Your questions answered on the future
What impact do you believe the introduction of Individual budgets within Supporting People will have on Supporting People’s ability to deliver Local Area Agreement priorities?
As an authority, Lambeth is ambitious with its plans for moving towards self-directed care and we expect that this will involve the support we provide to care groups in long term services becoming subject to individual budgets in the medium term.
Lambeth’s Supporting People (SP) team is involved in the 'In Control' pilot being managed by colleagues in Adult and Community Services and we are testing individual budgets with some Adults with Learning Disabilities clients currently. We have not gone very far down this road to date. However, there will always be a need for commissioned services that meet cross-cutting needs, regardless of the development of self-directed care and support so we do not feel that the changing agenda needs to affect the changes we have made to our governance.
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If governance arrangements change, how can we keep the Supporting People focus?
We feel very positively about the changes to governance arrangements that have taken place in Lambeth and believe they enable a continuing focus on Supporting People (SP) services within the Local Area Agreement (LAA). A key factor in Lambeth has been the leadership of the SP team in the development of these governance arrangements; this has guaranteed a high profile for the SP team and its work and enabled SP to shape the development of commissioning practice across the LAA. The process has been assisted by the decision to broaden the membership of the commissioning board and to extend its remit, both of which enable SP to form new partnerships and access new funding streams. We would encourage other SP teams to promote similar governance models in their local areas.
Where LAA governance arrangements have already been agreed for SP, we feel it’s very useful for SP teams to build close links with a range of LAA partners and to explore areas where SP could become involved in joint commissioning/ funding of services, either as a means of supporting an LAA stretch target or meeting gaps in services. It’s worthwhile also demonstrating the success of current SP projects using Communities and Local Government (CLG)’s Outcomes Framework.
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What are the key building blocks which Supporting People teams need to put in place now to ensure the Supporting People preventative agenda continues to be met in 2009 when ring-fencing is removed?
A good starting point is to develop your understanding of your current Local Area Agreement (LAA). It is useful to map existing commissioning across the LAA blocks to get a better picture of current LAA partnerships and where Supporting People (SP) services and funding can add value in future. It’s worthwhile also spending some time considering how you can gather data that will support SP’s involvement.
A crucial task is to understand how SP targets and outcomes measures fit with other LAA indicators, especially stretch targets. In Lambeth we were able to get KPIs 1 and 2 embedded in the Safer and Stronger Communities block at an early stage and we would recommend other SP teams try to do the same. However, it’s vital that you are also aware of how your SP team can contribute in a wider way in future refreshes of the LAA.
As we’ve already mentioned, it’s important for SP to engage with the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) as early as possible in the process – in our view, offence is the best form of defence! Encouraging LSP representation onto the SP Commissioning Board is also key to widening understanding of the commissioning process, awareness of SP services and profile of the SP team.
Taking things forward, it’s a good idea to build on existing partnerships by widening the SP Commissioning Board membership to include Children’s Services. Public Health and others, so that it has representation across all four blocks. This will also help you to argue the case more effectively for SP’s strategic commissioning model being adopted for use across the whole LAA. If possible, get support from Communities and Local Government (CLG) for your approach and sign-off of any changes made to your governance structures.
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What Supporting People targets should be included as part of the Local Area Agreement?
It’s important to look for opportunities for joint commissioning when choosing Local Area Agreement (LAA) indicators. In Lambeth, Supporting People (SP) performance indicators KPI 1 and KPI 2 were embedded in the Safer and Stronger Communities block at an early stage when our current Round 3 LAA was being developed. In addition, KPI 2 has been included as one of just 11 stretch targets in Lambeth’s LAA, thereby committing the whole partnership to work better to improve planned move-on from SP services. We were able to achieve this by demonstrating that there are substantial cost benefits to the partnership – more than £1M over the next three years - from moving people more quickly out of supported accommodation to free up places for others in more high cost and unsuitable placements (eg residential care or hospital) to move in. The fact that KPI 2 is a stretch target in Lambeth’s LAA is already attracting inward investment and encouraging better partnership working.
Within the new National Indicator set, both of the current SP performance indicators are available to be selected but they have been renamed as NI141 and NI142 (Vulnerable people sustaining independent living and Vulnerable people achieving independent living respectively). These are obviously directly relevant to SP so it’s very important that you lobby to get these included in your LAA. However, most of the indicators included in the Socially Excluded Adults Public Service Agreement (PSA) are also relevant to the work of SP as they reflect work with four named client groups (offenders, care leavers, people with secondary mental health problems and adults with a learning disability) to achieve settled accommodation and reduce levels of worklessness. Other options might include NIs 18 and 30 relating to rates of re-offending and NI 152 - People of working age on out of work benefits, so influencing your LAA to include these too is also likely to see SP having a big role to play