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Kent‟s Community Budget Business Case

15th May 2012

This Business Case outlines the proposed approach for Kent‟s Community Budget programme, endorsed by the Multi-Agency Steering Group on 8th May 2012.

Executive Summary: • DCLG‟s „Troubled Families‟ programme aims to transform the lives of 120,000 families nationally

by 2015 with a specific focus on families experiencing issues of truancy/exclusion from school, youth offending, anti-social behaviour and worklessness.

• DCLG estimated that Kent has 2560 families to engage with over a 3 year period (2012-15) and

has offered up £4000 per family in upfront attachment fee grant funding and Payment by Results funding if successful against national performance criteria.

• Kent has identified there are 1082 families that meet Criteria 1 (youth offending/anti-social

behaviour) & 2 (truancy/exclusion) – we would like to engage with all these families in Year 1 (2012/13), working towards the goal of 2560 by 2015.

• If Kent initiates work with 1082 families in 2012/13 this is worth £2.89m in upfront attachment fee

grant funding, with up to a further £0.63m in Payments by Results funding if we successfully work with families against the performance criteria.

• The Steering Group sets the strategic direction for Kent‟s Community Budget Programme,

supported by a Programme Board, Programme Team and Operational Projects Group (to share good practice amongst local practitioners). Kent Forum & Kent Joint Chiefs have an oversight role of the programme, with Locality Boards providing local oversight & assurance. It is important this is aligned to existing governance arrangements e.g. Kent Joint Commissioning Board.

• The vision is to create a long-term sustainable approach that achieves better value for money and

more effective interventions with families through joint commissioning, service redesign and transformation. Kent will focus on integrating processes, systems, partnership and commissioning arrangements – joining up our activity in an intelligent and coherent way.

• We will reinforce and build on the excellent understanding our practitioners have of evidence

based approaches that work. It is critical that solutions to local problems are driven at the local level by those with operational experience and are based on a robust assessment of need.

• Local Project Boards will be established to drive operational delivery and complement emerging

local commissioning arrangements. They will use a 10 step plan for working with families based on the Family CAF process. This will help to create a two-way contract with the family based on a Family Action Plan to get the right package of support and intervention in place, based on assessment of need and working towards independence.

• Local Project Plans will capture how we will work radically differently with families and become a

local needs/gap analysis and evidence base. Each plan will become the unique blueprint of our approach to supporting families in each area and inform business cases for gap funding, joint commissioning proposals and long term service redesign/integration models.

• A robust Outcomes & Evaluation framework will be shaped and owned by Local Project Boards

as part of their Local Project Plan to ensure we are making short term improvements with families, and progress towards long term outcomes, behavioural & cultural change.

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1. Background 1.1 In October 2010, Kent was selected to be one of a vanguard of 16 national Community Budget

pilot areas, initially focusing on a Family Intervention Project (FIP) style approach to support a small number of troubled families in Thanet and Swale. Kent‟s original proposal to Government in February 2011 set out an approach grounded in our localism agenda. Kent is a diverse county – how we effectively address the needs of troubled families in one area, can be very different to another area and this is reflected in different local themes and priorities emerging for Community Budgets throughout our 12 districts.

1.2 In December 2011, DCLG announced a more targeted focus for Community Budgets to turn

around 120,000 „Troubled Families‟ nationally by 2015 with further pilots for “whole place” (pooled budget) and “neighbourhood” community budgets (Sherwood in Tunbridge Wells being selected as a national neighbourhood pilot). This outlined a more intensive, focused intervention targeting a specific number of families per area who experience issues of truancy/exclusion from school, youth offending, anti-social behaviour and worklessness, through a Payment by Results model.

1.3 This Business Case outlines Kent‟s approach to the national agenda, and how this will build

on and complement the strong foundations of Kent‟s established Community Budget principles to respond to this challenge in an innovative way with effective local partnership working. Figure 1 (below) summarises the key elements of Kent‟s Community Budget programme. FIGURE 1: KEY PRINCIPLES OF KENT‟S COMMUNITY BUDGET

2. The ask from Government

2.1 In March 2012, DCLG set out a series of requirements for Local Authorities to verify and

identify a cohort of families to work with, and a Financial Framework outlining the Payments by Results funding process. By April 2012 it asked Kent to complete: the analysis necessary to convert the indicative estimated number of troubled families in

Kent (2560) into verified figures of „real‟ troubled families an estimate of how many of these families would already achieve the success criteria

within existing or planned provision by 2015 development of any service redesign plans required to expand provision and meet the

needs of the remaining group of „troubled families‟ in Kent; formulating the business case needed to underpin local resource commitments planning the outcome tracking arrangements necessary to focus services on the success

criteria and demonstrate success. a letter to „sign up‟ to commit to the Troubled Families approach, setting out how many

families we will work with in Kent in Year 1.

Wider Principles Operational Work

Kent’s Community

Budget Programme

Working intensively with a cohort of families to rapidly improve outcomes

Payments by Results

Early intervention

Rapid service redesign and more integrated working on the ground locally

Integrated partnership working

Prevention

Long term service transformation

Co-commissioning

Better use of public money

OUTCOME & EVALUATION FRAMEWORK

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3. Policy Context 3.1 Trying to find sustainable solutions to transforming the way the public sector works with

families has been an evolving policy area for a number of years. In 2007-2008 the Social Exclusion Taskforce ”Families at Risk” review estimated that around 140,000 of the 13.8 million families in England experience entrenched, inter-generational problems.

3.2 From this review the „Think Family‟ approach evolved introducing a more holistic multi-

agency assessment of a family‟s needs, rather than focusing on individuals within in the family in isolation. This is achieved through a „Family Common Assessment Framework‟ (Family CAF) which enables more effective co-ordination of local support through a „Team Around the Family‟. This model ensures that families who receive integrated support from more than one practitioner should experience a seamless and effective service to meet their complex needs. This is delivered most effectively when one practitioner – a “lead professional” – takes a primary role to ensure frontline services are coordinated, coherent and achieving intended outcomes. The Lead Professional role can be from any agency – whoever is most appropriate and has the most established relationship with the family.

3.3 Think Family also introduced the concept of multi-agency Family Intervention Projects (FIP)

to provide more intensive support for a family. A designated FIP worker engages with a family at a critical period of early intervention before the family‟s needs become more complex, preventing escalation of need. Nationally at least half of the families completing a family intervention project are reported to have had successful outcomes including reduction in crime (60%), anti-social behaviour (60%) and truancy/exclusion (57%).

3.4 Early intervention has to be a collective partnership effort to identify the right family support, at

the right time, to intervene earlier and prevent needs escalating based on four tiers of need:

FIGURE 2: TIERS OF NEED

3.5 The principles of early intervention & prevention are now well established and are echoed in

the “Munro Review of Child Protection” (May 2011) which notes the growing body of evidence of the effectiveness of early intervention with children and families. Targeted initiatives with more effective integrated partnership working and a preventative focus are also a feature of work with adults most notably in Integrated Offender Management (IOM). IOM co-ordinates intelligence sharing, task & co-ordination and response between multi-agency partners including Probation, Police, Prison Service, Youth Offending Service, Jobcentre Plus and Drug & Alcohol Action Partnerships to reduce re-offending.

3.6 In March 2012, the DWP strategy “Social Justice: transforming lives” reinforced that those

working at the local community level are best placed to identify and drive forward the solutions that are needed. Services need to be family focussed and constructed around their needs rather than the boundaries of different agencies. The strategy recommends that sustainable approaches feature better preventative services, multi-agency joined-up approaches and the provision of key workers to provide long term tailored support.

TIER 4: COMPLEX OR ACUTE

TIER 3: HIGH TO COMPLEX

TIER 2: LOW TO VULNERABLE

TIER 1: UNIVERSAL

Early intervention & prevention is most effective between

Tiers 2-3

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3.7 All these related policy initiatives have a striking consistency in their core principles and lessons learnt from operational projects – and have consensus that an effective framework for Kent‟s Community Budget should contain the following elements:

A commitment to prevention and early intervention; Design and delivery at the local level; Sustainable approaches that promote independence; A multi-agency systems approach; High quality workforce; Investment in programmes that work and make better use of public money

4. Kent‟s Current Approach to Community Budgets 4.1 Early Pilots in Swale & Thanet

A model to target families with issues of substance misuse (Swale) and worklessness (Thanet) using Family Intervention Project (FIP) workers was initiated in 2011. This has focused on local FIP workers working intensively with 8 families across the two districts, helping to stabilise their often chaotic lives, proactively supporting a path towards resolving their issues and promoting independence. Progress has been made in the following areas: Partner agencies have demonstrated a common will to work together better on dealing

with families with multiple problems Agencies in localities have successfully formed „project teams‟ and are working together

on identification of families suitable for the programme and issues relating to the delivery of support to those families

Key Departmental players JCP (DWP) are fully engaged with the programme and offering outreach support

The introduction of FIP is having a positive impact on the problems exhibited within the families

4.2 Although Government has been keen to promote the cost avoidance potential for families

completing FIP intervention (estimated between £62,000 and £75,000 based on a national evaluation in March 2011), many of the early Community Budget pilots have found FIP harder to embed as a long term sustainable model - a FIP worker can be up to £30,000 p/a with on-costs, working with only around 6 families at any one time.

4.3 Local Themes

Kent‟s early developments on the Community Budget programme have developed local themes to reflect the different local needs and priorities across the county (for example a focus on worklessness in Shepway and domestic violence in Canterbury). This has built on strong, established local partnerships and operational working relationships and is encouraging more tailored and creative solutions to meet the specific needs of families within an area. This more customised approach could become a central feature of our work with families – building on a robust evidence base of what works at an operational level.

5. Governance, Roles & Responsibilities 5.1 The multi-agency Steering Group is the accountable partnership body for Kent‟s Community

Budget, with senior officer and elected member representatives from all key agencies, supported by the Programme Team. The Steering Group sets the strategic direction for the Kent Community Budget Programme and drives the impetus for operational change on behalf of local partners.

5.2 Figure 3 sets out the governance roles and responsibilities for Kent‟s Community Budget

Programme, agreed by the Steering Group. It will be important these arrangements complement and align with existing governance e.g. Kent Joint Commissioning Board leading on Children‟s commissioning activity. These arrangements will be refined as the programme evolves to ensure they remain fit for purpose.

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FIGURE 3: GOVERNANCE ROLES FOR KENT‟S COMMUNITY BUDGET

Steering Group

Accountable partnership body

12 X Local Project Boards

Accountable delivery body

Programme Team Strategic programme

support

Kent Forum & Joint Chiefs

Oversight role of programme

Locality BoardLocal oversight &

assurance

Programme Board Monthly oversight

Operational Projects Group

Monthly sharing

5.3 The Steering Group is supported to deliver Kent‟s Community Budget by the multi-agency

Programme Team led within KCC Customer & Communities directorate. The Programme Team is responsible for all strategic programme support including programme management documentation, performance management, strategic co-ordination of the Troubled Families element of Community Budgets (including matching exercise and reporting to Government) and communications. They have links with a Programme Board and Operational Projects Group which meet monthly to share good practice between local practitioners and promote learning. Kent County Council, as the upper tier local authority, provides the financial management of the Troubled Families funding, and acts as „accountant‟ on behalf of all local partners.

5.4 Kent‟s work with families needs to be delivered at an operational, local level. This will be led

by a Local Project Board per District. The early selection of a Project Sponsor and Project Lead to encourage local participation is essential to ensure the momentum of the programme and that appropriate partners remain fully engaged. These roles will act as a „conductor‟ at a local level to orchestrate multi-agency input and transform ways of working. Local Project Boards will become the local accountable delivery body, held to account as per the performance measures for payments by results funding. They should complement existing/emerging governance arrangements in their area – it is for local discretion to decide which governance arrangement would be most appropriate locally (e.g. Local Children‟s Trust Board or Community Safety Partnership). The Local Project Board must have the right membership and seniority to redirect pre-existing resources in order to make collective operational decisions about the local approach to working with families on the programme.

5.5 The Locality Board (or equivalent/alternative where none exists) has a local oversight and

assurance role for the delivery of the local Community Budget approach within the district.

ACTION: The remit and common principles for Local Project Boards (including the skill set and role of local Project Sponsors and Project Lead) will be developed by the Programme Team for discussion by July 2012.

6. Emerging Commissioning & Governance Arrangements 6.1 Kent has been moving towards an outcomes focused approach to more effectively

commissioning Early Intervention & Prevention (EIP) services for children & families. This work will be a significant element in supporting intervention at a local level. The emerging developments in children and family services will be pivotal to the programme – there is a

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need to ensure a broader partnership contribution is developed and reflected in these new arrangements, for example greater engagement with adolescent and adult services.

6.2 Long term service redesign and joint commissioning are central principles of Kent‟s

Community Budget. It will be essential to ensure effective strategic commissioning arrangements are embedded as a core operating principle. The Kent Joint Commissioning Board will play a crucial role in shaping the future commissioning direction and decisions for Community Budgets. It is vital that the Programme Team and Local Project Boards come together to achieve a local understanding of current commissioning activity to support families in their area. This work should evolve following a local gap analysis and needs assessment of service provision in preparation for working towards joint commissioning of services to better meet the needs and long term outcomes for families. In doing so, it will be important for the Local Project Boards to ensure they build on and complement the emerging governance arrangements for children and families, for example working closely with Local Children‟s Trusts Boards and new operational teams.

ACTION: The Programme Team will develop a workstream of the programme to ensure that the emerging commissioning arrangements complement Kent‟s Community Budget approach.

7 Identifying Kent‟s Community Budget Families 7.1 In December 2011, DCLG estimated that there are 2560 families in Kent who would be eligible

for the Community Budgets Programme. The Programme Team (supported by a Police Analyst) have since undertaken a „matching exercise‟ to identify and verify the actual number of families who meet the three key government criteria set out below. This has been co-ordinated at county level and with verification by local partners (via District Community Safety Units). This is an important „sense check‟ with local practitioners who know and work with many of the families already. This exercise has confirmed the proposed total number of families that will be worked with in the first year (2012/13). A refresh of the matching exercise will be undertaken in each subsequent year until 2014 to expand the cohort towards the ambition of engaging with 2560 families by 2015.

KEY GOVERNMENT CRITERIA FOR IDENTIFYING FAMILIES

1. Crime/anti‐social behaviour (ASB)

Identify young people involved in crime and families involved in anti‐social behaviour, defined as:

Households with 1 or more under 18‐year‐old with a proven offence in the last 12 months

AND/ OR

Households where 1 or more member has an ASBO, ASB injunction, anti‐social behaviour contract

(ABC), or where the family has been subject to a housing‐related ASB intervention in the last 12 months

(such as a notice of seeking possession on ASB grounds, a housing‐related injunction, a demotion

order, eviction from social housing on ASB grounds. 2. Education Identify households affected by truancy or exclusion from school, where a child: Has been subject to permanent exclusion; three or more fixed school exclusions across the last 3 consecutive terms; OR Is in a Pupil Referral Unit or alternative provision because they have previously been excluded; OR is not on a school roll; AND/OR A child has had 15% unauthorised absences or more from school across the last 3 consecutive terms. 3. Work Households which also have an adult on DWP out of work benefits (Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Carer‟s Allowance, Income Support and/or Jobseekers Allowance, Severe Disablement Allowance).

7.2 Kent has agreed a simple and focused approach for the matching exercise by tightly focusing

on Criteria 1 & Criteria 2 and not opting to use the optional local discretion filter to expand the

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number of families through additional criteria at this time – although this could be an option in the future roll out of Community Budgets. This initial tight focus will help to ensure the cohort is kept achievable and manageable in Year 1, so we can plan a sustainable approach.

7.3 A matching exercise for Criteria 3 (Work) will be carried out by KCC as upper tier authority

under a new national data sharing protocol with DWP (Annex A). This additional manual verification may take some time. Therefore in Kent we will initially begin working with families who meet Criteria 1 & 2. All families who meet all of criteria 1‐3 will be automatically included

over time. 7.4 How many Community Budget families are there in Kent?

Following the matching exercise, the total number of families in Kent which meet Criteria 1 and 2 is 1082 (Table 1). Families must meet both criteria to be selected for the programme. The detailed analysis of the families showed: • 980 families are known to the Police only • 68 families are known to Youth Offending Service only • 228 families have one child or more excluded from school • 9236 families have one child or more with recorded unauthorised absences from school • 1082 families meet Criteria 1 and 2 and are the focus of the programme for Year 1.

TABLE 1: TOTAL NUMBER OF FAMILIES IN KENT BASED ON CRITERIA 1 & 2

District No. of families

meeting Criteria 1: (exclusions & absences)

No. of families meeting Criteria 1 and Criteria2

(YOS/crime/ASB)

Ashford 752 82

Canterbury 976 121

Dartford 549 40

Dover 799 113

Gravesham 659 76

Maidstone 896 80

Sevenoaks 484 43

Shepway 779 95

Swale 1138 156

Thanet 1193 154

Tonbridge and Malling 631 74

Tunbridge Wells 575 48

Total 9431 1082

7.5 Agencies working alongside and within the Community Safety Units were asked to indicate

which of the named families on the list: a) are known locally for anti-social behaviour b) have worked with local agencies in the last 12 months c) what priority rating (0-3) local agencies would allocate to working with the family d) what the rationale is for working with the family

e) how many agencies are currently working with the family

7.6 Kent aims to be ambitious in the number of families it will work with to reflect the importance of the programme and our size and scale as a two-tier county. It is proposed that we will seek to work the same amount of families in Year 1 (2012/13) as that verified in our matching exercise – 1082 families.

7.7 The cohort we will work with over the three year Troubled Family programme (2012-15) will

cumulatively increase per year, proportionate to the amount of funding available, (Table 2) towards achieving the Government goal of 2560 families in Kent by 2015. Table 2 sets out the Government framework for funding available.

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TABLE 2: REDUCING GOVERNMENT FUNDING AVAILABLE FROM 2012-15

7.8 The number of additional families we work with each year will be proportionate to the reducing

attachment fees and Payments by Results available over time. Kent‟s Programme Team will update the matching exercise on an annual basis to reflect the number of families successfully worked with, and liaise with local teams to scope appetite for expansion.

7.9 Kent was required to confirm the intended number of families to work with in Y1 (1082) in a

letter to DCLG in April 2012. This was agreed by the Steering Group on 8th May, and will be reconfirmed to DCLG once district level verification has completed.

8 Kent‟s Community Budget Approach 8.1 Kent‟s vision is to create a long-term sustainable approach that achieves better value for

money and more effective interventions with families through joint commissioning, service redesign and transformation. Kent will focus on enhancing and integrating existing processes, systems and partnership arrangements – joining up our activity in an intelligent and coherent way.

8.2 There are already well-established early intervention & prevention models and initiatives that

can achieve real results with families. We will continue to reinforce and build on the excellent understanding our local practitioners have of evidence based approaches that work. It is critical that solutions to local problems are driven at the local level by practitioners with operational experience and are based on a robust assessment of need. The fundamental starting point for local delivery should be to utilise, improve and build on existing resources and processes to ensure they are delivered more effectively. There should be local flexibility to create the innovative „grass roots‟ solutions required to meet government‟s challenging success criteria with individual families. Within this, the role of an appropriate Project Sponsor and Lead Officer in holding to account and defining the work programmes within Local Project Boards will be significant.

8.3 The challenge will be to engage local service delivery and lead by example, testing new

opportunities and being radical in introducing fundamentally new service redesign models. We will need to transform the way we work with families so they experience more seamless, integrated support but also ensure that families are part of the solution – creating a two-way „contract‟ that helps move the family towards longer term independence and sustainability. It is important that all staff support the cultural and operational changes that may be required to work differently together to drive local projects and tasks. Radical thinking will be required to let go of organisational boundaries and empower practitioners on the ground.

8.4 How will we work differently together?

It is important that we quickly take steps to work differently with our identified cohort of families to make rapid short term improvements in the national success criteria. In doing so local teams may need to prioritise which families we work with first (e.g. those already engaged and motivated to change) before scaling up to more complex, entrenched families. It is important that this focused, operational work does not lose the wider principles we are working towards in improving the longer term outcomes for the family and seeking to identify opportunities for joint commissioning, integration and service redesign. It will be the responsibility of Local Project Boards to ensure that we balance the need for short term progress with long term transformation.

Year % of payment offered as upfront

attachment fee % of payment offered as a results‐

based payment in arrears

Year 1: 2012/13 80% 20%

Year 2: 2013/14 60% 40%

Year 3: 2014/15 40% 60%

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8.5 Local Project Plans Local Project Plans will become the way we capture the detail of how we are working radically differently together as partners and with families within a local area and set out how we will achieve long term outcomes, evaluation and transformation ambitions at an operational level. Local Project Plans will become the unique blueprint of our approach to supporting families through the Community Budgets programme in each area. The plans will be developed by the Local Project Boards and co-ordinated by the Local Sponsor and Project Lead.

8.6 Local Project Plans will be developed as a priority by each Local Project Board. Where

possible they should draw on existing information (e.g. local commissioning priorities, evidence based approaches being successfully used in the local area). Each plan will feature: • Analysis of the needs of Community Budget families in each area • Analysis of spend on Community Budget families within each area (e.g. existing

commissioning and funding streams and resources currently targeted on families) • Evidence base of approaches that work for families in that area (based on nationally tried

and tested solutions for complex families and experience of local practitioners) • Gap analysis of services, resources, infrastructure or transformation required to meet

identified needs • Local version of Outcomes & Evaluation Framework to evidence success • Tangible milestones and actions to work towards long term goals

8.7 Local Project Plans will be an ongoing piece of work to expand and develop over time to

create an evidence base to inform future service redesign and commissioning proposals. The Local Project Plan will inform the development of business case proposals for central Gap Funding to secure resources to meet identified needs and gaps in services (Section 9.7). It will also inform decisions to decommission ineffective services and identify opportunities for joint commissioning. For example if service gaps are identified in the plan, the Early Intervention & Prevention Commissioning Framework could be used to rapidly secure appropriate services to meet that need through a range of providers (including voluntary & community sector who may be able to provide innovative solutions and build trust and rapport with a family).

8.8 How will we work differently with families? The Steering Group have proposed a ten step plan to working differently with families (overleaf, Figure 4) to identify needs through the Family CAF process and respond to these through locally driven, evidence based solutions, customised to each family. Central to this approach would be the role of a Lead Professional – building a two-way contract with the family based on a trusted relationship, and using a Team Around the Family to put together an effective Family Action Plan which blends both support and intervention approaches that ultimately move the family towards independence and sustainability.

8.9 The Steering Group has recognised the need to broaden the list of partners currently engaged

with the Family CAF process to recognise the important role that partners in Housing, Early Years, Adolescent, Adult Social Care and Health services have to play.

8.10 It is proposed that Local Project Boards should meet as soon as possible develop their Local

Project Plan and plan their approach for engaging with families. The Programme Team and Operational Projects Group will help to develop an evidence base of approaches that work with families for practitioners to draw on and customise when developing local solutions to work with families in their area. The Programme team will support sharing good practice and identifying opportunities for integration.

ACTION: Local Project Boards are asked to use the10 step approach for working with families and to develop Local Project Plans in each area to set out their local blueprint to working differently with families in the Community Budgets programme.

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FIGURE 4: 10 STEPS TO WORKING DIFFERENTLY WITH FAMILIES

8.11 Financial Sustainability It is important that Kent‟s Community Budget programme is financially sustainable in the long

term. A key aspect of Local Project Plans and the Outcomes & Evaluation Framework will be

Step 1Identify the family – bring together a common understanding of who is already working

with the family, previous assessment history and what approaches have already been tried (what works well, what doesn’t?). Find out if there is a current CAF/TAF in place.

Identify an Initiator – identify which local practitioner is most appropriate or already has an established relationship with the family , and is best placed to initiate contact

This should be the existing Lead Professional if a CAF is already in place ..

Engage with the family – Initiator contacts the family to build the relationships and trust. They gain the family’s consent to participate in the programme and the Family CAF

assessment process.

Family CAF – Initiator undertakes a Family Common Assessment Framework, if one is not already in place, to assess the needs of the whole family and understand their

broader context, environment and functioning. If a TAF is already in place outcomes and actions to be reviewed to ensure they are appropriate

Needs/Gap Analysis – the information in the Family CAF provides a robust evidence base of the priority needs to address and longer term gaps to tackle – it helps inform

what we and the family need to do differently.

Team Around The Family – Lead Professional uses the Family CAF and Needs/Gap Analysis to identify and bring together the right practitioners to support the family .

Family Action Plan – The family will work with services as a Team Around the Family to shape a Family Action Plan based on evidenced based approaches they know work.

Family Contract – The Family Action Plan forms the basis of a two -way contract between the family and services supporting them to work differently together as a Team

around the Family to achieve the identified short term goals and long term outcomes .

Family Intervention – Once the Action Plant is agreed a package of support and interventions for the family is put in place with a priority focus on making improvements within the Troubled Family success criteria. The Action Plan is regularly reviewed by the

Team around the Family.

Exit Strategy – The Team Around the Family work towards identifying long term sustainable support and a strategy for the family to work towards independence

(including signposting to wider support e .g. ESF, Work Programme).

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Identify Needs Early

Assess Needs

Integrate Advice & Support

Review Progress

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costing interventions to understand where savings could be made and identify opportunities to decommission ineffective services, co-commission or implement invest to save proposals to plug gaps in service provision.

8.12 The Family CAF process set out in the 10 steps to working with families has proven to be a

cost effective approach. The average cost of the Family CAF process ranges from £800 - £2,600 per family, with most cases costing under £2000. Recent evaluations have shown the difference between the cost of interventions that would have been provided without the Family CAF and the total cost of the Family CAF episode, ranged from £970 - £6,400. The total potential costs avoided in the longer term, range from £19,500 to over £100,000 depending on the complexity of the family.

8.13 Over time families will either successfully improve during the programme, drop out (withdraw

their consent) or due to a change in circumstances fail to make significant improvements required (e.g. escalating to child protection or enforcement thresholds, requiring a more resource intensive intervention). It is important that we target limited resources effectively by prioritising families who have the capacity and willingness to change. It is vital we agree an exit strategy for each family to ensure we manage resources and maintain tight financial control. It will also be important to consider and review thresholds for provision for more acute/intensive services in order to focus on avoiding escalation of need and cost through early intervention & prevention. This will require further discussion and consideration by the Steering Group at later stage to ensure the roll out of the programme remains financially sustainable, even if national funding streams change or are withdrawn.

9. Funding Kent‟s Approach 9.1 To help initiate the challenging, intensive work required with families, national funding is

available to support local delivery. DCLG‟s „Financial Framework‟ (March 2012) outlined they will make available up to £4000 for each troubled family that is eligible for the payment‐by‐results scheme, and it is expecting that local partners make up the rest of the

investment within existing resources. 9.2 The funding will be paid to the upper tier local authority (to act as „accountant‟ for the

funding on behalf of all partners) to incentivise a focus on achieving outcomes. It is split into two elements:

a. Upfront Attachment Fee: a proportion of the £4,000 grant funding will be paid upfront as an „attachment fee‟ for the number of families with whom we start working.

b. Payments by Results (PBR) Payment: the rest of the funding available for each

family will be made available if success against key performance measures is evidenced.

9.3 For 2012‐13 this attachment fee will be set at 80%, reducing to 60% and 40% in the next two

years (Table 2 – Section 7.7). In 2012‐13, the attachment fee will be paid as a single grant

payment (£3200 per family) with an additional payment by results reward of up to £700 per family.

9.4 DCLG assumes we will already be engaging with 1 in every 6 families through existing funded

programmes e.g. Work Programme and European Social Fund (ESF) programme. Therefore they will only provide attachment fee funding for 5 of every 6 families we work with. For Kent this means that if we work with a total of 2560 families from 2012-15, we would be eligible to receive attachment fee funding for 2133 of those families (£6,827,733).

9.5 How much funding is available for Kent?

In Year 1 the upfront attachment fee grant funding is worth up to £3,200 per family. For Kent working with 1082 families in 2012-13 (on the ratio described in 9.4) could mean up to £2.88m

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in attachment fee funding. A further PbR payment could bring up to an additional £0.63m and is dependent on success against the following performance measures.

9.6 Kent is recommending that the initial tight focus for local partners should be on achieving

results for Performance Measures 1-3 (shaded boxes in Table 3) in order to maximise chances of securing a further payment, given the challenging economic conditions for achieving the “progress to work” (a relatively low reward payment of £100 per family) and “adult into continuous work” measures.

TABLE 3: RESULTS CRITERIA AND POTENTIAL PAYMENTS

Result Attachment fee PBR payment Total

They achieve all 3 of the education and crime/ASB measures set out below where relevant: 1. Each child in the family has had fewer than 3 fixed exclusions and less than 15% of unauthorised absences in the last 3 school terms; and

2. A 60% reduction in anti‐social behaviour

across the family in the last 6 months; and 3. Offending rate by all minors in the family reduced by at least a 33% in the last 6 months.

£3,200 per family

£700 per family Up to £4,000

per family

If they do not enter work, but achieve the „progress to work‟ (one adult in the family has either volunteered for the Work Programme or

attached to the ESF provision in the last 6 months).

£100 per family

OR

At least one adult in the family has moved off

out‐of‐work benefits into continuous

employment in the last 6 months (and is not on the ESF Provision or Work Programme to avoid

double‐payment).

£3,200 per family

£800 per family Up to £4,000

per family

9.7 The £2.88m attachment fee model provides an opportunity to establish a significant Gap

Funding resource that will be available to support the service redesign work across the programme and target identified needs and gaps in services to support families. Some of the attachment fee funding could be made available for Project Support for Local Project Boards to create their Local Project Plan (Section 8.6) to use this as an evidence base to inform business case proposals for centrally held Gap Funding to meet the identified needs/gaps in their area based on locally agreed priorities.

9.8 The following funding model (Figure 5, overleaf) was agreed in principle by the Steering

Group. It is likely any gap funding decisions would be made by a Sub Group of the Steering Group. The Programme Team, working with KCC Finance, will now develop how this funding model will work in practice, including developing criteria for business cases and explore potential links with other similar funding pots (e.g. Community Chest in KCC Families & Social Care).

9.9 The national performance measures outlined in Table 3 mean that it will very challenging for

partners to secure additional Payments by Results funding. Therefore proposals for considering a funding model for allocating any potential Payments by Results funding will be developed and considered by the Steering Group at a later date.

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FIGURE 5: OUTLINE FUNDING MODEL PER FAMILY

Project Support

(upfront funding)

Gap Funding

(business case bid to central pot)

Payments by Results

(PbR paid in arrears on evidence of success)

£200 per family £3000 per family

Maximum £4000 available per family

Attachment Fee (£3200 per family) Payments by Results

Up to £700 per family

ACTION: The Programme Team will develop how the funding model will work in practice including developing proposals for criteria used in business case process for gap funding.

10. What does success look like? 10.1 In Kent the aim is to achieve success in both the short-term intensive work with families and a

long-term transformation in the way we work as partners (Figure 1). The national success criteria for the Community Budgets programme is quite narrowly focused on the PbR performance measures. It is important that we are not constrained by this framework and identify wider opportunities to make long term improvement in outcomes and adopt the best possible approach for Kent families.

10.2 Short Term: Payments by Results Success Measures The criteria for success in key performance measures for PBR funding are as follows:

Education This result requires:

All children in the household who are in school, a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) or Alternative Provision have had fewer than three fixed term exclusions and less than 15% unauthorised absences in the last 3 consecutive terms; AND

All children in the household who are not on the school roll have moved into a school, PRU or alternative provision, have had fewer than three fixed term exclusions and less than 15% unauthorised absences in the last 3 consecutive terms.

Anti‐social behaviour

This result requires:

At least a 60% reduction in anti‐social behaviour across the household in the last 6 months.

We should base the reduction in anti‐social behaviour on a percentage reduction in recorded

incidents and, where relevant, breaches of anti‐social behaviour interventions.

As there are no universally used local data sets on anti‐social behaviour, results in this area will be

self‐declared through whatever local systems are most appropriate. This may include data gathered

by Community Safety Partnerships, Anti‐Social Behaviour Teams, Registered Social Landlords and

Housing Offices.

Reducing crime by under‐18s in the family

This result requires:

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Overall level of offending across all under 18‐year‐olds in the household has reduced their level of

proven offending by at least 33% in the last 6 months, in comparison to their average level of proven offending in the previous 6 months.

To be consistent with the identification criterion, a proven re‐offence is defined as any offence which

receives a formal out of court or court disposal. This includes custody, fines, community sentences, reprimands, warnings, cautions and PNDs5.

Progress towards work (but not in a job) This result requires:

An adult in the household has volunteered for the Work Programme or has been attached to the ESF Provision in the last 6 months.

The £100 payment which will be released for achieving this result does not need to be claimed at the same time as the combined education, crime and ASB results

Move into continuous employment This result requires:

An adult in the household to move off out of work benefits and into continuous employment.

This results payment is offered as an alternative to the crime, ASB, education and progress to work payments.

10.3 DCLG is asking for self-declaration of results by the local authority and they will issue results

payments on the basis of these declarations. The Programme Team will act as the interface with Government and undertake the performance management role for the programme. Where possible, performance data will be gathered and analysed centrally on a quarterly basis to reduce the reporting burden for local teams and a template will be shared with local Project Boards for any locally held data (e.g. anti-social behaviour).

ACTION: The Programme Team will co-ordinate performance management on behalf of Kent‟s Community Budget programme.

10.4 Long Term: Outcomes & Evaluation Framework

In March 2012 DCLG developed an evolving national “exemplar” outcomes framework, to capture 6 longer term outcomes for the Community Budgets programme. The success measures for PbR are directly related to this outcome framework. These outcomes provide a broad basis that local partners can support because it compliments existing outcomes, indicators and success measures for working with families. They should form part of our wider evaluation of success. The 6 outcomes are: 1. Risk of harm to children within the family / likelihood of being on the edge of care is

significantly reduced 2. Behaviour of family and its members is significantly improved 3. Educational attainment of children within the family unit is improved 4. Family is in stable housing and not a nuisance to its neighbours and the wider

community 5. Physical and mental health of the family is improved 6. Family members are in sustainable employment, education or training and family

finances are stable 10.5 Outcomes Framework

We need a good understanding of all the agencies who are contributing locally to each overall outcome for families. This can then help to identify duplication and where we can work better together. There are often a large number of similar initiatives and services which are currently targeting the same families. Local Project Boards should understand how these services are inter-related on an outcomes basis to identify opportunities for integration, rationalisation and alignment. Local Project Boards should also seek to use this information to identify quick wins in changing operational practice (e.g. co-location), to tackle duplication and simplify layers of activity. Outcomes based discussions could also help to identify opportunities to align funding resources or commission more effectively, acting as a trigger for local service redesign projects.

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10.6 As a starting point for discussion for Local Project Teams to build on, Annex B sets out key

KCC early intervention and prevention outcomes, indicators and service activity against the 6 national exemplar outcomes. Local partners are encouraged to expand this and customise to meet their local needs and priorities as a core part of their Local Project Plan.

10.7 Evaluation Framework

DCLG are keen evaluate the difference Community Budgets has made to families as well as to the way services are delivered and the savings that have been achieved by local areas. They expect all areas to commit to take part in and support the research, learning and wider evaluation of the programme as part of their agreement with individual areas, and become involved in the evaluation design.

10.8 We will need a simple, light touch quantitative & qualitative Evaluation Framework to find out

how local improvements are being made (or could be made) in the delivery of our Community Budget and what impact Community Budgets have made to efficiency and effectiveness of delivery and real outcomes for families in each area. This should be a key part of the Local Project Plan for each area. It will provide the Steering Group with evidence about the merit (quality), worth (cost-effectiveness), and significance (importance) of the Community Budgets in Kent and how the findings/learning can be applied to operational and policy improvements in the future.

10.9 There are 6 steps set out below to create a light touch Evaluation Framework that will help to

evidence both qualitative & quantitative impact:

1. Engage stakeholders – The Community Budget Programme Team and Local Project Boards are the primary users of the evaluation, but families should also be involved.

2. Describe the CB programme – Describe our approach to intervention with families, expected effects, activities, resource and expected improvements

3. Design the evaluation questions – What do you want to know from a programme perspective and how we will gather the perspective of the families?

4. Gather credible evidence – Both quantitative (indicators, PI‟s, costs and activity measures) and qualitative (perception of impact and quality from operational staff, families and key stakeholders).

5. Justify conclusions – Acceptable standards of improvement, analysis of the quantitative data, interpretation and judgement on qualitative data and recommendations.

6. Ensure we use and share lessons learned – Feedback to Steering Group who action necessary changes and improvements based on the findings of the evaluation.

10.10 The Programme Team will work with Local Project Boards to create a simple logic model to

develop the evaluation framework. By thinking through the Logic Model with local partners, effective evaluation questions often emerge – this has been a successful approach in the local Swale pilot. This could be a quick piece of work, building on and adapting the original evaluation questions for Community Budgets and local models. Suggested evaluation questions are set out in Annex C as a starting point for discussion and to build on with local teams.

ACTION: The Programme Team will work with Local Project Boards to develop the Outcomes & Evaluation Framework for Kent‟s Community Budget programme by July 2012.

11. Risks 11.1 This section sets out some risks associated with the Business Case approach. Actions to

mitigate and control the likelihood of these risks are set out in the Programme Risk Register.

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11.2 Financial Risk Unknown government conditions related to attachment fee funding if results are not

achieved Difficulties in agreeing allocation of funding between partners Failure to secure further payments by results funding acts as a disincentive to partners Failure to move towards co-commissioning through the Community Budgets

programme/approach Failure to translate cost avoidance and efficiencies into cashable savings Identifying unmet demand through matching exercise (e.g. unknown future clients for

children‟s social services) Failure to plan for an exit strategy of reliance of external attachment fee and strategic co-

ordination funding Unknown impact of welfare reform proposals, in particular changes to Universal Credit and

housing caps have potential impacts on Community Budgets families‟ financial situation 11.3 Reputational Risk

Failure to deliver on commitment to Community Budgets as set out in letter to DCLG Failure to deliver on national expectations of number of families Failure to deliver expected improvements and access payments by results funding Failure to set out innovative new approaches of local delivery for Troubled Families Failure to deliver programme to partner expectations Failure to deliver programme to political expectations Lack of co-ordination with other pilot areas and duplication with other interventions

11.4 Operational Risk

Churn of families moving in and out of areas – in particular due to housing benefit reform and housing caps families moving out from unaffordable London boroughs, causing difficulties in monitoring the cohort (e.g. high churn areas like Thanet) and DLCG funding for troubled families going to London boroughs rather than Kent

Failure to initiate working with local target number of families Failure to successfully work with target number of families against Government success

criteria Local approaches fail to meet the wider long-term aims of the programme, including

effective early intervention, prevention and cost avoidance Local partners fail to overcome operational process, system and cultural barriers Lack of operational momentum due to competing priorities and limited resources Failure to manage family expectations and relationships Failure to manage operational staff expectations Complexity of evaluating a different focus in each district

11.5 Programme Risk

Lack of dedicated project staff Lack of senior buy-in to the programme Programme scope change Information sharing and consent Lack of momentum due to national or local delays in information or data Lack of momentum due to competing priorities and limited resources Lack of focus on benefits realisation

12. Gaining Traction: Practical Next Steps 12.1 This business case sets out the approach to Kent‟s Community Budget and is the first step in

delivering an effective local response for families. It will be important to keep the momentum up and ensure we make progress towards our long term goals. The Programme Team are currently developing a detailed programme plan which will set out detailed milestones and for consideration with the Steering Group. The priority next steps include:

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May to Sept 2012 – Scoping Phase

• Complete identification and local verification of Troubled Families Y1 Cohort • Reconfirm number of families to Government to secure attachment fee funding • Identify Local Project Sponsors & Project Leads and outline common principles for Local

Project Boards • Programme Team begin to bring together an evidence base of approaches that work for

Troubled Families, to build on and develop with Local Project Boards • Programme Team scope how the Programme can complement emerging commissioning

arrangements • Establish Local Project Boards to begin to bring together common understanding of

assessment history and services currently engaging with families in their area • Local Project Boards to begin to shape their Local Project Plan, including developing local

Outcomes & Evaluation framework • Raise welfare reform and housing „churn‟ risks with Louise Casey at Kent Forum visit on

25th May • Programme Team to prepare outline costing approach and how many „borderline‟ families

were close to meeting exclusion/crime/ASB criteria to participate in the programme for next Steering Group meeting in July 2012

• Lead Professionals begin to engage with priority cohort of families in their area to seek consent to participate in the programme

• Working towards a „live phase‟ of initiating operational work with families in Sept/Oct 2012 13. Actions 13.1 Kent‟s Community Budget Programme Team will follow up on the following actions:

Action Lead Deadline

The remit and common principles for Local Project Boards (including the skill set and role of local Project Sponsors and Project Lead) will be developed for discussion locally.

Sarah Thomas (Programme Team)

Paper for approval to Steering Group – 2

nd July

The Programme Team will develop a workstream of the programme to ensure that the emerging commissioning arrangements complement Kent‟s Community Budget approach.

Howard Cohn (Programme Team) to head up „Commissioning & Governance‟ ongoing workstream

Regular progress reports to Programme Board and update to Steering Group on 22

nd October

Local Project Boards are asked to use the 10 step approach for working with families and to develop Local Project Plans in each area to set out their local blueprint to working differently with families in the Community Budgets programme.

Sarah Thomas and other programme team members will facilitate process

Local Project Plans in place to sign up 1082 families in year 1 (by October first phase districts; by January remaining districts). Programme plan will provide more detail on phasing.

The Programme Team will develop how the funding model will work in practice and develop proposals / criteria and bidding process for gap funding

Howard Cohn, Programme Team and KCC finance colleagues

Paper for approval to Steering Group – 2

nd July

The Programme Team will co-ordinate performance management on behalf of Kent‟s Community Budget programme.

Emma Hendricks (Programme Team) to lead this activity

Ongoing

The Programme Team will work with Local Project Boards to develop the Outcomes & Evaluation Framework for Kent‟s Community Budget programme.

Emma Hendricks and Eileen McKibbin to head up „Outcomes & Evaluation‟ workstream

Draft Framework to Steering Group – 2

nd July

Programme Team to prepare Engagement & Communications Plan

Abbie Rees (Programme Team)

Plan for approval to Steering Group – 2

nd July

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14. Background Documents

Annex A: DWP Memorandum of Understanding Annex B: Draft Outcomes Framework Annex C: Draft Evaluation Framework

15. Contact

Angela Slaven, Director – Service Improvement E: angela.slaven@kent.gov.uk T: 01622 221669