancing focus to be on strategic, the coming months – either value for money. value-adding activities towards increasing action that actually deliver focus or otherwise. It targets tangible results on the outcomes towards those ground. areas agreed by partners that the LSP should deliver on, minimising the extent to which existing groups remain, but preserving the valuable aspects, ensuring that those who do have a work programme tailored to meet the priorities agreed by partners. Run LSP as Med – will remove Med – in the long term this Med – it is anticipated that purely current need for may be a model to aspire to, some partners would find action- resourcing on an as one which enables purely it unacceptable to propose focussed administrative level action focussed work at complete abolition of all project although resourcing for anything other than the the existing boards. It is groups with projects and support to leadership board level, thus therefore unlikely this a leadership overall structures will focussing purely on proposal would be forum remain. Would likely delivering results. However, supported by all. take a fairly lengthy in the short term the value Politically and publicly, amount of time to that partners see in some of such a move may be more achieve in practice, with their existing boards, and the acceptable, but should be practicalities of removal role that some of these play seen as a long term of current structures to in targeting issues, should be possibility rather than an be worked through in seen as worth preserving, if immediate option due to detail and impacts of this these can be refocused on the likely partner objections. amongst partners priority areas. Such a move negotiated. would reduce the scope for a structured and strategic approach to gradual development of the LSP towards an action focussed model in the long term, and would risk losing the
81 benefits that current standing boards offer the scope to deliver if focussed on priorities.
As a whole, however, we believe that in moving to the model outlined, we will represent the first local authority area to explicitly take on this model for its partnership working mechanisms. These proposals therefore offer us an opportunity to lead the way in achieving a coherent, strategic approach to the totality of local partnership working. While we do not expect its achievement overnight, we believe there are significant opportunities to raise our profile and reputation through operating with such a model, as well as deliver effective outcomes in a value for money way.
Costs
The work to implement this project has been designed so that it will not have any negative impact on costs, although it is recognised that there may be staff time and resource required to implement the proposals effectively and robustly.
Our approach is however designed with a view to driving longer-term efficiencies, enabling partners to focus on priority areas where all can contribute to add value to work to tackle the challenges faced locally, will ensure that services are provided in a way that genuinely meets local needs, and waste on services that are not needed or wanted can be minimised. Working together to understanding the needs of local areas fully will also help us prioritise scarce resources in coming years to deliver the best possible outcomes.
Joint working, shared resources and increasingly adopting a Total Place approach to assessing the whole spend in areas, and considering how partners can work better to deliver it, will enable us to deliver our services and solutions to local issues more effectively and efficiently in the future.
At this stage we have not quantified the savings likely to be achieved but the efficiency and value for money task group will aim to have delivered a clear picture of potential partnership savings by December 2010.
82 Risk Assessment
In considering the risks of this project two areas of concern emerge – those risks associated with managing partnerships in general, and specific risks related to the project implementation that will need to occur to deliver the desired change in the LSP.
The following table sets out some of the risks we have identified and makes initial proposals for effective management of these.
Risk Management Approach That the legal constraints on local Proposals take into account legal requirements. In authorities do not enable these changes to the event of a change of legislation changing our happen. requirements of partnerships this is likely to enable greater freedom, rather than greater challenge, but any changes will be monitored and mitigation routes provided as soon as it is indicated changes may occur. The mixture of standing boards existing Steps will be taken to ensure that the Leadership for statutory reasons, and action focussed Board and delivery management group have a clear project groups, creates duplication, picture of the work occurring across the whole LSP. confusion, inclarity or divisions between Standing boards will be expected to contribute to representatives on different groups the overarching priorities of the LSP and have a work programme that clearly demonstrates their contribution to the goals of the partnership as a whole. The programme management function will seek to ensure that all the work occurring across the LSP is captured at least at a high level to facilitate sharing of information and avoid risk of duplication. Unrealistic expectations develop over Clear guidelines need to be established within outcomes, involvement and resources. which freedom is given. Equalities and diversity standard is LSP projects will need to review carefully where challenged by a failure to deliver work such risks are likely to arise and provide support to taking into account the needs of all minimise them. Work will be directed wherever communities possible at work to reduce inequality. Partners fail to adapt to the new systems The implementation plan includes clear and processes and do not secure the communication of the changes proposed and benefits which are possible. suggestions as to minimise this impact. However, it will be vital that all partners play a full and effective part in the LSP and That partners don’t have the skills needed This will need to be considered in the context of to use the freedom for new opportunities Councillor and staff development programmes. effectively. That tension develops between the need This is a likely risk – it is important that the detailed for decisions on a strategic framework protocols established are designed to ensure that all and the desire for local decision-making. participants understand their roles in the decision-
83 making system. That partners fail to respond to the We make recommendations on our understanding Council’s approaches. of the best way to approach partners – it should be expected that negotiated solutions would take time and effort to secure. That the financial impacts are not Focus on ensuring that projects and services are immediately apparent. designed to meet service users’ needs should be maintained – the measure of success should be to reduce the number of redesigned projects and service failures arising from negative user reactions. That failure of accountability and Project managers will need to take responsibility for performance occur. delivery of their projects and hold each other to account based on objectives agreed by the Leadership Board. It will be the responsibility of the Leadership Board to ensure that delivery is achieved. Over the longer term a more formalised performance management framework to meet evolving national requirements can be developed.
84 Next Steps: Outline Implementation Plan
To be further developed
The following outline action plan sets out the next steps needed to achieve successful implementation of the new approach to partnerships in Ealing.
The LSP Executive should consider each of these actions and agree to these being pursued in order for work to begin to deliver them.
Immediate – to Oct 2010
ACTION OWNER TIMESCALE Agreement to outline proposals in Review LSP Executive July 2010 Report. Agreement to areas for priority focus for next year Amendments, developments and additional information Membership review – Leadership Board Terms of reference drafting Draft proposals for membership / initial chairing arrangements of key groups Draw up specific project proposals, agree scope and leadership Consider in more detail the current governance and reporting arrangements that exist for some key strategies and fully understand how they will be reported on and monitored in the future – communicating with those involved Draw up a definitive future structure based on agreement as to which boards and groups will exist and how they will interact
Short term – by Jan 2011
85 ACTION OWNER TIMESCALE Community Strategy Refresh develop action plan for the work of the LSP and its groups/projects – setting out clearly what goals need to be worked towards and forward planning how this will be achieved Possibly: ‘Kick off’ new LSP with a summit bringing all partners together to work through their offer and commitment, action planning contribution and focus Establish up to date ‘network’ lists of contacts who can be drawn together and meet to discuss issues as necessary; can receive communications and strategies Project set up - Assigning workstream leads and detailed workstream planning
Long term developments – by end 2011
ACTION OWNER TIMESCALE LSP leadership board considers its individual organisations’ offers to contribute to the work Engagement with scrutiny – including vfm scrutiny panel Ongoing engagement with all partners and local organisations who can contribute to the LSP
86 APPENDIX A: Stakeholder Engagement – individuals contributing to process through steering group and interviews
Paula Whittle and Tim Hulme (West London College) Andy Roper, Antony Bewick-Smith and Carmel Cahill (ECN/ECVS) Simon Hall (Dominion Housing) Janpal Basran (Southall Community Alliance) Sian Vasey (ECIL) Inder Matharu (JCP) Robert Creighton, Jo Murfitt (PCT) Julie Lowe (Ealing Hospital) Maggie Wilson, Stephen Day, Leanda Richardson (Council) Ian Jenkins, Sultan Taylor and Gwanwyn Mason (Police) Susmita Sen and Paul Davey (Ealing Homes) Ricky Singh (EREC)
Key Councillors: Julian Bell, Cabinet Members Ealing Council Chief Executive and Corporate Board
Opportunities were also provided to representatives from the private sector, but declined to be involved at this stage.
The implementation stages of this review will seek to engage all partners fully and to involve those from organisations who have not been included to date.
87 APPENDIX B – Outline Stakeholder Interview questions
1) Current practice
o What is working well about the LSP as it currently operates? o What has the LSP delivered that could not have been achieved without it?
2) Areas for development
o What do you think are the key areas for improvement? o (For example, thinking about)… o Partner engagement o Neighbourhood governance o Community empowerment o Reducing inequality o Joint commissioning o Performance management
3) Future partnerships
Provide proposed solution model: o Thoughts and considerations on this model o Ideas and proposals for projects
88 Additional draft information:
Potential Future partnership Leadership Board for Ealing Terms of reference:
Responsible for developing and driving the implementation of the Sustainable Community Strategy and the Local Area Agreement, as long as these remain statutory. In the event of this not being so, partners would agree the best way forward for creating a cohesive vision for the Borough and actions agreed across all partners to achieve this. Collectively identifies and sets strategic priorities for Ealing, agrees how those priorities will be met and how resources are collectively allocated to achieve them Monitors and reviews how partnerships and organisations are delivering the agreed priorities at a strategic level, for cross-cutting areas of top priority. Ensures that public resource is used as effectively as possible, and that there is the best possible synergy across all local partners Ensures an accurate evidence base on which to base discussions and decisions on priorities and which interventions will work and have most impact Considers and agrees priority projects for the LSP’s work programme for the coming year Holds projects accountable in their delivery of results, seeking updated from DMG and other key performance information to scrutinise outcomes and secure maximum benefit.
Potential Membership
Will need to be agreed by the current LSP Chair and Executive, reviewing existing membership and based on the key partners we feel should be involved from:
‘Partner authorities’ as defined by Local Government and Public Involvement in Health (LGPIH) Act 2007:
The Arts Council The Broads Authority Chief Officer of Police District authorities English Heritage The Environment Agency Fire and rescue authorities Health and Safety Executive The Highways Agency Jobcentre Plus Joint waste authorities Joint waste disposal authorities The Learning and Skills Council in England Metropolitan passenger transport authorities
89 Museums, Libraries and Archives Council National Park authorities Natural England NHS Foundation Trusts NHS Health Trusts Police authorities Primary care trusts (PCTs) Local Probation Boards, Probation Trusts and other providers of probation service Regional development agencies (RDAs) Sport England Transport for London (TfL) Youth Offending teams Any other organisations added by an order under Section 104(7) of the Act or by primary legislation.
90 Ealing Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) Executive Ealing Community Network 2nd Tier (aligned with Community Strategy themes) Statutory/ Public Stronger Health & Environment Safer Ealing Children’s Economy, Arts, Sports & Sector Communities Wellbeing & Partnership Trust Board Enterprise & Culture Board Board Climate Housing Change Board Business Board Partners
Built Environment Group Skills and Community Sports Voluntary Sector Clean and Green Board Employment Group Action Network; Liaison Forum; Local Adaptation Partnership Ealing Arts; Local Equalities Reference Acton Arts Forum Community Group Safer Ealing Partnership Operational Group Structures Performance Management and Finance groups Childrens’ Trust Operational Board. Drug and Alcohol Task Group Ealing Safeguarding Children Board (ESCB) Youth Crime Prevention Health Improvement Partnership Ealing Children’s Trust Schools Consultative Prolific and Priority Offenders Panel Group Urgent Care Network Anti-Social Behaviour Action Group Mental Health YOT Management Board Domestic Violence Group CAMHS Partnership Board Long Term Conditions Hate Crime Group Learning Disabilities Child Poverty Group Counter Terrorism Forum Engaging Children, young People and Carer’s Partnership Board Serious Acquisitive Crime Group Older People Parents Group Joint Action Group (Local problem solving). Early Years and play Development Group Safeguarding Adults Public Reassurance Group Drug and Alcohol Action Team Integrated Performance management CCTV Group Resources, Planning and Commissioning (DAAT) Serious Violence Group Ealing Executive Group Group Healthy Weight healthy Lives Workforce Development Group Integrated Working Operational Delivery Group Strategy group ESCAN EYDCP 91 Ealing Leadership Board: single place for strategic decision making – local leaders and Chief Execs
Delivery Management Group (project managers) Other boards Statutory partners wish to maintain boards
Partnership projects: Proposed by services, partners, analysis of resident engagement, agreed through commissioning process to leadership board; resourced by partners from ecisting work
92