Understanding the new public service commissioning environment and volunteer’s place within it

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AM1: Understanding the new public

service commissioning environment

and volunteers’ place within it

CHAIR: Shane Brennan, Chief Executive, Age Concern

Kingston and Chair of NCVO’s Public Services Advisory

Group

This workshop is about

• The changing context of public service

commissioning

• The role of volunteers

• Challenges and opportunities

Economic context

Economic context

Economic context

Changing landscape

• ‘Open Public Services’

• Personalisation / user choice

• Shrinking public sector / reduced capacity

• Aggregation of contracts

• Outcomes-led commissioning

• New commissioners

‘Prime’ model

What is being outsourced?

• Services

• Management / commissioning functions – e.g.

• Transforming Rehabilitation

• Clinical Commissioning Groups?

• Child Protection?

Opportunities

• Market share

• Social Value Act 2012

• Changing procurement rules – Autumn 2014

• Target for 25% government contracts to be

delivered by SMEs by 2015

Threats

• Reduced overall funding

• Private sector competition

• Internal competition in VCSE sector (e.g. locals

vs nationals)

• Lack of scale and structure – VCSE

• Poor commissioning expertise – commissioners

Volunteering: opportunities

• Added value of volunteers – time,

responsiveness, skills

• Volunteers’ self-development, employability

• Community coherence, resilience

but …

• Job replacement/ substitution, “cheap labour”

• Danger of damage to “volunteering movement”

Problems for management / commissioning

• How to incorporate volunteering in procurement

• How to include in bids

• How to cost the management of volunteers

• How to demonstrate added value - impact

• What difference volunteers make when they’re

involved

Volunteers and Public Service Commissioning

Christine Mead

Behaviour Change Commissioner

Triborough Public Health Service

The economic and policy context

• Changes to public services

– Health care budgets reducing

– Pressures on adult social care budgets

• Changes to population needs

– Communities and ethnic groups remain isolated and disenfranchised

– Ageing population

– Challenges to children’s health, diet and school readiness

• Changes to service providers

– Cross sector working

– Integrated working

– New forms of partnerships

– Commissioning and procurement approaches

The Challenge of Waste

Community Champions: Policy Background

Addressing root causes of poor health and well-being requires

better approaches to deliver health and care that is ‘owned by

communities and shaped by their needs’ (Public Health

White Paper)

UK Parliament’s Committee of Public Accounts confirmed that the

gap in life expectancy between people in deprived areas and the

general population has continued to widen,

Health and Social Care Act (2012): local authorities have

responsibility for improving the health of their local populations,

and sets out to ‘tackle health inequalities across the life course,

and across the social determinants of health’

Community Champions

• Local residents rooted in the community

• Bringing local residents and services together

• Improve health and wellbeing of residents

• Trained to Level 2: Understanding Health Improvement

(RSPH)

• Running and promoting health ad wellbeing activities

• Knowledge transfer about health, best practice and

access

• Signposting and health advice

Social Return on Investment

The Social Value Act has the power to

transform spending on public services

This ambitious new act requires public authorities to take into account

social and environmental value when they choose suppliers, rather

than focusing solely on cost

Patrick Butler, The Guardian, 5 Feb 2013

What does this mean for providers and programmes?

National Audit Office: Value for money and TSOs

‘Make sure your programme is really focused on outcomes, the

impact on service users and communities that you are seeking

to achieve, and not just on outputs, process or inputs.

Not all outcomes will be obvious, direct or easily values. You and/or

providers may need to use evaluations and techniques such as

Social Return on Investment (SROI) to establish the full impact of a

programme and its worth.’

Changes for residents

Changes for volunteer champions

Value of Champions

for every £1 invested there is a return of £5.05

STAKEHOLDER OUTCOMES PRESENT VALUE OF IMPACT

(£ Attributed Value)

HOUSEHOLDS

DIRECTLY REACHED per Hub

CHAMPIONS

i.e. Improved health (exercise, healthy eating) and reduced diabetes issues

Improved well-being

Skills & knowledge

Employability

Fairer access to treatment

£248,000 76

RESIDENTS

i.e. Improved health (exercise, healthy eating) and reduced diabetes issues

Reduced prevalence of long term conditions

Improved well-being

Knowledge

Fairer access to treatment

£845,000 circa 150-200 households per Hub (or approx

1000 households)

CHILDREN

i.e. Improved health

Improved well-being

Knowledge

£526,500 circa 150-200 households per Hub

(or approx 1000 households)

LOCAL AUTHORITY

i.e. Reduced care need for reduced diabetes

Reduced adult and elderly care need due to poor mental health and isolation

Improved school readiness

£907,500 circa 150-200 households per Hub

(or approx 1000 households)

Central GOVERNMENT SAVINGS

i.e. Resource savings to Health and Social care, and DWP

£255,500 circa 150-200 households per Hub

(or approx 1000 households)

SOCIAL & ECONOMIC VALUE over 12 month benefit period ONLY c. £2.56 million -

PRESENT SOCIAL & ECONOMIC VALUE forecasted across 3 year benefit period for

specific outcomes

Circa £2.78 million -

Table 1. Social, Economic and Environmental Value created by Community Champions

http://communitychampionsuk.org/see-us-

in-action/

cmead@westminster.gov.uk

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham | The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea | Westminster City Council

Commissioning Contributions through

Volunteering

Oonagh Aitken, Director Social Action

and Volunteering, CSV

oaitken@csv.org.uk

Policy-Personalisation, Choice and Control

“Our overall vision is about promoting

people's wellbeing and independence

and enabling them to be active citizens”

Glen Mason, Director of People,

Communities and Local Government, DH

“There is a strong emphasis in the Care

Act on improving people's overall

wellbeing, which shifts the emphasis

from a remedial, 'deficit' based system,

to one which seeks to take pre-emptive,

preventive and supportive measures.”

Bridget Warr, CEO UK Home Care

Association and TLAP Board Member

Contribution through Volunteering

● Asset based approach to improving community engagement, individual health and wellbeing, and commissioning

● Enables individuals with a range of support needs to contribute to their communities through volunteering with the support of trained mentors from the local community

● Enables them to be trained to increase their skills and enhance their ability to contribute

● Breaks down barriers and builds relationships through using community volunteers as support mentors

28

Impact

● King’s Fund Volunteering in Health and Care (2013) - support

provided by volunteers/mentors is of particular value to those who

rely most heavily on services.

● CSV Reports On: Mental Health, Volunteering and Social Inclusion

(2008):

more likely to have a positive outcome due to the informal nature

of the relationship and the responsibility it gives the service user

for their own recovery

encourages community and peer responsibility

● Self-reported outcomes 12-13:

93% increased independence

65% more in control

600 disabled people supported to volunteer

System Dynamics

● Stocks and Flows

● Feedback Loops

Results

● Reduction in number of isolated people:

from 700 to around 511 (759 without the scheme)

● •After five years, 426 people would have moved out of isolation

into a ‘connected’ state (including those still with a volunteer)

Average cost of:

● £1,012 per person who started the scheme

● £1,887 per reduction of one person in the “isolated” community

Next Steps –further work on cost effectiveness, including savings and

outcomes e.g. in context of existing tools, ASCOT, POET.

Our Learning – Health and Wellbeing

“Being a volunteer gives self esteem

and confidence – a sense of

purpose and makes me happy”

“I need to be included in

decisions; it’s about what I want”

“Help to build my skills up so I know

what I want to do and how to do it –

I want to do things properly and

well”

“My confidence has improved

and my social skills …without

CSV I would not have got

anywhere and would be sat at

home bored with nothing to do”

Our Learning – Impact and Outcomes

● Volunteering makes financial sense - DWP: Wellbeing

and Civil Society (2013) - social and economic benefits

of volunteering. Economic value of formal volunteering in

the UK 1.3% to 1.6% of GDP – around £23 billion.

● Strong link with Care Act 2014 and new prevention duty

this places on LA’s; community capacity; Better Care

Fund and integration.

● Business Model to influence commissioning practise

across health, care and beyond; provides a tool for

engaging with and convincing commissioners of impact

of volunteering as a cost effective intervention.

Case study 3

Alan Strickland

Head of Volunteering Development

Discussion

Join the Public Service Delivery Network!

Thank you …

For more information …

Lev Pedro

lev.pedro@ncvo.org.uk

020 7520 2411

www.ncvo.org.uk

Evolve 2014