Transcript Slide 1
An Introduction to
Community Budgets
ELS SSP : 29-07-13
What are Community Budgets?
• The core idea of community budgets is that a broad
range of partners should agree common outcomes,
pool resources and join up activities to achieve those
outcomes.
• Important dimensions are improving quality,
efficient use of public money, promoting choice,
localism, enabling civil society and prevention of
social and economic problems.
The Policy Context
• Evolved and builds on the work of ‘Total Place’ that ended in
2010. Total Place was designed to improve public services and
save money by bringing organisations and their budgets
together;
• A central theme of the scheme was a ‘whole area’ approach
that would reduce overlap and duplication by sharing
objectives across multiple agencies.
• Following the General Election the Coalition stated that it
wished to build on some of the lessons of Total Place with
Community Budgets.
The Policy Context
• Community Budgets are linked to both the government’s
Open Public Services White Paper and the Localism agenda.
• Both are based on the premise that public services should be
configured around meeting the needs of the individual and
the community. Services that might be national in nature
should be delivered directly to the citizen via a method as
close to the citizen as possible.
• Open Public Services White Paper sets out five key principles
behind the re-configuration of Public Services:
The Policy Context
• Choice – Wherever possible citizen centred choice will be
increased.
• Decentralisation – Power should be decentralised to the
lowest appropriate level.
• Diversity – Public services should be open to a range of
providers.
• Fairness – We will ensure fair access to public services.
• Accountability – Public services should be accountable to
users and taxpayers
Community budgets can help organisations
that provide local public services to:
• make better use of their resources by establishing joint
budgets and sharing local knowledge, community assets and
voluntary effort;
• remove central rules and regulations so local professionals
can provide better services that suit their area;
• give people greater control over their local public services;
• support local partnership and governance arrangements to
create a unified approach for a given area.
Types of Community Budget
• Sixteen first-phase Community Budgets for families
with multiple problems were announced in April
2011 as part of the effort to help turn round the
lives of at least 10,000 families over 4 years.
• Following consultation, 2 further types of budget
pilots were announced on 21 December 2011.
Types of Community Budget
• Whole-place Community Budgets test how to bring
together all funding for local public services in an
area to design better services and achieve better
outcomes .
• Neighbourhood level Community Budgets give
communities more power and control over local
services and budgets whole-place Community
Budgets
Whole Place Budgets
• May bring all funding on local public services from the area
into a single pot, or pool and align different funding streams
as appropriate to test how to create the right local financial
set up to deliver better services that people want.
• Four pilot areas established (including Cheshire West and
Chester and Greater Manchester) and business cases now
developed.
• Challenge and Learning Network established to share learning
of the pilots with others.
Neighbourhood Level Budgets
• Smaller scale Community Budgets that give residents
a micro-local level say over the services they want
and use.
• The local community play a leading role, working
with the local council and other services, to shape
the services they receive so they work from a
customer's perspective.
• 10 pilots selected.
Whole Place Budgets
• Assume that all functions of national and local
government, all public spending and all public
services will be within scope.
• Breaking down barriers is key because the more
control and flexibility local partners have, the closer
they can work with communities and more flexibly
respond to their needs .
Potential Barriers
• Multiple, uncoordinated funding streams at local level and
savings not directly benefitting agencies investing.
• Reactive approaches – waiting until a problem becomes a
serious issue instead of prevention and early intervention.
• Lack of understanding and use of evidence, and the ability to
share information across organisational boundaries.
• Short term planning of public finances, with councils required
to balance budgets in year.
• Lack of effective structures – e.g. if local partnerships have no
legal standing does this prevent pooling on the scale required?
Factors for success
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An agreed clear vision between partners
Common outcomes and outcome based approach.
Local innovation and co-design.
Local delivery mechanisms.
Commitment to data sharing.
Removal of barriers (organisational, sharing funding,
legislation etc).
• Scaleable.
Pilots to date have:
• designed new models of service delivery;
• identified the changes needed to national policies;
• developed robust, evidence based business cases
based on CBA;
• agreement on sharing both risk and savings across all
partners;
• strengthened partnership arrangements and worked
collaboratively to develop place based leadership.
Work-ready individuals – what will change :
West Cheshire
Day One Deliverables
• A number of multi-agency ‘Work Zones’ featuring JCP, Council Employment and Skills,
NCS, Housing and others
• Tailored offers for high priority cohorts
• New assessment process to drive joint working between employment and skills services
• New process to integrate work programme and JCP ‘warm’ hand over in line with DWP
operations directive
• New governance structure to ensure Employment and Skills provision is linked to the
locality agenda
Lessons Learnt : West Cheshire
1. Pick a deadline and stick to it: Focus and ambition
2. Integrated where it makes sense: You can’t make one budget for place, so it’s better to target efforts.
3. Avoid new silos: If you integrate on a project by project basis, you must make sure that you retain a view of the
bigger picture.
4. Collaborative Leadership: All leaders from all partners have a role to play.
5. Invest in analysis: This can't be a nice to do. To make a difference it needs to be financially sustainable. Invest in
cost benefit analysis to ensure every partner is clear on their return on investment and you can evidence impact.
6. Don’t forget the community: Redesigning services and budgets only goes so far. A new settlement between citizen
and state is required.
7. Keep up the momentum: Policy Commissions – Elected Members and partners identifying new solutions to future
challenges
Where next?
• The Local Government Association commissioned
Ernst and Young to review the potential for the
aggregation of whole place community budgets.
• The report notes that community budgets have the
potential to deliver better outcomes and realise
substantial financial benefits by aggregating themes
of health and social care, troubled families and work
and skills; with the potential of a net benefit of five
years of between £9.4bn and £20.6bn
Where next?
• The 2013 Budget statement confirmed that the Government
are committed to extending the Community Budget concept
• Public Service Transformation network established with
funding support as part of this to spread innovation and
learning from the pilots.
• Councils and other local agencies were invited to express
their interest in being one of a number of areas who will work
intensely with the network. These areas will be announced in
the summer