- Partnership approach will see providers and commissioners agree the number and type of placements, and fee levels
- If successful it could be used to develop a new regional and national model of procurement
ACTION
The financial pressure on councils has led to the commissioning of care packages from the independent sector sometimes turning into an adversarial process – one where both parties often feel like they are being unfairly treated.
An innovative project, led by West Sussex County Council, is trying to improve the relationship between commissioners and providers by developing a joint process where each has an equal status, and in so doing better meets the needs of looked-after children.
Lucy Butler, executive director of children, young people and learning at West Sussex, says the initiative – called the South East Sector Led Improvement Programme (SESLIP) pilot – has the potential to refocus on children's needs and move closer to providing the “loving and safe” homes needed.
Butler says: “The standard approach is for local authorities to specify the needs of children and types of placement they require and to ask the market to provide them.
“Often there is very limited incentive for providers to respond to these requests as there are many more children needing accommodation than there are children's homes or foster families available.
“Many providers work exclusively with spot-purchased placements as they are inundated with referrals.
“We are seeking ways to incentivise providers to work with local authorities in a more planned way to co-ordinate the supply of accommodation with the needs of children.
“We think this can offer real benefits to children, local authorities and providers.”
The terms of the contract could cover issues like the number and type of placements, and fee levels.
The pilot is chaired jointly by the council and The Independent Children's Homes Association (ICHA), in consultation with the Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers and care consultancy The Care Leaders, and three other councils have recently come on board (see box).
Butler acknowledges the “significant expertise and knowledge” of providers but admits councils also need to improve communication so that the residential care sector better understands the “scale and range” of local need.
“There is clearly a mismatch between the level of provision available and the need for it,” she says. “Our research suggests this is very unlikely to change in the short to medium term of five to 10 years, without action by local authorities to encourage growth.”
She says that the approach does have the potential to create cost savings – such as by reducing the purchasing of out-of-area placements.
Butler explains that block contracts, where commissioners buy a set number of places for a defined period of time, are one mechanism that could possibly help. “By giving providers more certainty around occupancy levels, it can help to reduce the cost of care, while maintaining the quality,” she adds.
“We also hope to keep children more local. This is the right thing to do, is beneficial to the child and reduces travel costs. It can also increase the chance of a child being able to be returned to the care of their family, where this is appropriate.”
The work is currently focusing on the following key elements:
Flexible, creative provision designed to meet the needs of complex children, including options to “step across” various forms of provision (eg residential to fostering).
Keeping children as close to their home address as possible.
Working with providers who already offer both residential and fostering services, developing joined-up partnerships, enabling movement between each as needs change.
Exploring options for considering lifetime costs for placements, the potential to invest in more intensive early interventions, with a view to improving outcomes and potentially reducing longer term costs.
Including measures of progress for children based on assessment at the point of placement (regularly reviewed up until placement end using an evidence-based assessment tool).
ICHA chief executive Peter Sandiford is hopeful SESLIP will succeed in improving the commisisoning relationship.
He says: “While there have been other projects across England that have espoused working in partnership, they have failed to engage on an equal footing with true collaboration and shared learning.
“The outputs of such projects have generally been to tamper with traditional ways of doing things, rather than investing in changes to develop something that works to the benefit of all parties, not least children.
“The sense from providers is that they are feeling involved so far – the indicators are that this will continue and we will be ready to pilot a model that is more suited to meeting the needs of the children we all care about.”
The most recent consultation with providers explored questions including:
What would persuade you to invest in growth?
What doesn't work for service providers and what should we avoid?
What mechanisms could improve local availability for local children?
What purchasing mechanisms would be most likely to increase services available to children?
What might help facilitate timely transitions between services – eg fostering and residential?
Providers' views on the effectiveness of local authorities working together to commission services
Sandiford says he would like to see a “sustainable business model that enables the sector to grow and meet the sufficiency needs” as a lasting outcome.
IMPACT
Butler says that the pilot will be considered suitable for extension if the model succeeds in a range of areas, including:
It produces objective measures of children's progress using methodology that is acceptable to both local authorities and providers.
It is able to find placements for children that authorities are struggling to place.
It promotes a better, less transactional relationship between local authorities and providers.
AT-A-GLANCE GUIDE TO SESLIP
The South East Sector Led Improvement
Programme (SESLIP) is an initiative to improve children’s services through collaboration between councils and service providers in South East England.
Since 2020, SESLIP has been having discussions with providers of residential and fostering services nationally about how the sector might innovate to provide the right kind of local care in the future.
ICHA joined to chair the project with West Sussex and three other councils – Kent, Portsmouth and Milton Keynes – got on board to agree the type of service that should be commissioned.
The programme secured funding from the Department for Education’s Improving Sufficiency Planning to Increase Stability and Permanence for Looked-After Children programme to support phase two of the project.
From mid-May 2021, providers will be invited to attend workshops based around a series of themes and geographical areas, with the aim of finalising contracts by the end of September.
These would then go on to be used by the four councils and potentially others.
The ICHA’s Peter Sandiford says: “The project is starting small but a key consideration is the potential to scale up across SESLIP’s 19 member local authorities and into other regions.
“Making the project replicable is a key consideration as we move forward.”
