Financing the Child Protection System in Kenya

USER MANUAL

FOR

CHILD PROTECTION COSTING TOOL

July 2018

This project was commissioned by UNICEF Office in Kenya and was implemented by

Maestral International.

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The design of the costing model footprint was initiated in December 2017 and in June 2018

it was validated, tested and completed. Following the finalisation of the model this user

manual was developed to accompany the child protection costing tool to ensure that the

costing model is more user friendly and ease to navigate.

The user manual for child protection costing model was prepared by Shar Kurtishi under the

supervision of Isabel de Bruin Cardoso and Philip Goldman.

This manual also benefited from work and expertise of UNICEF Kenya key staff members

Catherine Kimotho and Godfrey Ndeng’e.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................................................ 4

The Purpose of this Manual ................................................................................................................................................. 5

Background: A Systems Approach to Child Protection ........................................................................................................ 5

What is the Costing Tool? .................................................................................................................................................... 6

How it Works ......................................................................................................................................................................... 6

How the Costing Tool was Developed ................................................................................................................................. 7

How to Use the Costing Tool ............................................................................................................................................... 9

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 9

Tab: Table of Content ........................................................................................................................................................... 11

Tab: Assumptions .................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Tab: Payroll Grades & Scales ................................................................................................................................................ 13

Tab: Existing Finances .......................................................................................................................................................... 14

Tab: Staff Allocations ............................................................................................................................................................ 15

Tabs: Basic Scenario, Enhanced Scenario, Ideal Scenario ................................................................................................... 17

Tab: SCENARIO’S (BASIC, ENHANCED and IDEAL ScENARIO) ....................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Tabs: Summary and Ideal Scenario Chart ............................................................................................................................ 19

Tab: H&V Equal Distribution .............................................................................................................................................. 20

Tab: Full Establishment ........................................................................................................................................................ 21

Tab: Mandate Definition .......................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

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ACRONYMS

CP - Child Protection

CPS - Child Protection System

DCS - Department of Children Services

FY - Fiscal Year

PBB - Program Based Budgeting

MTEF - Medium Term Expenditure Framework

UNICEF - The United Nations Children's Fund

MI - Maestral International

TWG - Technical Working Group

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THE PURPOSE OF THIS MANUAL

The Department of Children Services (DCS) and UNICEF Kenya commissioned Maestral International in 2017/2018

to develop a costing tool to review and analyse the budgeting process and existing budget allocations of the child

protection system in Kenya. The tool uses existing national and county level data to generate budgetary costs, actual

budget execution, financing gaps, and projected costs for the next five years (2018-2022). The tool also uses the financial

data to provide three cost scenarios based on enacting different levels and types of child protection measures.

This costing tool will help planners at the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, most specifically those in the

Department of Children Services, to come up with an evidence-based per child capitation budget for coverage of service

delivery at the County and Subcounty children’s offices. In addition to designing the costing tool a capacity building

workshop was conducted with a group of relevant government staff in DCS, Treasury, Ministry of Planning were trained

on the costing model and provided with skills to effectively use the tool and apply the generated information to advocate

for increased resources for the child protection system. This manual has been developed for use during the said

workshop and also to help guide future trainings on the use of the costing tool.

BACKGROUND: A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO CHILD PROTECTION

This costing tool applies a systems lens. Using a systems lens facilitates a move away from looking at child protection

as focused on individual and discrete issues and instead facilitates ‘connecting the dots’ between the various risks, types

and degrees of vulnerability and potential exposures to harm that can impact a child. A child protection system should

aim

to promote the right to child protection, through raising of knowledge and awareness and increasing access to

protection measures, to contribute to the prevention of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, through early

identification and intervention when problems arise and by building the resilience (including economic) of

children, families and communities; and to respond when violations or issues occur, through the provision of

appropriate services and through community mechanisms such as mediation.1

With the development of a systems approach in child protection, there has become a general consensus of the elements,

components, or parts that are necessary to comprise a child protection system. These elements include all sectors and

institutions that work with and for children such as Justice, Health, Education, Nutrition and Planning as well as NGO’s,

CSO’s and FBO’s contributing to the same topic. Recognizing and strengthening the links between these

elements/institutions can result in interventions being more effective, can allow for leveraging of scarce resources, and

can result in promotion, prevention and response interventions being more sustainable in the long-run.2 In essence, a

systems approach to child protection guides understanding as to how the different elements are connected to more

effectively and efficiently provide care and support to children; it is reflective of, and responsive to, the underlying

causes of child protection risks and vulnerabilities. Child protection systems are therefore not static or wholly replicable,

1 Strengthening Child Protection Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Call to Africa. Joint Inter-Agency Statement. April 2013. Op cit. pp. 2-3.

2 Training Resources Group and Play Therapy Africa for the Inter-Agency Group on Child Protection Systems in Sub-Saharan

Africa (2012). Strengthening child protection systems in Sub-Saharan African: A working paper

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as they aim to prevent and respond to violence in a manner that reflects availability of resources, structures, mechanisms,

and processes, and upholds positive local culture and values system.

WHAT IS THE COSTING TOOL?

This Costing Tool of the child protection system in Kenya is the first such model developed in Africa and it is intended

to highlight the level to which child protection services and interventions are resourced in Kenya and the extent to

which those resources are adequate for providing the needed capacity for child protection. The flexibility and

accessibility of the tool means that it can be used to create scenarios of different levels of preffered child protection

services and provide a uniform costing (at a per child rate) to aid cross scenario comparisons, and budgetary decision

making.

The costing tool is an excel sheet that can be used to generate the amount of resource needed to establish and/or

strengthen the various elements of child protection in order to ensure children are prevented from and are provided

timely response services when abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation happens.

This costing tool is flexible and accessible tool that allows to create scenerios of different levels of preferred child

protection services and provide a uniform cost per child to aid cross scenario comparison and budgetary decisions.

Further the scenario development will help Kenyan decision makers in deploying resources for generating an effective

child protection system in Kenya at national and county levels. In addition, the child protection system (CPS) costing

tool will also support the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection in being fair in terms of resource allocation (both

Human, Structural and Financial) and will help ensure a greater reach in terms of service provision through its support

of evidenced-based decision making.

The CPS costing tool will help:

• Address children issues for all children of Kenya by enhancing prevention mechanisms

• To generate scenarios that will formulate adequate amount of resources for the child protection system that will enhance coordination and cooperation.

• Strengthen and apply a common understanding between local stakeholders.

• Strengthen fiscal management and improve resourcing.

• Address the needs of the social service workforce and aid in appropriate allocations.

• Strengthen the information base for informed decision-making.

HOW IT WORKS

Using an interactive Excel spreadsheet, the Costing Tool allows technical professionals (such as program officer,

planners, accountants and finance officers) as well as policy makers at political level to estimate the costs of

implementing different human and financial resource allocation options given certain preferences, while meeting budget

and financial envelop ceilings and constraints. Microsoft Excel is a precondition for the tool to work in a computer and

it is suggested that the tool is accompanied with this Manual.

The tool employs several data sources such as Kenya Bureau of Statistics both national and county level demographic

statistics, treasury expenditure data, budget allocations as well as the actual budget execution, payroll data to identify

positions and job-titles and pay grades, and costing of goods and services required to do service provision to generate

a per child capitation budget. Using the tool can aid in identifying financing gaps and can project costs for the next five

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years under three cost scenarios. These costing scenarios are based around meeting three different levels (basic,

enhanced, and ideal) of integrated child protection services.

After the user inputs applicable local data, the tool tallies current and projected scenarios into a per child cost and can

be used to guide overall budgetary allocations. But for such allocations for child protection services, programmes and

interventions to work it is assumed that: resource allocation is fairly distributed within the counties and sub-counties;

that citizens are able to receive services; and that service providers are able to reach their clients. Using the tool will aid

in creating transparency in the overall allocation process for child protection services in Kenya. Costing Model also

allows transparency and fairness in terms of allocation based on set of criteria that can be achieved using the costing

model, which is provided with a formula in funds allocation for counties and sub-counties based on child population

and geographical coverage. It is hoped that the future planning on CPS employs the use of the model so that it can

plan for resources needed to render CP services that are guided by the costing model and these criteria. Furthermore, it

is recommended that criteria’s used in the model should be revisited every 2 to 3 years given that the risk factors and

Child Protection System landscape changes as time goes by.

HOW THE COSTING TOOL WAS DEVELOPED

The tool tallies current costs and projected costs as a per child capitation. Per child capitation is a key criterion in

determining the sufficiency of resource allocation for child protection in international documentation. However, per

capita funding for the child protection system is not available in national and the majority of county level budgets. To

determine necessary future per capita funding for Kenya, five counties where identified to aggregate current per capita

costs related to the child protection system and determine what appropriate allocation of funds for the child protection

system should look like.

The methodology used to develop the costing model started in October 2017. The following outlines the major steps

in the production of the costing tool.

Literature review including sources from the Government of Kenya (including reports on national surveys, reports on

child protection), donors and non-governmental organizations (UNICEF, World Bank, DfID, Save the Children, CISP?

); national and county governments policy planning and strategy documents (the County Integrated and Annual

Development Plans, Medium Term Plans and Expenditure Framework reports, programme based budgets of the

national government, budget outlook papers, budget policy statement etc.); annual operational plans of relevant sectors,

agencies and private companies; relevant legislation (such as Public Financial Management Act 2012, Children’s Act

2001 , National pal of Action for Children in Kenya , Constitution of Kenya 2010, National Policy on Social Protection,

amongst others); and other relevant reports based on the literature search.

Establishment of a Technical Working Group (TWG) to support the development of the costing tool. Its mandate

was to make decisions on the path towards the costing tool development and to validate and accept the deliverables.

Partners in the technical working group were from the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, Specifically

representatives from Finance, Planning and Children’s Departments, the Anti-FGM Board, the Streets Families

Rehabilitation Funds UNICEF and Maestral International. The DCS was the convener and the TWG was chaired by

the Finance Officer in the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection

Establishment of the data collection framework. October 24th, 2017 and November 21st, 2017, the broad scope

of the tool, and which services and interventions should be included in the costing tool were developed and agreed

upon by the TWG

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Refinement and approval of the data collection framework. December 8th, 2017. Further decisions about the

design of the costing tool and the plan for relevant and appropriate data collection was agreed upon. recommendation

was provided to include at least 5 counties in the study and a Criteria for county selection was developed.

Identification of counties. While the costing tool is national in scope, a strategic number of counties were identified

to contribute to informing the costing tool. A set of criteria was developed that could identify a sample of counties that

reflect a diversity of contexts to ensure the costing model can be aggregated and applicable for generating national level

per capita costs for the child protection system. On applying the criteria, the following counties were identified: Nairobi,

Kakamega, Garissa, Turkana, and Kilifi counties. These represent a diversity of Kenyan regional factors on issues of:

marginalized and non-marginalized3 counties; urban and rural counties; large, medium and small counties in terms of

geographical size and population density; and whether they have government or private run one stop centres (child

protection center), or not.

Field Data Collection A research team visited all 5 counties in order to see the differences on resource allocation and

had in-depth interviews and discussions with the Children County coordinators and their teams from children offices

at County and Subcounty level. In addition, the team visited the County Government planners and treasury officials to

discuss the needs and affordability of the cost of Child Protection resulting from the model.

Costing tool trail and improvement Workshop, Naivasha, February 26-28th 2018. The workshop brought together

xxxx participants from national level and the 5 selected counties. The team Reviewed data from the county level

research, the aggregation for costing tool construction and the child protection elements captured in the model.

Consensus was reached on various issues including on the three different scenarios i.e. basic, advance and ideal

scenarios.

Validation of the costing model by TWG on , July 6th, 2018 in Nairobi Technical working group meeting was held to

validate the costing model at the DCS This was before the training of Trainers

Stakeholders validation and TOT Workshop between 16th and 18th July 2018 at Naivasha. A total of xxxx

participants from national and county level government and non-government personnel were trained on the use of the

costing model and how to use the products of the model to do advocacy at various levels. Participants included staff

from National Treasury, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Labour and Social protection, county governments, NGOs

and UNICEF.

Presentation of Costing Tool to DCS policy level personnel on 19th July 2018 was done after the workshop to share

the outcome of the workshop and recommendations e.g. the development of a Cabinet Memo on increasing budget

allocation for child protection and ring-fencing the same.

3 The Commission on Revenue Allocation has established criteria for identifying marginalized counties and has identified 14

counties in Kenya as marginalized.

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HOW TO USE THE COSTING TOOL

INTRODUCTION

The costing tool is Excel based. The costing tool elements are found as separate worksheet pages accessible

through both hotlinks on the table of contents page and through the worksheet tabs at the bottom of each

spreadsheet. The elements of the tool are listed below. In this chapter each table (tab) of the tool will be

discussed and examples shown to help guide a user in filling in and understanding the tool.

IMPORTANT: The sheets Assumptions, Existing Financing, Staff Allocations, All Counties and Full

Establishment are the sheets where the user needs to add inputs from their data sources. Cells where inputs

from the user is required are highlighted in in Gold, Ascent 4 Lighter 80% (see the colour below.)

Furthermore the tabs that are marked in below in the same colour require input from? user.

Tab Name Content

Main Front page

Table of Contents Links to navigate the model

Assumptions Country and county data and model assumptions

Payroll Grades & Scales Staffing, ratios and parameters

Existing Financing Existing child protection financing from Government of Kenya

Staff allocations New staff allocations across CP institutions

Basic Scenario Basic Scenario: Resource allocation for meeting the minimum needs to service CP systems

Enhance Scenario Enhanced Scenario: Resource allocation for meeting the minimum needs to service CP systems + additional resources to strengthen the formal and informal education for CP workforce

Ideal Scenario Ideal Scenario: Resource allocation for meeting the minimum needs to service CP systems + additional resources to strengthen the formal and informal education for CP workforce + Capital Investments

Summary Table Summary of total costs for CP under the three scenarios

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Ideal Scenario Chart Chart to visualize funding needs for next 5 years under the ideal scenario

Horizontal and Vertical Equalization Distribution

Distribution of funds across the Counties

Full establishment Existing payroll job titles with pay, scales and grades

Mandate Definition Table to visualize the different staff and resource needs under the three scenarios

All Counties Vital Statistics of all counties. National and county population, geographical, child population and other statistics

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TAB: TABLE OF CONTENT

This tab is the main menu for navigating among seven major pages of the costing tool. You can click in the

hyperlink as selected below in red or use the tab bar at the bottom of each worksheet to navigate the costing

model.

Tool can be navigated through the hyperlinks or the tabs at the bottom of the page

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TAB: ASSUMPTIONS

This tab populates the model with main assumptions that Child Protection System costing model need to

operate to perform the calculations. Assumption tab is a mandatory sheet before even going further with the

tab to follow.

Under this tab the planner is expected to input the following data: Macroeconomic, Financial, National

Budget and Expenditures, Population data, County Budgets and expenditures, Formal Education data,

Staffing, Designations, Job Groups and Salary ranges, Kits, Recurrent and Capital investment costs for a

County or sub county children’s office.

NOTE: Some of the assumption data are already in use and are already added within the assumption sheet.

Please double check if data are correct and if not please update them. It is very important to review

assumptions critically as that is the basis for the formation of the scenarios.

When the tab is first opened

it might look like this.

Clicking one of the plus icons on left hand side of the

sheet will open a subsection of grouped rows.

Table after clicking plus icon.

Check all assumptions. Fill in

needed data.

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CAUTION: Please make changes only in cells that are marked in yellow. You are not allowed to add rows

unless there is an administrator to connect those new rows to the formulas in other output sheets

TAB: PAYROLL GRADES & SCALES

This tab employs the Kenyan staff establishment job groups, job titles, and salaries relevant to child services

that are listed as below.

NOTE: General use of the costing tool does not require modification of this tab. Only if salaries for

paygrades are changed will this table need modification

CAUTION: If salaries need to be modified, the modification must be done on this page, not on any other

sheet. Modification on this table will update other pages of the costing tool

Table lists jobs and salaries and is

used to populate costing scenarios

with accurate costs

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TAB: EXISTING FINANCES

These tabs present the existing financing of Department of Children Services for the current fiscal year that

creates the baseline for initial calculations. The baseline will be the basis for future benchmarking against

proposed scenarios.

Under this table the planner is expected to input the data from the annual budget from last year where you

would find planned budget and expenditures for a full year.

In more details you would need the vote of the Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Services for both

recurrent and development costs at programme level with the following details:

• Printed estimates

• Approved estimates

• Cumulative Expenditures

• Outstanding Commitments

• Total Payment Commitments

NOTE: When overall investment is divided by child population that serves to identify the existing

investment per child (See bottom row). This variable is very important as this will serve as the baseline for

what is the current level of investment.

Mandatory inputs are only the

Approved estimates and Total

payments Commitments

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TAB: STAFF ALLOCATIONS

This tab serves to create the baseline staffing using ratios for different types of staff at all institutions dealing

with children and their families.

On this table the planner is expected to input the ratios for staff for institutions at the county level. These

institutions are comprised of: Children’s Office at the County level, Children’s Office at Sub County level,

Remand homes, rescue centres and Rehabilitation schools. Mandatory inputs are only the ones already

added in the ‘Staff allocation’ sheet. However, if you think that there is a certain job designation of staff

missing you can add rows. For each job you wish to add refer to section STAFFING, DESIGNATIONS,

JOB GROUPS AND SALARY RANGE on the Assumptions tab (see row 80 and below) to identify the

missing Designation, Job Group, Monthly and Annual salary.

Enter staffing ratios

Add rows and staff types as necessary

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An important factor to be mentioned is that staff allocation can be done using several ratios based on

certain criteria and those are:

• Against a county (example: 1 Children Coordinator Officer for a county)

• Against a sub-county (example: 1 or more Children officer for a sub-county)

• Against a child population (example: for counties with more than 1,000,000 million children you can allocate additional children officers to address the caseload)

• Against an office, (example: each children office should have two security guards)

• Against a county size in square kilometers (example: for every county that has above 20,000 sqm an additional driver is allocated)

Each of the above ratios can be used in one or more occasions. Example you may allocate at the county level a lawyer, however you can allocate additional lawyers to counties with more than 1 million children.

NOTE: Criteria should be reviewed if not every year at least every two years and as this will have impact on

the ultimate outcome which is Investment per child in Kenya.

CAUTION: The Staff allocation sheet is used to create a baseline. However, when moving to each of the

scenario tabs, the staff allocation will need to be done separately for each of the children institutions on the

scenario pages as well. This allows for the different scenarios to represent different staff levels with job

groups and salary ranges.

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TABS: BASIC SCENARIO, ENHANCED SCENARIO, IDEAL SCENARIO

These tab serve to create scenarios that will be used to allow staffing using ratios for different types of staff

at all institutions dealing with children and their families.

These tabs calculate Child Protection System costing under three different models/scenerios. See Tab

Mandate Definition for the description of the elements that comprise the three different levels.

The three tabs are similar in their layout. For each scenario users must fill in the necessary components such

as staff types, staffing ratios, supply levels, etc.

On this tab the planner is expected to input the ratios for staff for institutions at the county level. These

institutions are comprised of: Children’s Office at the County level, Children’s Office at Sub County level,

Remand homes, rescue centres and Rehabilitation schools. Mandatory inputs are only the ones already

added in the ‘Staff allocation’ sheet.

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However, if you think that there is a certain job designation of staff missing you can add rows. For each job

you wish to add refer to section STAFFING, DESIGNATIONS, JOB GROUPS AND SALARY RANGE

Plugging/Removing the

numbers/ quantity of staff

it will automatically have

impact on the lower part of

the table where costs are

summarized. (WHAT IF

formulae)

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on the Assumptions tab (see row 80 and below) to identify the missing Designation, Job Group, Monthly

and Annual salary.

Cells in yellow are bounded with “WHAT IF” mechanism that allows the planner to remove, reduce or

increase the amout of staff per type, good, services or capital projects to make the calculation

NOTE: The only thing that planners are required to do annually when submitting their budget proposals is

to index the inflation rate and the currency fluctuation into allocation per child projections and that will have

an impact on the overall proposed investment/envelope for children in Kenya

Each Scenario spreadsheet

has a summary at the end

which gives an output in

terms of Average per child

Each Scenario spreadsheet has a

summary of the overall resource

produced as a result of above

implications.

TABS: SUMMARY AND IDEAL SCENARIO CHART

This tab summarizes the three scenarios and provides easy cross comparisons. The outcome on this table is

the ultimate outcome and will serve to identify not only the current level of investment in Child Protection

Systems in Kenya but also the estimated needs on different scenarios and the increased budget needs in

Kenyan Schillings.

A key outcome in this table is the calculation of the financing gap.4 The financing gap is calculated as

follows: Financing gap = Cost/amount of current budget allocation for child protection – scenario cost per

service.

The Ideal Scenario Chart provides a visual representation of the financing needs over the next 5 years to

meet the Ideal Scenario.

CAUTION: The planner is not expected to input any details here but rather at the scenario sheets and in the

assumptions sheet.

NOTE: Further charts can be developed using the outcome from Scenario sheets as well as Summary sheet.

Table shows funding difference

for each of the three scenarios.

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TAB: HORISONTAL AND VERTICAL EQUALISATION DISTRIBUTION

This tab ensures that resources are distributed based on the criteria Child Population, Size of the county,

Density, Child institutions in the county as well as Marginalised criteria used by the Planning and Treasury

to equalize the resource allocation that is decided is distributed in full fairness and in transparent method of

available resources.

Under this table the planner is expected to input the data from the overall envelope. That will be the basis

for horizontal and vertical distribution. Horizontal distribution criteria are population, size of the county,

density and institutions (Rehab, Remand and Rescue centers).

Mandatory inputs are only the ones underscored as indicated in red. Please make sure that the percentages

inputted equal 100% otherwise there will be surplus in allocation. A double check has been done, please

double check the cell AB55 and if the tally is 100% it will indicate “OK”, otherwise it will appear “Please

check the percentages, are they correct, as its seems you are above 100%"

The final column at the right side named TOTAL is the overall envelope and vertical distribution is by county

absolute values in KES that will be the distribution as required resources for CPS to counties.

NOTE: User or administrator of the model should update on annual basis the numbers of children in

institutions as well as the number of institutions.

This is just the upper bar of the Horizontal and Vertical tab. This is the only section of this table that

needs data entry. Enter a value in % in each red labeled box. Percentages at the end added must total

100%, otherwise the planner shoud revise the percentages in each of the criteria.

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CAUTION: Planners should check the allocation based on the percentages above and should not intervene

directly in values allocated within the process.

TAB: FULL ESTABLISHMENT

This tab is not directly related to any of the tabs, however it serves to feed the assumption part of the

designations, job-groups and salaries.

NOTE: This tab needs to be reviewed only when something changes in the Full establishment such as

descriptions of designations or the job titles, job group and salary increases from year to year and all the

changes should be indicated in the assumption sheet under the section of staffing.

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