1 Growing the Big Society to improve individual lives, communities and wider society 23 June 2011 Sheila Battersby Policy Manager Cabinet Office.

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Growing the Big Society to improve individual lives, communities and wider society

23 June 2011

Sheila BattersbyPolicy ManagerCabinet Office

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Big Society: a top Government priority – David Cameron Big Society speech 23 May 2011

What:

Giving everyone the chance to get on in life and making our country a better place to live... A country of do-ers and go-getters, where people feel they are in control of their destiny, where they trust those around them, and where they have the power to transform their lives.

Why:

Social problems need social solutions...if we get it right, it will not just benefit our society, it will benefit our economy too. 

How:

Modernising public services, rebuilding responsibility, strengthening family and community…all this represents a massive cultural change.

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Big Society: a society where people have more power and responsibility over their lives, their local community and the services they use

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Growing the Big Society: Government action to help grow the Big Society

Promoting social action

Empowering communities

Open public services

• National Citizen Service: pilots reaching over 10,000 16 year olds in England in 2011

• Giving White Paper e.g. Technology; Gift Aid; business• Big Society Awards• Volunteering

• Community Organisers: 5,000 over CSR period• Community First: match funded grass-roots grants• Localism Bill: Right to Challenge; Right to Buy• Greater transparency e.g. street level crime data; LA

spend over £500

• 300+ applications for free schools, 10-20 start Sep 2011• Mutuals: Right to Provide; 21 pathfinders• Greater freedoms for Local Authorities e.g. PSAs;

funding de-ringfenced• Commissioning: Green Paper; health; police

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Collaborative working: action and culture change by all partners is needed to improve individual lives, communities and society

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Principles: Community Commissioning is built on key principles that combine to reform services - saving money and improving outcomes

Resources are pooled by the CC body to enable services to be reprioritised,

decommissioned, redesigned. Resource alignment may be the first step but the

ambition is pooling

Strong community commissioning (CC) body: responsible for

commissioning decisions based on local priorities – comprised of local people;

VCSE; businesses; local authority; public service providers

Strong senior leadership: LA and other public service leaders commit to devolving

commissioning power and decisions to community body, which has a strong

community leader

Investment in community commissioning capacity e.g. community leaders ensure local

people are upskilled to be effective commissioners, and

support other partners to open up commissioning to local people

Clear governance and accountability: community commissioning body and LA elected members make their

roles and responsibilities clear and transparent to local people

Service outcomes are locally set and transparent: the commissioning body

jointly agrees required service outcomes; clearly communicates these to local people; and regularly provides service performance

data against outcomes

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9 LIS pilots: Local Integrated Services is a community commissioning concept being developed from the bottom up

Area LIS pop size LIS focus

Barnsley – Thurnscoe 9,000 Worklessness

Calderdale – 4 wards in North Halifax/Mixenden

48,000 Safer, Cleaner, Greener servicesFinancial Inclusion, early intervention

Leeds – inner South Leeds: Beeston Hill and Holbeck

Environmental issues; health inequalities; housing; ASB

Sheffield – Jordansthorpe 4,000 Older people

Blackburn with Darwen – Shadsworth, Bastwell, Darwen

30 families Families with multiple problems

Cheshire West & Chester – Ellesmere Port

61,000 (32,000 in high deprivation areas)

Health and economic inequalities

Tameside: Smallshaw Hurst and St Peters

16,000 and 12,000 Complex families and (ex-)offenders

Warrington 18,000 Improving life chances of long-term benefit claimants

Kingston – Norbiton 10,000 Tbc in summer via community commissioning group

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Aim: central government is supporting the testing of Community Commissioning as it has the potential to contribute to priority Government agendas by:

Efficiency and Reform

Achieving better outcomes for less

Devolving commissioning control, using mainstream funding, to people in communities

Demonstrating that service development (co-)led by local people and service users can achieve better outcomes

Mapping and smartly using all resources available in an area e.g. finances, assets, people skills

Achieving savings through the decommissioning of ineffective or duplicated services

Being applicable to different services; geographical areas and population sizes

Big Society

Being designed and led by local partners and championed by the Cabinet Office

Local people, public, private and VCSE sectors establishing a community commissioning body to deliver community-designed services

Decentralising local service commissioning decisions to the community level including residents and service users

Building the capacity of local people to enable them to take commissioning decisions e.g. training; work experience

Being a fluid concept - adaptable to local priorities and led by different partners e.g. community leader; local authority

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Partners and stakeholders: a range of people will contribute to testing the potential of Community Commissioning for saving money and improving outcomes

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Progress so far and next steps:

Progress so far

9 areas committed to testing LIS concept

Initial testing and refining of LIS principles

Initial engagement with communities and community commissioning bodies being established

Mapping of community resources: budgets, assets, skills

Planning for pooling or aligning of budgets and other resources

Ministers engaged – keen to see CC models develop and evidence of improved outcomes and resources saved

Private sector engaged – keen to explore mutually beneficial CC collaborations

Next steps

Ongoing collation of learning and progress from 9 LIS (and other) areas to disseminate to inform other areas and policy makers

Develop models for CC organisational, finance, accountability and evaluation structures - and disseminate via ‘how to’ guides

Link CC areas more closely to programmes that may aid their development e.g. Community Organisers; Community First; National Commissioning Programme

Link CC areas and principles more closely to relevant service reform agendas e.g. Community Budgets; health commissioning reform; Work Programme