A new blog on commissioning and coproduction

[Julia]

As the public purse runs dry, local authorities across the country are facing tough decisions. Few services are escaping unscathed, but those for young people, which a local authority does not have statutory duty to provide, are among those hardest hit - with cuts of up to 90 per cent. Young people are waking up to find their youth centres closed, or operating on reduced hours, and many information, advice and support services are shutting. More is to come in the next three years as the bulk of spending cuts take place. By the time of the next local government elections in 2015, youth services as we know them will not exist in many parts of England.

In this context, delivering the same services we always have, but with less of them, seems nonsensical.  And yet, this is the default position of many local authorities, largely because the speed and scale of the cuts is so dramatic that there is little time or capacity to respond in a strategic, innovative way.

We are fortunate enough to be testing out an innovative approach to commissioning youth services with two local authorities, Lambeth and Cornwall, thanks to funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Over two and a half years, we will be supporting the youth services teams in these areas to begin commissioning services that are focussed on outcomes (and the change they want to see), and embed the concepts of co-productionand well-being at the heart of how services are commissioned and delivered. These are big concepts, which we will be applying in practice to deliver positive change for young people. Commissioning will be more sustainable, encouraging providers to maximise the social, environmental and economic value they create, rather than focussing on creating a ‘race to the bottom’. Using co-production means commissioners will need to understand people’s needs, and assets, and use the valuable insight and experience of young people in determining the outcomes they should be commissioning, and the type of support young people want. It will also mean asking provide....  Although we’re working on applying these ideas to commissioning in Lambeth and Cornwall, the same model could (and has been) applied to differing types of delivery, including grant funded services and in house delivery. 

We’ve been working with the teams since February this year. A huge amount of work has been done in each of the councils so far, and I won’t attempt to summarise everything (rest assured we will be writing up and sharing detailed learning from the projects next year). Instead, I’ve picked out some of the major activities we’ve been involved in so far, and some of the interesting things we’re learning about how to make this change most effective.

Getting any change project of this scale off the ground involves a lot of communications work. We’ve spent a huge amount of time working with the commissioning teams on the core concepts of outcomes, triple bottom line value, co-production and well-being to the youth service team, and understanding how these will change their future commissioning. We have also been introducing the project and our aims to local providers, core teams such as procurement and finance, elected members, and the many partnership boards and joint commissioning groups that overlap youth, education, children’s and family services. Local Government is a big place, and it takes time to build awareness and understanding.

The second significant activity has been the development of the outcomes framework. This will guide which services are procured by the council – so it’s vital that we get it right. The process started with nef staff reviewing each Council’s youth strategies, needs assessments and policies, as well as other local authority documents such as the corporate plan, which sets out local objectives that the council would like to achieve.  Most of these documents already contain a wide range of existing outcomes that the councils are committed to, but these are often forgotten when it comes to the nitty gritty of procurement paperwork, which can become overly focussed on tightly defined output targets and service specifications. These outcomes also show (in most cases) a commitment from councils to environmental and social benefits for the wider community, which will be used in incentivising providers to maximise the value they deliver above and beyond youth specific outcomes.

However, these outcomes still only represent the council’s priorities. The next stage of developing the outcomes framework will be to ensure that the outcomes that young people want are incorporated into the framework, including working with young people to identify what indicators they think would help show progress against these outcomes.  In both areas, staff will be using appreciative enquiry methods with young people to bring their experience and insight into the outcomes framework. They are also looking at other ways of co-producing commissioning, including working with young people as peer researchers, employing young people to advise the programme, and engaging with local youth networks.

In Lambeth, the team have been applying their new skills and knowledge through small scale commissioning pilots: one on summer activities for young people on five Lambeth estates, and the other with a small group of young people who are supported by the youth offending service to commission a service focussed on improving young people’s self-esteem and confidence. These pilots are a great way to test out new skills, build confidence, learn from what went well (and what didn’t) and develop the new commissioning processes incrementally. There’s only so far we can go with the conceptual work before people need something practical to apply it to.

We’ve also learnt that we have to be creative! Most people –but particularly those who are young – have no time or interest in endless meetings, presentations, engagement exercises or consultations. We’ve had to be bold about what methods we use to make commissioning relevant for people. We’ve had help from some great facilitators and social designers, some of whose materials can be found hereand here. More than anything, we’ve learnt that giving up control is essential. The question was raised at one meeting: ‘‘what’s in it for young people?’’, and the answer has to be real influence and power over the decisions that the council makes, as well as the chance to build new skills and have a stronger role in local democracy.

We’re still a long way off full co-production, and there will be challenges ahead when it comes to procurement activity, and maintaining a focus on the outcomes that are most important to young people. Our focus will remain on ensuring that these ideas stay radical as they’re implemented. That’s the only way we have a chance of trying to support young people and enhance their well-being at a time when funding is in constant retreat. If youth services aren’t transformed now, then there may be no services left to change in three years’ time.

This is the first of a series of blogs written by different people involved in the project – nef, the commissioning managers and hopefully many of the other people involved as we go through the project. We want the learning from this project to be communicated effectively to the sector. To help us with this, please tell us how you would like to find out more about the work. Are you a fan of newsletters and blogs, or would short films or presentations be more effective?  Please let us know – we want the learning from this project to inspire and help others transform youth services in a time of austerity.

You can find out more about the project here, e-mail [e-mail], or follow us on twitter (@nefsocialpolicy) #transformingYPS to stay in touch with the project as it progresses.

[Rachel B. Wickert]

Hi Joe,

Many thanks for your reply and info. I guess it is still quite early days for your project. It is very promising though and I would really be interested to find out more about it as it develops. I can see that you are founded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. They are funding interesting projects in that area. I met with Elise Leclerc recently at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to talk about their Right Here Project where young people jointly commissioned services. This project has been running since 2009 so she was able to give me a lot of interesting findings that I can use for the Forum. 

Kind regards,

Rachel

[Joe Penny]

Hi Rachel,

I'm responding on behalf of Julia. If you like I can pull together a short blurb of what we are doing and send over a few pictures of the workshops. We don't have that many visuals at this stage though

In the meantime, here are some helpful links;

The project page: http://www.neweconomics.org/projects/transforming-young-peoples-ser...

A blog from one of the commissioners we are working with: http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/2013/01/18/co-producing-in-lambeth...

Hope that these help

thanks

Joe

[Rachel B. Wickert]

This is the link to the L4WB Youth Forum I mentioned above:http://rdwbizz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/learning-for-wellbeing.html

[Rachel B. Wickert]

Hi Julia,

Happy New Year!

I was wondering if you could send me a concise update on this co-production project with nice visuals if possible?

I am preparing a workshop on "The role of youth in systemic change" for 30 representatives of European Youth Charities gathered in Budapest for a Youth Peer Forum at the end of this month (see here for more details: Learning for Wellbeing ). My focus will be on building up the "Voice of Children Toolkit" by harvesting innovative methods and strategies to enable young people to be part of the decision-making affecting them.

I would like to showcase your project amongst other innovative initiatives to encourage and inspire the participants to share their own diverse ways of empowering youth to speak and act out to improve all aspect of their well-being.

Many thanks in advance,

Rachel