Liverpool City Council: Streets Ahead Plus 6.68 MB
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LGDC local government delivery council Improvement Customer led transformation programme Case study – Liverpool City Council Streets Ahead Plus – finding employment for lone parents 18/58 Contents About Speke, in Liverpool 3 Background 4 Objective 6 Approach 6 Findings 9 Outcomes 13 Benefits 14 Governance 18 Resourcing 18 Challenges and lessons learnt 20 Next steps 22 2 Streets Ahead Plus – finding employment for lone parents About Speke, in Liverpool The Customer Led Transformation Programme Liverpool City Council is a unitary authority which provides services to 442,000 citizens Liverpool’s work has been funded under and is the most deprived local authority in the CLT programme. The fund aims to England. Despite the success of the council embed the use of customer insight and and others to attract inward investment social media tools and techniques as and although there are undoubtedly some strategic management capabilities across “leafy suburbs” and areas of prosperity and the public sector family in order to support affluence there are also areas, such as place-based working. Speke, with some of the worst poverty and deprivation in the UK. The CLT programme is overseen by the Local Government Delivery Council Speke Garston is located on the southern (supported by the Local Government border of the city of Liverpool. The ward is Association). dominated by the Speke housing estate in the south of the ward and Garston to the The fund was established specifically to north. Centrally the ward is dominated by support collaborative working between John Lennon Airport, Estuary Business Park, local authorities and their partners Speke Retail Park and Bio Manufacturing focused on using customer insight and adjacent to Jaguar / Ford in and social media tools and techniques neighbouring Knowsley. to improve service outcomes. These approaches offer public services bodies According to the Indices of Multiple the opportunity to engage customers and Deprivation 2007, the Speke area is in gather insight into their preferences and the worst 1 percent of overall deprivation, needs, and thereby provide the evidence including the most deprived in terms of low and intelligence needed to redesign incomes, high levels of worklessness, lone services to be more targeted, effective parents, and health. and efficient. As one of the most deprived wards in the City and has been the focus of much regeneration over many years but the statistics for Speke Garston still paint a gloomy picture: • a population of 18,698 (2007) includes a higher proportion of females and children than the city average • 63 percent of residents living in the most deprived 1 percent neighbourhoods in the country • household income levels are low at £23,122 compared to a city level of £29,285 Streets Ahead Plus – finding employment for lone parents 3 • child poverty rates are double that of the national average • there are 3,707 workless residents (May 2010) and the worklessness rate (30 percent) is significantly higher than the Liverpool average (21.9 percent) and well above the national rate of 12.4 percent (with correspondingly high numbers of claimants of Incapacity Benefit / Employment Support Allowance) • 46 percent of the housing stock in the ward is social housing, one of the highest rates in the city • low levels of privately owned housing and over 88 percent of properties in Speke Garston fall into Council Tax Band “A” • all crime and violent crime figures (including anti-social behaviour) are higher than the national average • life expectancy much lower than the Liverpool and national averages • women in the city have the highest rates for smoking and smoking related diseases • obesity at 23.8 percent it is higher than the Liverpool average of 19.1 percent • of the 3 schools in the ward none have achieved attainment levels above the Liverpool average for 5+ A*–C grades including Maths and English. Against this background, Liverpool City Council and its partners used their Customer Insight to identify and select an area within Speke Garston to pilot a new approach to support lone parents into employment. The selected area clearly had much to gain but would also present the greatest challenges. 4 Streets Ahead Plus – finding employment for lone parents Background staff with local knowledge believed that there were additional “hidden” cases. The original Streets Ahead project started Feedback directly from community as a joint initiative in outreach working in representatives and local residents 2003. Streets Ahead was established by the suggested that there was a need for Jobs, Education and Training (JET) Service greater personalised support to address of Liverpool City Council (LCC) to bring the complex barriers for lone parents together staff from a wide range of agencies returning to the labour market. So, Streets to help improve residents’ access to the job Ahead Plus sought to use greater customer opportunities and services that are available insight to develop a more focused family/ in the South Liverpool area. household approach, providing an enhanced Each week a team of staff from organisations advisory and support service tailored to such as JET, JobCentre Plus (JCP) , Greater meet individual needs. This would be Merseyside Connexions, Shaw Trust and delivered through a variety of partners and Citizens Advice Bureau would visit houses, different locations including registered social schools, community and health centres in landlord’s office, schools, children’s centres, Speke, Garston and Netherley Valley to and community groups. promote awareness of local job opportunities As well as supporting individuals, the project and the wide range of support services aimed to establish a model that would create available to people living in the area. After an efficiencies through enhanced partnership initial pilot, this model was rolled out across working and deliver direct savings from the the city. benefit system. It was calculated that twenty The Streets Ahead Plus project aimed to take lone parents entering employment would this work one stage further by focussing on a realise a benefit saving of £80,000 during the specific, difficult to reach, customer group – 6 months of the project. lone parents. Given the limited timeframe and resources available for this pilot, it was estimated that a realistic but stretching target for the project would be to engage with around 100 residents in one of the most deprived Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in the Speke ward, and to support 20 of these lone parents into employment. An earlier Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) data sharing pilot across the Liverpool City region provided some sound information from a range of partners at Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) level. This enabled the partners to select a pilot area within Speke ward where around 90 lone parents had been identified and where Streets Ahead Plus – finding employment for lone parents 5 Although it will not be measured within the Objectives scope of this pilot project, it is anticipated that the project would also contribute to The ultimate aim of the project was to the reduction in child and family poverty increase the number of lone parents in and, as part of the wider social impact of employment and consequently to reduce individuals returning to work, would make the costs of benefits provided to this group indirect contributions to other social benefits as well as improve the quality of their including: lives. To achieve this, the project sought to engage unemployed lone parents in order • improvement in health and well-being to address the barriers they face in securing • reduction in crime employment. A target was set to support 20 of the sample group back into sustainable • increase in take up of childcare employment by March 2011 (i.e. 3 percent of • reduction in worklessness the known lone parents in receipt of benefits • improved community cohesion due to the within the Speke ward). project being designed in partnership with The project set out to capture and analyse residents. a range of sources of customer insight to • increase in attainment and aspirations of help understand this group. Customer insight children of previously workless parents at intelligence was gathered from existing data primary school level, up to age 11 held by Liverpool City Council, Job Centre • increase in attendance levels at school. Plus (JCP), Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), and feedback and consultation with the lone parents engaged on the project. The analysis of the data captured and feedback would be used to design a more customer focused service, better meeting the needs of these individuals resulting in more lone 6 Streets Ahead Plus – finding employment for lone parents parents returning to labour market in future. With assistance from DWP Work Psychologists, Streets Ahead Plus made use In addition, the project investigated ways of the following customer insight tools and to redesign local delivery around customer techniques: need. By collaborating effectively with local delivery partners the aim was to redesign the • one to one interviews way in which this specific customer group • questionnaires was supported – eliminating duplication, and reducing costs. • customer Journey Mapping • focus groups To achieve these objectives the project aimed to engage directly with a sample group • consultation of 100 lone parents from the identified area, • analysis via DWP Work Psychologists focussing on those who were disengaged • business / employer questionnaires. from mainstream provision and claiming Incapacity Benefit / Employment Support They used the questionnaires and one Allowance (IB/ESA). to one interviews to further understand the experiences of the sample group in Approach accessing current worklessness services, and from this feedback, highlighted five In preparation for the project, 689 lone key issues for further discussion and parents in receipt of different benefits within investigation at focus groups, i.e. the Speke ward were identified. Streets • childcare Ahead Plus aimed to engage with a sample of 100 from an identified Lower Super Output • housing Area (LSOA).