Archived decisions

Children's Services Department

LPSA1 Reward Grant Proposals - 2006/07

Summary of proposals

Staff

Estimated Cost

Proposal Type

Changes

2006/07

2007/08

Total

FTE *

£'000

£'000

£'000

Departmental Restructure

Voluntary sector post

5

0

5

JAR Project Management

15.2

60.7

75.9

JAR Data Officer

8.1

32.5

40.6

Organisational Development Manager

0.5 (temp)

5.7

23

28.7

Workforce & Organisation Development

80

80

160

Change for Children Programme Consultant

96.2

96.2

192.4

Restructure staff costs

62.8

0

62.8

Restructure Related Proposals Total

0.0

273

292.2

565.0

Children Looked After

Foster care (possibly needing to include adaptations)

218.5

321.5

540

NCP post (one year only)

1 (temp)

10

35.5

45.5

IFA care manager backfill - temporary

1 (temp)

10

10

20

Intensive literacy programme

10

10

20

Children Looked After Proposals Total

0.0

248.5

377

625.0

Spend to save/enhance effectiveness for Change for Children

Information Systems Development

0

300

300

Rights, respect, responsibilities

0

12

12

Review of education of the most challenging children

0

18

18

Oaklodge / Applemore

0

50

50

Home to School Transport Tender

15

15

30

Spend to save/enhance effectiveness Proposals Total

0.0

15

395

410

Total Cost of Proposals

0.0

536.3

1,063.7

1,600.0

* FTE changes include permanent changes only.

Children's Services Department

LPSA1 Reward Grant Proposals - 2006/07

Departmental Restructure

Sustainability after LPSA1 funding

Staff Changes FTE

Estimated Cost

Proposal

Impact

Longer-term savings potential

2006/07

2007/08

Total

£'000

£'000

£'000

Voluntary Sector Post

HCC contribution to the Voluntary Sector Children's Services Alliance post. This will co-ordinate all the Children's Sector voluntary organisations, developing a single point of contact for the CS voluntary sector with the County Council. Funding for the post has also been given by the Children's Workforce Development Council and the Hampton Trust.

The post is initially for one year. There is no commitment from the County Council to longer term funding. An assessment of the impact of the post on our ability to work with the voluntary sector, and on their ability to co-ordinate their children's sector activities will be undertaken.

Potential greater effectiveness of communications with the VS, and in their ability to contribute to the whole Children's agenda.

5

0

5

JAR Project Management

To provide additional capacity within CS to manage the preparation for the JAR effectively.

This will be a short-term project.

No quantifiable savings potential, but a successful JAR will ensure freedoms and flexibilities and a light touch inspection regime continue.

15.2

60.7

75.9

JAR Data Officer

The JAR will require intensive work with data. The current data team is at full capacity and this will fund an additional post.

This is a temporary appointment to cover JAR.

As above re JAR outcomes

8.1

32.5

40.6

Organisational Development Manager - funding for a 0.5 fte manager to provide support for the workforce and organisational development project outlined under 'Service Development for Change'. A temporary post for the last quarter of 06/07 and the full year 07/08.

Secure interdependence between all parts of the dept. Establish clear lines of accountability and a 'single front door' to access services. Ensure performance and safeguarding are protected at period of change. Maximise opportunities of joint working and co-location of area and local staff with partners.

Continued expenditure not required. Expectation of sufficient culture change to ensure ongoing momentum.

Not quantifiable. Expectations of more efficient and effective working across the department through embedding a new culture of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working.

0.5 (temp)

5.7

23

28.7

Workforce & Organisation Development - investment in development capacity and programmes of activity to support director and DMT to reconfigure the dept to achieve fully integrated services and promote new ways of working. (Cost given does not include the temporary 0.5 FTE manager which is listed under 'Departmental Restructure')

Secure interdependence between all parts of the dept. Establish clear lines of accountability and a 'single front door' to access services. Ensure performance and safeguarding are protected at period of change. Maximise opportunities of joint working and co-location of area and local staff with partners. Expenditure against the training budget that would otherwise bear these costs includes senior manager briefings, all staff briefings and development and delivery of common induction processes for front-line staff in line with national standards.

Continued expenditure not required. Expectation of sufficient culture change to ensure ongoing momentum.

This is essential activity, currently underway. The potential use of LPAS1 for this activity has enabled a saving of £80k from the training budgets to be included in the 06/07 recovery plan. If this project is not agreed, that saving will have to be removed from the recovery plan. £80k saving has also been projected from the training budget for the 07/08 budget preparation, that will also be lost if we do not use LPSA1 funds in this way.

80

80

160

Change for Children Programme Consultant

This will cover the salary costs of the consultant employed to lead the Change for Children programme for CS

This is a short-term contract

Not quantifiable. However, effective change management and subsequent cultural change will greatly assist the CS department in the effective delivery of services

96.0

96.0

192.0

Restructure staff costs

Confidential - oral update will be given

62.8

0

62.8

Total Restructure Related LPSA1 Proposals

0.0

272.8

292.2

565.0

Children's Services Department

LPSA1 Reward Grant Proposals - 2006/07

Children Looked After

Staff Changes FTE

Estimated Cost

Proposal

Impact

Sustainability after LPSA1 funding

Longer-term savings potential

2006/07

2007/08

Total

£'000

£'000

£'000

Increase in foster care provision at levels 4 and 5. Tender for recruitment of 10 experienced foster carers in North Hampshire. Includes one-off costs, fees payable to carers and staffing. The amount includes an addition to the capital fund for adaptations to foster carers' properties to allow for disabled children or placement of a large sibling group.

Reduction of use of IFAs by up to 10 places by 07/08. Revenue implications for following years as per business case for reduction in IFAs. Adaptations to meet adoption support reg requirements.

Adaptations and initial recruitment costs are one-off. Ongoing fees and allowances will put continuing pressure on fostering service budgets, but offset by savings.

Possible savings of £144k in remainder of 06/07 through a reduction of 4 IFA placements. Possible total fye savings in 2007/8 by reducing IFA usage by 10 placements of £416k. Additional savings from property adaptations by enabling existing foster carers to take CwDs that would otherwise be in more expensive NCPs.

218.5

321.5

540

Additional capacity to address costs imposed by non county providers. One year post to reduce the costs of individual placements in NCPs and expensive IFAs. The post holder will monitor and improve negotiating on individual packages, improve the capacity of team managers to prepare individual packages, monitor the quality of individual packages against the contract and improve financial monitoring.

Savings through improved planning, negotiating and monitoring of individual care packages.

No need for continued funding.

Potential savings of £40k on placements already made and a further £50k on future placements. Longer-term benefits from increased capacity of team managers to arrange better value care packages.

1 (temp)

10

35.0

45.0

Additional capacity to care plan and manage return of IFA placements. One family placement SW required to track all IFA placements, collate care plans, liaise with family placement to identify vacancies and manage return to in-house placements. Funding is for temporary backfill arrangements for release of a competent care manager to undertake the task.

Creation of overview of all IFA placements and needs, to ensure optimum match between child needs and availability of in-house provision to ensure return ASAP. Containment and possible reduction of budget spend. Avoid key placements of younger children becoming long-term.

No need for continued funding. Additional staff time will cease at end of funding with a detailed analysis complete. A model for maintaining the analysis into the future, without need for additional staff time, will be in place.

Anticipated savings of £50k in 06/07 and £100k in 07/08. Future savings of £40k per annum per placement.

1 (temp)

10

10

20

Intensive literacy programme. A project over two terms to target children in Year 6 who have been looked after for 12 months or more. The resource will be used to fund additional tuition which will be provided using existing Year 6 teachers in schools and staff within the team for the education of children looked after who are already receiving additional training.

The project will target only those children who are under-achieving, whatever their ability. The focus will be on improving reading, but the intention is to see a related improvement in spelling and writing too. Should the project be successful it will give important pointers to the future configuration of support for these children.

Will enable future, existing, resource to be used more effectively.

This project is not intended to produce savings, but to lead to non-cashable Gershon efficiencies by increasing the achievement of CLA through more effective use of existing resources to support them.

10

10

20

Total Children Looked After LPSA1 Proposals

0.0

248.5

376.5

625.0

Children's Services Department

LPSA1 Reward Grant Proposals - 2006/07

Spend to save/enhance effectiveness for Change for Children

Sustainability after LPSA1 funding

Staff Changes FTE

Estimated Cost

Proposal

Impact

Longer-term savings potential

2006/07

2007/08

Total

£'000

£'000

£'000

Information Systems Development - establishment of a close to real-time database of all Hampshire children aged 0-19. There is a need for more detailed analysis of all children aged 0-19 through the Children Act, the move towards a national index of children, multi-agency working and growing expectations of Members and officers. Existing education databases focus on 4-16yo while social care records relate to those who receive targeted care. The proposed system would close these gaps.

The database would facilitate the statutory duty to maintain the national information sharing index, eliminate the duplication of databases used by LAC, EOTAS and others, provide more effective support to teams working with specific groups of children, make it more likely we'd know where a child is (for missing children issues), enable postcode analysis of the dataset and support developments in Youth Service provision.

Funds to support analysis and implementation phase only. Following this, more effective systems should be self-sustaining.

Without a better solution to meeting existing and future projected (higher) data demands, we will have to employ at least 3 FTE (SO2 min.) staff to 'mine' existing data systems for information. This project should avoid approx £100k p.a. ongoing in staff costs (min.). We will also have to find a one-off database solution to meet statutory demands on EOTAS data - estimated at £75k. The aim of the project is to meet, in the most efficient way, the demands the Information Sharing Index will place on the department. Some government grant is avaiable to do this (around £150k in 2007/08) which will be available to offset other pressures if LPSA1 grant is used for this.

0

300

300

Rights, respect and responsibilities in secondary schools - Further training and development work to increase its penetration into secondary schools. Includes part-funding of 3 training courses for schools. Also funding for subject inspector/advisers for joint core departmental work in up to 5 schools.

Training to disseminate the most effective practice and show how RRR is crucial to citizenship, student participation and an outstanding OFSTED inspection. Advisers/inspectors to embed RRR within teaching and learning in the schools with focus on RRR subject content, student voice and participatory teaching styles.

Ongoing expenditure not required.

No savings potential quantified. There is good evidence that RRR works in primary schools in raising standards, improving behaviour and attendance and reducing bullying. This is about service improvement and efficiencies in a Gershon sense: if we can get better outcomes eventually for the same input - we have a saving.

0

12

12

Review of education of the most challenging children - a short term project to determine current provision for children and young people not educated in school because of their behaviour and to suggest directions for the future. Funding will be used to buy some external consultancy and the time of staff working in Business units.

To build a culture and reconfigure existing provision where needed so that the smallest possible number of children and young people are permanently excluded.

Ongoing expenditure not required.

This exercise will allow us to understand the overall provision at the moment: who is getting what and for how long and, with this data, configure these services much more efficiently in the future. There are therefore potential efficiencies here, within the same spending limits.

0

18

18

Oaklodge /Applemore - Funding to initiate a pilot scheme to provide challenging children in NCPs with a 'dual placement' attending an MLD special school and partner mainstream school.

Savings on expensive NCP provision for up to six pupils during pilot. If successful, a greater number of children could be catered for.

If successful, future costs would be absorbed by the SEN budget through savings on independent provision.

Estimated saving of £200k in 07/08 on two higher cost placements and £350k on four placements in 08/09. Due to increased parental demand for specialist placements, these savings will be offset against rising costs in this area. The aim is to contain spending within the current SEN budget.

0

50

50

Home to School Transport Tender - Additional resource to support the Environment Passenger Transport Group's Home to School Transport pilot tender project. The aim is to enhance procurement in this area to improve value for money by negotiating better contracts with suppliers, whilst maintaining or improving service. This is a pilot project for the North-East area, where the total cost of taxi and minibus journeys costs approx £1.5m at present.

Improve value for money by negotiating better contracts with suppliers, whilst maintaining or improving service. If successful this work would set a precedent for further tendering work county-wide, leading to further savings.

Ongoing expenditure not required.

Possibility of savings over 4 years in the range 2-10%, equivalent to £30k to £150k per year for the pilot area, to begin during 2007/08. If successful, further tendering work across the remainder of the county will bring additional savings on a total budget of £8m. This is against the home to school transport budget which is currently projecting a £900k overspend.

15

15

30

Total Development for Change LPSA1 Proposals

0.0

15.0

395

410