Your questions answered on partnerships and joint commissioning
Has Lambeth seen any joint-commissioning benefits from the new arrangements and have new ways of working emerged?
Supporting People (SP)’s existing good practice in relation to the Third Sector means that approaches such as ‘buddying’ between small and larger local providers and consortia working are being more widely utilised in the local contracting framework. Widening the SP Commissioning Board to include Children’s Services, Regeneration, Culture, Public Health and the Learning and Skills Council gives the opportunity to build on existing partnerships and ensures there is representation across all four blocks.
Specific projects have already emerged from within the wider partnership represented on the CCG and these include a welfare benefits take up service (joint-funded by SP, Adults and Community Services and the Primary Care Trust), a family support project for youth offenders (jointly commissioned by SP and the Youth Offending Service) and a variety of private rented sector access schemes (jointly funded by Drug and Alcohol Action Team, the Primary Care Trust, SP and Adults and Community Services). Other projects are being planned.
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The forthcoming Local Area Agreement refresh will permit flexibility of budget spend between blocks. Will Supporting People grant conditions be a barrier to the most effective spend of budgets to meet community needs or protect essential cross cutting services?
Local Area Agreements (LAAs) promote flexibility of spending between blocks. However, in reality Supporting People (SP) grant conditions are quite flexible and shouldn’t be a barrier to meeting the needs of individual communities/client groups or working in partnerships to provide innovative services as part of the LAA. The range of partnerships Lambeth SP is developing – with Adults & Community Services, the Primary Care Trust, the Youth Offending Service - is evidence of this. Having strong governance arrangements in place makes it more likely that SP will continue to provide for its full range of client groups and to maintain its strong focus on promoting social inclusion.
Our experience is that Communities and Local Government (CLG) is very receptive to SP teams which have questions about use of SP grant funding and other issues and feel this can be a good way to reduce anxiety about planned changes!
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How has Supporting People’s involvement in the Local Area Agreement improved partnership working? Will there be any improvements in commissioning practice?
We believe that Supporting People’s (SP) involvement in the Local Area Agreement (LAA) will help here in a number of ways. The SP programme’s use of pooled funding from different parts of government to deliver on joint objectives means that good partnership working is embedded within the system.
Our model starts from a position of commissioning, rather than procurement. It also strongly emphasises partnership with the third sector and our SP programme can already provide some excellent examples of partnerships with third sector organisations; how we involve them and their service users in service review and development. Added to this, we have developed a robust value for money framework, work has been recognised as good practice by the Audit Commission.
Our work on governance has helped with the work to integrate best-practice commissioning across the LAA. Our involvement in this process also means there is a greater chance of services adopting innovative models and solutions to social inclusion.
We are already seeing how SP’s involvement is opening up opportunities in other parts of the LAA. For example, Lambeth’s Youth Offending Service has agreed a jointly funded post for work to improve their commissioning practice that will help them meet their stretch target. We are also working to bridge gaps in mental health services.