Title

Councils face new challenges to change and improve work practice through community budgets, says Adam Fineberg Adam Fineberg is an independent adviser on local public services, and an associate with Together For Children. For the 2013 roll out of community budgets to be successful, along the lines of Total Place working, councils and their local public service provider partners need, firstly, to reconfigure their strategic approach. Certainly, the pressure is on councils, with a combination of the Government's programme for budget-deficit reduction, local economic conditions, the need to maintain frontline services, and the desire to reconfigure services around the user in order to realise better and greater impacts. But these challenges also provide the opportunity for local public service organisations to emerge as better focused, more successful organisations, in the way that many private sector organisations experienced just a few years ago. I have worked with central and local government over several years on the ‘growth coalitions' and ‘smart local government' project. Originally, this centred on the need for an overarching economic objective leading to a rationalisation and co-ordination of local services, and the development of the local area, addressing what I termed ‘initiativitus'. This focused on adapting existing mechanisms for governance, strategic leadership, organisational working, programme development and funding, in order to realise a better scenario for local business, communities and service-users. Its aim was to get rid of wastage by releasing the inherent potential of people and places while, at the same time, achieving significant efficiencies. Adam Fineberg: 'local service provision can be excellent and innovative but is often patchy and expensive'. (Pic: Shutterstock/FEnot) Public service professionals need to develop the leadership skills necessary for effective self-critical and peer review work patterns, as well as being able to consider how best to bring about a ‘whole system' change across their organisations. Paramount in this process is the need to develop relationships, learning, knowledge and experience. While these ways of working have to be introduced, there is also a need for tangible themes and achievements where people can experience the benefits of this learning journey. Clearly, there is greater potential for locality-focused provision to be developed and extended around themes such as safer neighbourhoods, housing and neighbourhood management, work with children and families – children's centres – and provision to alleviate worklessness. In many instances, this may require a new approach to the ‘neighbourhood management' model, with a greater emphasis on co-ordination, joint provision and, in some cases, integration around local service ‘hubs'. This, combined with other local provision in health, culture and education services, can all together undoubtedly lead to higher standards and greater efficiencies. There are clear and well-tested ways to change or develop work practice which can secure and support improved benefits on the ground. The Department of Children and Family Services launched an ‘integrated working initiative' several years ago which brought about a sea change in practice based around the notions of the ‘lead professional', the ‘common assessment framework' and such like. Much of this work, and experiences gained in different parts of the country, have helped provide a model for peer sharing of transferable factors, which can fundamentally drive and deliver improved service provision. This, and other elements of best practice, such as outreach working, family or client support workers working within flat, multi-agency or service structures around ‘gateways to integrated services' creating tailored ‘teams around' the client and the locality, with new ways of working, together with data, assessments, referrals and reviews, can all help bring about a step change. A sharp focus on prevention, early intervention and service integration can only be achieved once all parts of the system learn and move forward together, but once the benefits of integrating local services are apparent, it is likely to drive continuous improvements in other areas. Why, for example, shouldn't the benefits of integrated provision and organisation developed around children's centres be extended beyond the needs of families with children under five and, where appropriate, meet the needs of all families with children, regardless of their age? Family centres could form an important driver and focus for integrating the provision of seamless family support, as children progress and transfer through the various stages of childhood and schooling. They can also develop effective and trusted relationships with local people throughout the challenging journey of raising children. Recently, I met with senior managers from a West Midlands authority to discuss the ending of the Working Neighbourhood Fund (WNF), together with quite separate changes to the funding of SureStart children's centres. On the one hand, the conversation centred on how the WNF programme had led to the development of dedicated infrastructure for the provision of related services in all the localities, and how some of these centres would be closed. On the other, the talk was about plans for the closure of newly-built and developed local children's centres. The consideration and prospect in some way of amalgamating the two forms of provision was, no doubt, for a variety of reasons, off the agenda. Clearly, local service provision can be excellent and innovative, but it is often patchy, expensive and, in many cases, inappropriate in terms of meeting the needs of residents – particularly those in greatest need – but who have been most turned off by practice, to date. For the sake of the people they serve, local public service professionals and council leaders need take a more enlightened view of the challenges and opportunities which already exist.

Title

WHITEHALL

Communities of interest

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING