A Strategic, Partnership based approach to tackling Worklessness
Abstract
This case study explores how an innovative, partnership based approach has been set up by Spirals to tackle worklessness in North East Lincolnshire. The approach is based on a robust evidence base giving the foundation for a long term strategy that all partners buy into. This is then supplemented by a common assessment methodology for all worklessness interventions that identifies the value of progress individuals through a pathway towards employment.
Results Achieved
- A 10 year Economic Wellbeing Strategy agreed by all partners
- Acclaimed by the Audit Commission as an excellent piece of work
- A Commissioning Framework and Performance Framework to manage activity
- Economic Impact Assessment identifying £90million savings to the public purse if targets are met
Despite the relative boom time of the last decade, there have still been areas of significant deprivation. These are the areas that are hit hardest in the recession. There have been many initiatives (with a variety of acronyms) aimed at tackling this namely SRB, NRF, LEGI and most recently Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF).
We worked, recently, with North East Lincolnshire Council through the LSP to develop a ten year Economic Wellbeing Strategy, with WNF money as the initial catalyst, to help transform the area, break the generational cycle of worklessness and reduce the gaps of deprivation.
Partnerships
We recognise that a client centred approach is vital to tackling deep routed issues such as worklessness. The only way to achieve this is through strong partnerships between delivery organisations and other stakeholders. When all partners hold each other to account and truly work together it gives a focus on achieving outcomes and developing tailored interventions rather than each organisation focusing on its own outputs.
Part of achieving this involves the main stakeholders turning their partnership rhetoric into delivery. Just as important is designing programmes with common outcomes that encourage or demand partnership working.
In NEL we developed a pathway approach to tackle worklessness, recognising there are people who have a long way to go before being ready for work. The pathway starts with engagement activity with an individual before going onto work to remove barriers that individuals face. This is followed by training and skills development; leading finally to support into employment. Through the commissioning framework and performance evaluation framework that support the strategy, partnerships are encouraged by placing emphasis on consortia bids and making payments contingent on guiding individuals through to the next stage of the pathway rather than just completing an intervention.
By working with, and getting agreement from, all partners, we developed a strategy with common outcomes and outputs that embed partnership working through the commissioning and performance framework. As a result the NEL Economic Wellbeing Programme is designed to encourage creative initiatives to move individuals through the pathway and into employment.
Evidence
To achieve a partnership approach there has to be agreement on where interventions are aimed and money is spent. To get this agreement and to ensure the best outcomes, robust evidence is vital.
In NEL the evidence was generated through three approaches: ground level research, stakeholder research and statistical research from DWP and ONS. This mixture of quantitative and qualitative research enabled us to identify the priorities for the area and to translate these into ward level outputs. The value of the qualitative work was that it fostered commitment to and ownership of the programme both from the stakeholders and the community. Because people had been involved in the development of the strategy, it increased the buy in and helped to enhance the all important partnership approach.
Creativity
Creativity and innovation are central to tackling deep routed issues. The fact that a problem exists means that existing practices haven’t worked and a fresh take on things needs to be sought. Very often large programmes of work involving public money stifle creativity as the commissioners stipulate the activity needed to produce certain outputs.
Creativity was key to NEL in two main ways:
- The creative way the programme is designed
- The way the programme encourages creativity from providers
The challenge in the work was to link the key outcome for the programme (people getting jobs) to a pathway that moves people closer to being ready for a job, recognising the value of moving people along the pathway not just in delivering the final outcome.
By developing a common assessment method across the programme, that links soft outcomes to the stages on the pathway we were able to attribute value, equally across the pathway. However this value wasn’t very tangible so we aligned this to an Economic Impact Assessment we undertook to measure the impact on the public purse if targets were met. Combining these two pieces of work allowed us to measure the Social Return on Investment (SROI) of each provider and each intervention on the programme, demonstrating the value created and objectively measuring the performance of the programme and of individual providers.
The commissioning framework encourages creativity by focusing on outcomes. Outcomes are what the programme is after so the framework stipulates that the activity and outputs (to some degree) used to generate the outcomes are for the providers to determine. They are the ones with the in depth knowledge and the access to hard to reach groups. Giving them the freedom and holding them to account largely by the outcomes they generate gives them the room to generate new and creative ways of tackling problems.
Conclusion
Making a real difference to some of the country’s most difficult and deep routed issues requires a strong commitment by all stakeholders to an agreed way forward developed through robust evidence. The way a programme is structured enables partnership working to be enhanced so it has to be present rather than rely on rhetoric turning into action. This same approach to structure can also aid creativity and innovation, vital ingredients to transforming areas for the better.