Phil Saunders peers into the future
Phil Saunders peers into the future
I think there were three main drivers behind the recent Communities and Local Government (CLG) decision to un-ring fence Supporting People (SP). The first of these was their long standing commitment to “mainstreaming” of the programme. In recent months, this has been expressed as an intention to integrate SP with the governance, planning and performance monitoring regime characterised by Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), Local Area Agreements and Comprehensive Area Assessments. It was becoming difficult to see how true integration could work if Supporting People continued to operate within an entirely separate framework.
The second was the fact that, as reported by some of the pilots, ring fencing through grant conditions was leading to practical problems with boundaries and definitions. A classic example was SP’s inability to fund children’s workers in women’s refuges, because SP was defined as a programme aimed at adults only. This was making joined up commissioning and funding decisions difficult, even after any budgetary pressures associated with widening the scope of SP had been resolved by the local authority.
Thirdly – and, I think, most importantly – was the increasing centrality of the personalisation agenda. It was becoming logically unsustainable to argue that SP should (in a currently small but increasing number of cases) be treated as part of a service user’s individual budget, to be spent as they wish, whilst keeping it on one side as an entirely separate, tightly focused programme.
Why should a service user, in receipt of funding from a wide array of sources, have one segment of their package placed outside of their control, by a ring fencing arrangement that had little grounding in real world distinctions as they saw them?
Unpick all three of these lines of argument and you’ll find inherent challenges for SP. Arguably, the LSPdriven governance, planning and performance monitoring framework lacks the capacity to deal with a SP programme which, ironically, already has its own, well developed and sometimes mimicked infrastructure. And widening the remit of SP could merely lead to a drain on resources. The losers may be the client groups who do not traditionally benefit from wider care packages. They have not, to date, been the main focus of personalisation.
These are valid concerns - but not the focus of this article. Instead, I want to concentrate on the opportunities created by the removal of the ring fence.
The scope of funding
There are a number of ways in which the range of activities paid for by SP can be widened, without diluting the distinctive nature of the programme. And this is not just about including additional client groups, such as children and families. Sometimes, a flexible, holistic approach to funding is essential to getting major schemes up and running. For instance, un-ring fenced grant may be good news for Foyer type projects, that provide a range of services as a package, but whose activities do not always meet the funding criteria of one specific programme.
Some authorities have already used one off SP under-spend money to pay for specific projects aimed at improving service delivery. Not all of these have had the rigid tie to “households” implicit in Block Subsidy and even Block Gross contracts. Once the ring fence is removed, it will be possible to extend the term of initiatives of this kind. For instance, it will be possible to fund initiatives aimed at improving access to services – and perhaps at identifying need, as well as meeting it.
Lastly, SP might be freed from some of its more bizarre restrictions. I met a service user once who said his support worker had taken him to the cinema once, but could not do it again in case it made him “dependent”. In a personalised world, this kind of thinking does not stand up to scrutiny. It is to be hoped that removal of the ring fence will see the back of it once and for all.
The provider sector
Un-ring fencing should also result in a widening of the number and kinds of organisations that can benefit from funding. Agencies not traditionally associated with housing, care or support may start to enter the arena. For instance, groups specialising in engagement with certain minority or hard-to-reach groups may be well positioned to make the link between SP outcomes and wider strategic priorities. Other organisations may be able to bring a neighbourhood or “area” dimension, to complement SP’s client group driven approach.
Furthermore, there will be providers whose primary focus is on issues which have always overlapped with (but not been wholly contained by) the SP circle. For example, organisations tackling worklessness may have a particular role to play in the coming period. This is not to imply that dozens of new providers will suddenly find themselves with SP contracts. But they may well end up forming consortia and other collaborative arrangements, where SP comprises an important part of the partnership’s funding.
There is, therefore, the potential for a new feedback loop between commissioning strategies and provider responses. Authorities may now use SP money (alone or in conjunction with other sources) to establish services which implicitly require new kinds of activity and delivery structures. Providers, aiming to do the job required efficiently, effectively and in line with their values, may come up with some surprising collaborative models. This, in turn, will inform future commissioning intentions – ideally resulting in a constantly evolving shared vision of what is feasible and possible.
Commissioning for personalisation
It is this kind of thinking, together with the new structures that may emerge, which may help to reconcile some of the tensions inherent in personalisation. In a nutshell, the problem for local authorities is how to “commission” (let alone formally “procure”) in an environment that is increasingly driven by a strong sense of user choice. Service delivery structures will have to be able to cater for individual expressions of need, as well as to operate according to a specific contract. Both commissioners and providers will have to accept an ever shifting balance between planned and responsive (or “chosen”) service delivery.
This is about more than just market management. As well as helping to create conditions conducive to a viable, multifaceted provider sector, commissioners will have to innovate in the specification of service requirements. They will no longer be in the comfort zone created by traditional departmental boundaries, with their fundamentally bureaucratic consideration of “who pays for what”. The onus will be on them to use their corporate and partnership capacity wisely. Joined up delivery arrangements, with the potential to meet highly individualised, market led (as well as strategically identified) need across a range of disciplines, will only be possible if there is productive dialogue between purchasers and providers. To facilitate this, local authorities may need to suppress their natural tendency to specify and control. Procurement practices may have to become less directive and more outcome focussed. And they will certainly need to be more inclusive of a wider range of supplier models.
Early days
It is, however, important not to get carried away. April 1 “Un-Ring Fencing Day” will not be like 2003 SP Day – and, remember, even that momentous event left the vast majority of services unaffected for some time. It is in the nature of modern policy making that the final maturation of SP will be inextricably meshed in with other emergent government initiatives like personalisation. So, there will be no big bang, but the ramifications for SP are likely to be extremely widespread over the coming year
