Newham’s Approach to Transformation: Building Resilience

Dr Graeme Betts

Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning and Community

Entrepreneurship, Innovation & GrowthWest Midlands Economic Forum

21 June 2013

Olympic Park

Canary Wharf

Newham’s story - challenges

• We are the 2nd most deprived borough in the country (IMD 2010).• Employment is 9% below the London average.• Skills are an issue, with almost half of our residents with no

recognised UK qualification.• Economic changes in the mid 20th Century – loss of industry and

work in the Docks - left us with real challenges.• Economic crisis and pressures on public finances had a

disproportionate impact on LBN budget.

Newham’s story - opportunities

• We are one of the most diverse places in the world – with the largest proportion of households where no adult has English as their main language of any borough in the country.

• We have a very young, dynamic population.• Newham’s population is dominated by Prospectors there are

twice as many of this group as in the UK as a whole. This group is most likely to be satisfied with their area as a place to live. They want to be central to local activity.

• Strong and vibrant regeneration story including Siemens and Westfield.

• Olympic Park.• Our approach.

Our focus – Building Resilience

• Our vision is to help make Newham a place where people choose to live, work and stay.

• We will only achieve that by building the economic, personal and community resilience of all our residents.

• Economic resilience – to support residents into sustainable employment in the face of international competition.

• Personal resilience – to give residents - especially our young people – the capacity to deal with what life throws at them.

• And community resilience – to build cohesion and strength in the most diverse place for its size on the planet.

Delivering resilience through transformation…

• Framework for resilience shapes what we do, delivered through a whole systems, Council wide approach to strategic commissioning.

• Strategic commissioning devised, developed and cascaded throughout the Council in 2012.

• Twenty-four resilience aspirations are delivered through an outcomes framework and 12 cross-cutting strategic commissioning plans breaking down silos.

• Strategic commissioning aligns investment to priorities across performance and resources around a business cycle of understand, plan, do, review.

…and through innovative personalised services

• Our Council Services to Small Businesses team is developing innovative models of service delivery such as small businesses, staff mutuals and payment by results schemes.

• It aims to create value for money services that empower and incentivise frontline staff to provide focused, responsive solutions that meet residents’ needs rather than being a one size fits all offer.

• Community Hubs will see community engagement devolved to a hyper-local level, with elected members at the heart of leadership.

• Operationalising commissioning through 8 Community Hubs, led by local members and bringing together local services to meet resident needs around environment, libraries, community engagement, reducing ASB.

• A team of officers along with lead Councillors will be able to work with residents to: build community networks, flexibly use community assets, tackle local issues, collect intelligence, and inform future commissioning.

Approach underpinned by evidence-led policy

• Two-year research and evaluation programme agreed by Sir. Robin Wales, Executive Mayor, linking to academic research and good practice evaluation to test public policy programme.

• Policy examples include:– Housing Allocations Policy: prioritising working households on the

waiting list.– Landlord Licensing: first Council to implement council-wide PRS

licensing to reduce ASB and improving housing standards for residents.

– Workplace: Council run job brokerage scheme delivered over 17,500 jobs since 2007, half to long-term unemployed Newham residents. Outstanding track record of job sustainability.

– Every Child Reading: evaluation of 1-1 tutors for under achieving year 1 and 2 primary school children delivering improved NC results.

You can hear more about the three themes supporting our transformation in the Panel session

• What we mean by strategic commissioning and our approach to organisational change using a commissioning model.

• How we are operationalising commissioning through community hubs to deliver improvement at a local level.

• How we are creating new delivery models such as the Mayors small business programme to deliver more innovative and personalised services.

For more information

• Please contact Dr Graeme Betts, Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning and Community, graeme.betts@newham.gov.uk

Newham’s Approach to Transformation: Building Resilience

Panel SessionDr Graeme Betts

Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning and CommunityAnd

Dr Jane KennedyResearch Business Manager

Entrepreneurship, Innovation & GrowthWest Midlands Economic Forum

21 June 2013

Our three transformational themes

• Strategic commissioning and our approach to organisational change using a commissioning model.

• Operationalising commissioning through community hubs.• Creating new delivery models to deliver more innovative and

personalised services.

People have both broad and diverse networks locally (family, friends, groups and organisations) that offer them support.

Volunteering% who say friendships and associations in neighbourhood mean a lot toNI 1 – people from different backgrounds get along well togetherLevels of English for speakers of English as a second languageSense of belonging in the neighbourhood

Described as Defined as

Aspirations

Aspiration measures

Activities measured by PI

The Resilience Performance Framework

Commissioning Strand A strong and cohesive community

E.g. community engagement, ‘Go for it Grants’

Also incorporates

Politically defined ‘key objectives’

Commissioning Cycle

Resident DrivenPriorities

Research &CommunityEngagement

Evidence BasedPolicy

DevelopmentStrategic BusinessPlanning

Commissioningand Procurement

Improvement&

Performance

OperationalDelivery

Our approach to organisational change using a commissioning model

• Governance framework agreed for strategic commissioning led by the Executive Mayor

• We begin the commissioning round with an ‘Understand’ phase, pulling together:– Elected members’ priorities– Council research (what works here and what are resident

priorities)– National and international research – Performance data and intelligence

• Then we write action plans• Commission activity• And evaluate the outcomes• Part of a constant feedback loop

Our approach to organisational change using a commissioning model

• Significant organisational change as part of this process• We have a commissioning / operations split across the

organisation• Integrating budgets to commissioning leads• Requires significant member and staff engagement to work –

culture change• Comes at a time of financial constraints - £25m savings for

2014/15• 4 pilot plans underway• 8 more currently in process, to set budgets for 2014/15

Strategic commissioning

• What are the challenges others have faced when moving to strategic commissioning?

• How do we make sure we learn from the changes we make (e.g. evaluation, research)?

• How do we break down departmental silos as we commission?

Operationalising commissioning through Community Hubs

• Building on our nationally recognised community engagement work.

• Key principles – Councillor-led, inclusive, whole community approach.

• Hubs bring together libraries, community centres and community services.

• Small team of officers support Councillors to deliver community plans.

• Tasked with four key outcomes from the Resilience Performance Management Framework.

Operationalising commissioning through Community Hubs

• Tasked with four key outcomes from the Resilience Performance Management Framework:– Residents respect and look after each other– Residents are active locally and take part in community and

civic life– Residents believe they can influence decisions which affect

them– Residents respect their local environment

• Will also feed into outcomes around crime, health, and housing.

Operationalising commissioning through community hubs

• Hubs will work with residents, with their input integral to delivering community activities.

• Support residents to develop local groups, develop skills, provide local volunteering opportunities.

• Will maximise use of community spaces.• Gather evidence base on community activity and where there are

gaps, feed into the commissioning process.• Will not commission services directly but will have small pots of

funding to support activities.

Operationalising commissioning through community hubs

• Weekly street visits will provide an intelligence-gathering function on environmental issues.

• Lead members supported by community officers will ensure resident priorities on environmental issues and ASB are tackled.

• Hubs will ensure local intelligence feeds into Strategic Commissioning.

• Currently being piloted in 2 areas – borough-wide roll out in September.

Community Hubs – delivering at a local level

• What challenges and risks are there in this approach?

• How do we bring local resident priorities together with Council strategic aims?

• How else can we make commissioning accountable at a local level?

Creating new delivery models to deliver more innovative and personalised services.

• The Mayor has established the Council Services to Small Business programme exploring existing services to identify savings through changes to delivery structures.

• The Programme covers the whole Council. • Through a full service review, staff are encouraged and supported

to make recommendations about service improvement.• Projects have the potential to create efficiencies by giving staff

greater control of service they deliver.• The programme will help the organisation become leaner and more

commercially focussed.• Full range of options considered including profit making small

businesses, social enterprise, charity, payment by results, procurement – or just service improvements.

• Employee ownership will play an important part where new businesses are created.

Creating new delivery models to deliver more innovative and personalised services.• Example 1. The Language Shop• Already commercially successful, selling its services to public

sector bodies across East London.• A new company - The Language Shop Ltd will be created in

2013. Staggered transition to the new model• This will allow growth at full potential so both staff and council

can fully benefit from success of service.

• Example 2. Workplace PbR• Part of local employment service.• Staff volunteer for bonuses for high performance, but a salary

sacrifice of 10% if targets are not met.• Advisors achieved 61% above target – 633 extra jobs – in

2012/13.• The pilot saved the Council the Council approximately £1.3m –

the cost of commissioning the additional capacity needed to achieve those outcomes

Creating new delivery models to deliver more innovative and personalised services.

• Example 3. activeNewham• Leisure and Culture Trust established as the most effective

way to manage leisure centres, volunteering service, sports development service and activities in parks.

• Will allow activeNewham to grow and reduce reliance on Council management fee, generating savings.

• No drop in quality, and sales and income targets met.• Steep learning curve for activeNewham staff, and the Council

in dealing with a new partner.

New delivery models

• What models work best to unleash frontline professionals’ creativity?

• How do we ensure we commission services working under new models for the right outcomes?

• How do we minimise risk from new delivery models?

For more information

• Please contact Dr Graeme Betts, Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning and Community, graeme.betts@newham.gov.uk