Impact statement 2012: Focusing on the challenging year ahead

Our mission

2011 was a turbulent year for the sector and Sitra has been working with members, central and other statutory partners to engage fully with the changing environment. In 2009 we adopted our new mission statement:

Sitra champions excellence in housing, support and care.

Sitra is a membership organisation providing leadership, influencing policy through expertise, promoting best practice and providing consultancy, training, information and advice to:

• Promote positive outcomes for clients, providers and funders
• Drive the policy agenda
• Encourage a healthy, diverse and sustainable sector
• Support quality and professionalisation.

This mission remains a strong and purposeful driver for the organisation, and has been a guide for us as we have worked through the challenges of the past year.

We have focused our work around three core areas:

1. Making the case for housing, care and support

We all recogise the value of housing, care and support and understand how it has developed and changed over recent years, resulting in the high quality range of service user led provision that now comprises the sector. In 2009, the lifting of the ring-fence created a challenge to the sector – to enable others to understand what housing, care and support contribute at an individual, local, regional and national level.

Sitra has felt it very important to continue the focus on this area of work. Over the last year some of the ways we have contributed to this agenda have included:

• Demonstrating value and supporting understanding: This has remained a central core of our work, and we have increased our audience and outlets for raising understanding through our increasing use of social media and cross-sectoral outlets. One very strong example of this has been Prevention and personalisation: the case for housing related support, a report produced by Sitra for the Yorkshire and Humber Housing Related Support Group. Our research took forward the methodology developed by Capgemini in their evaluation of the Supporting People programme and the human stories contained in the report’s case studies demonstrated the practical reality behind figures.
• Outcomes: We believe that the information contained in the outcomes data tells a very important story about the shape and model of services for the future. The challenge for housing related support providers has been that they have either not had access to, or have not understood, the implications of the outcomes data. Through our work we have increased understanding and ensured that frontline staff appreciate the value and importance of recording this information. We have done specific work in this area, initially under the PSA16 banner, addressing the needs of those experiencing multiple disadvantage.
• Keeping quality on the agenda: In 2009 the revised Quality Assessment Framework (QAF) was issued, and Sitra has taken on guardianship of this vital quality tool. We have been working with providers and commissioners through training, events, publications, reference groups and meetings with central and local government to keep up the profile of quality.
• Skills and capacity-building: We remain the lead training provider in housing care and support and have introduced new ‘streamed’ training to ensure that delegates understand the essentials related to their position in the sector. Increasingly, we have developed a suite of training co-delivered with service users and have formed some excellent partnerships to broaden both access and content. In addition, our consultancy service has worked with both large and small providers on a range of issues and also with local authorities to provide advice and support to providers on their authority’s Framework Agreement procurement process.
   

2. Responding to cuts

It has become increasingly clear that in many localities, housing, care and support services are being hit hard by the threat and actuality of cuts. Sitra has continued to make the case for housing, care and support as part of a strategic response to this situation:

• The Comprehensive Spending Review was a key focus of work for Sitra: The final allocation to Supporting People received relative protection, as did vital funding around Homelessness and the Disabled Facilities Grant. Sitra focused significant resource on communication with members around this important point and subsequent updates linked to both national and local funding of Supporting People services.
• Partnership has remained an important part of our response to the cuts: We have worked with a range of national and regional bodies, including working with National Housing Federation (NHF) and Homeless Link to put together a joint response to central government. We have also held joint meetings for members with NHF. Sitra and thirteen other organisations have produced a joint briefing aimed at local authorities setting their budgets.
• Lobbying at a local level: Sitra has developed a huge range of resources to help members engage at a local level and lobby. The possible pathways for engaging with representatives are myriad, and our important publication, Navigating the maze, and a bank of resources provide a solid reference, preventing members from ‘reinventing the wheel’.
• Working directly with members impacted by cuts: Individual members have been supported through our helpline, face-to-face meetings and with Sitra staff speaking at meetings or events. Our website, bulletin, e-news and twitter feed continue to be a growing resource for central government pronouncements, news of local funding and a resource to signpost the valuable work of others.
• “More for less” and collaboration will be a significant part of all of our futures: Sitra has teamed up with Hact to see how we can support the roll out of their very important research into Collaboration. In addition, we continue to develop capacity-building resources and training on the possibilities for maximising efficiencies within their organisations.
  
  

3. Preparing the sector for the future

Perhaps the most important role that Sitra is involved in at present is preparing the sector for the future. The policy agenda is changing rapidly – with changes ranging from how services will be commissioned in the future, how the provider market be shaped and formed, new directions for different client groups, alongside whole scale benefit reform. Sitra has been working hard across government departments to influence that future agenda and to ensure that the wider world understands what housing, care and support can contribute to that new world. Key ways in which we have been doing this include:

Outcome/quality – continuing to make the case for housing related support

• Data control: One of the determining factors for the future of Supporting People services was the strength and quality of data. As the Government moves towards greater localisation, the ability to create a national picture of provision, need and outcome will be compromised. Sitra will be working with central and local government to think through what data is required to be able to recognise and value the impact of early intervention and preventative based services.
• Quality: Price has the potential to dominate all future commissioning and there are real concerns that quality will be squeezed out of the market. The QAF has been recognised as a very significant driver of previous developments and we will be working with providers, commissioners and service users to find a future role for the QAF in the emerging environment.
• Outcomes: Sitra has responded to recent Government consultations on the new outcomes framework encapsulated in the reform of health and social care. Over the coming months, Sitra will seek to inform members of where their services interact with these new frameworks, and how the outcomes approach may be used differently in the future. The Coalition Government has indicated their commitment to an outcomes approach, and is actively engaged in thinking through the ramification of ‘payment by results’ across a wide range of settings.

Expanding areas of expertise in the new environment – health and social care

• Health and housing: The Health Service is about to enter a period of unprecedented change. Responsibility for funding, commissioning and monitoring services is on the move, and it is vital that providers and commissioners of housing care and support make their mark in this new environment. Sitra has recently run regional events in partnership with the NHF, bringing together Health and Housing. We will continue to disseminate learning and information on the core themes within both the reform of the NHS and the public health agenda.
• Redeveloping a stronger focus on social care: The blurring of the boundaries between support and care pose both a threat and opportunity for housing related support. Sitra has been raising the issues about the potential challenge to future funding for non-statutory Supporting People services in joint commissioning frameworks which utilise a social care only Resource Allocation System. The increased understanding of the preventative nature of support and its cost benefit has created a recognition within joint commissioning teams and by elected representatives that an authority’s response needs to encapsulate provision at both ends of the spectrum.

Continuing the personalisation agenda – co-production

• Personalisation and co-production remain watch words for the future: Sitra has already played a significant role in developing understanding within the sector of how personalisation can work within housing related support. We are involved with the Right to Control trailblazers and are increasing our partnership work with service user-led organisations. We are asking the AGM to support extension of our membership to service user-led organisation in order to reinforce our commitment to representing all elements of the sector in these emerging debates.

Influencing central, local and public sector bodies including:

• Department of Work and Pensions – through the Right to Control Advisory Group and Project Board
• Homes and Communities Agency Vulnerable and Older Peoples Advisory Group
• DCLG working group on Payment By Results
• DCLG Supporting People Transition Group
• Strategic and Operational Representation on the London Partnership with focus on Multiple Disadvantage
• National Mental Health Development Unit
• Exempt Accommodation Working Group.

Influencing the new legislative framework

As new and relevant legislation emerges, Sitra will continue to determine the influence of this changing agenda on those in receipt of, or providing, housing, care and support. Often we will do this through responding to consultations. Recent examples of this include oral evidence to the DCLG Localism Committee and written responses to:

• Transparency in Outcomes: A Framework for Adult Social Care
• Modernising Commissioning Green Paper
• Local Decisions: A Fairer Future
• Safeguarding/Vetting and Barring scheme
• Legal Aid Reform.

In addition we will increasingly bring details of legislative changes to the membership through events and training courses. This is an excellent way to bring together operational and strategic thinkers within organisations to take on board the way in which changes will impact on the future.
 

The future

There is so much work to be done, and we are actively engaging with partners to try to ensure that the sector gets an effective and active response to the way ahead. We are committed to working with partners, maximising effectiveness and avoiding unnecessary duplication.

Sitra is a membership organisation and the views and opinions of its members are crucial to informing the support we offer and the direction of our work. We welcome continuing the dialogue we have with our members and with the sector.
 

Contact us

Sitra
3rd Floor
55 Bondway
London SW8 1SJ

Tel: 020 7793 4710
Email: post@sitra.org


CEO blog: http://sitraceo.wordpress.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/sitrapolicy