BAAS – Detailed Burden Assessment (DBA) SurveyCollection: DPA 2015-16
This supports Proposal for ROCR ApprovalR01143
Some information from ASC-FR consultations and feedback have been included where they relate directly to the issue of recording and managing financial information.1. Howdo you organise the collection of financial data?
Question 9 in the ZBR ASC-FR Survey Report (published December 2013) asked how were finance and social care activity linked.As DPA’s are a finance responsibility, this should apply to any DPA activity.
Any collection of data of this type would be linked to the general accountancy processes in the council, DCLG returns etc.
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
The majority of respondents indicated that all of theinformation proposed to be collected would be likely to be record routinely in their local system.
- Are you planning to record ACTIVITY data routinely on your local system?
- Are you planning to record FINANCE data routinely on your local system?
- Are you planning to record NEW DPA REQUEST data routinely on your local system?
2. Who/what are the staff groups involved in the collection in any way?
3. How long does it take (preparation, collecting, collating, verifying, validating etc.) for each band to perform their duties that are specific to this data collection in person days, hours and minutes?
4. Other related costs/time – set up costs?e.g. any additional systems or processes set up specifically for this collection)
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
The majority of respondents indicated there would be costs incurred to both record and report the proposed information.
Respondents were asked for each group of tables whether there would be a cost associated with recording or reporting this data. For all tables over 50% of respondents indicated there would be a cost to record the data and a cost to report the data with 20% also indicating some form of “other” cost as well.
5. Is training required for the staff involved? How long etc.
6. Are there any training costs for the staff involved?
7. Are there any areas that could be improved in this collection and could be made more efficient? If so, how much time and money would this save?
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
Question: If you do not support the proposal, do you have any thought on how it could be improved? 10 (out of 47) councils proposed suggestions for activity. 11 (out of 47) councils proposed suggestions for finance.
8. If you could pass on advice to the collectors of the data, what would you tell them?
9. Could this data collection be more efficient, and if so – how?
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015. - How useful is it for this metric to be collected centrally by the HSCIC?
For all of the proposed data items relating to finance the majority of respondents stated that they would be either very useful or quite useful to collect. The data items in table 2a and 2b received the strongest indication of usefulness receiving a minimum of 79% of responses as either very useful or quite useful to collect. Finance related data items within tables 4a, 4b, 6a and 6b received the lowest indication of usefulness. Data within table 4b had the lowest number of positive responses indicating usefulness with 56% indicating it would be either very or quite useful whilst 6a, 6b and 4a had around two-thirds of responses indicating they would be either very useful or quite useful for them to be collected.
10.Do you encounter duplication in what you are doing in providing the data, whether within this data or with any other collection your trust provides?./
11.What are the problems that you have in any aspect of the collection? Do you recommend changes and if so, how much time would they save?
The frequently asked question (FAQ) sections in the guidance reflects both the problems and the solutions and is an ongoing activity.
The DPA stakeholder group also identifies problems and changes.
12.Does the collection help patient care in anyway?
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
All sections of the proposed DPA collection received good support, with many of the respondents indicating that they believed the information proposed to be collected to be useful.
13.Do you need to collect data from different departments and therefore end up waiting to be able to submit final data?
14.Are you always able to submit the data on time?
For the 2014/15 submission all councils submitted within the allowed (flexible) deadlines. Though some submitted partial data, the second cut submission was used by many to send in complete, though with some councils, gaps in data remained.
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
(Local authority participants) If you are unable to collect any aspect of this data for 2015-16, please could you tell us why?
A number of examples were given by councils on the problems they would face. 16 (out of 47 respondent) councils expressed concerns over being able to submit for both activity and finance aspect.
Personal Social Services Expenditure collection 2014 feedback survey report
46 per cent of respondents said the soonest they could submit next year’s ASC-FR collection would be around July 18th, which was the deadline for this year’s Revenue Outturn. 22 per cent felt they could submit one week later and seven per cent felt they could meet an earlier deadline.
15.Is the guidance clear and helpful?
Deferred Payment Agreements Collection 2015/16 Guidance version 1.1 Guidance for 2015-16
Published August 2015 has been subject to working group and a FAQ section has been used to provide additional information where stakeholders have queried the guidance. This work will be taken forward by the stakeholder group.
16. Could the guidance be improved, and if so – in what way?
This will also be taken forward in discussion with the stakeholder group.
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
Appendix B of the report contains extensive comments on how the proposal to collect could be improved.
The frequently asked question (FAQ) sections in the guidance reflects improvements and is an ongoing activity.
The DPA stakeholder group also identifies improvements. Any revisions/improvements are recorded in the opening section of the guidance.
17.Is the frequency of collection appropriate?
Proposed deferred payment agreements and care cap collection consultation March 2015.
Where comments were made with regard to frequency, they noted annual collection
This will also be taken forward in discussion with the stakeholder group.
18. How do you deal with data quality and how much time is spent on it?
ASC-FR 2014-15 Feedback Survey Report – Table 7: 93% said someone within the council reviewed their data before submission.
73% felt either ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ in their ability to report data representative of a full year.
83% felt it would be of benefit to have a validation round before publishing.
This is considered to ‘high’ (good) given it is the first return and is an improvement on:
Personal Social Services Expenditure collection 2014 feedback survey report(July 2014)
46 per cent of councils are very confident or confident in their ability to report data representative of a full year for 2014-15 for the ASC-FR collection. Four per cent of councils were not confident.
19. If there are changes to the collection – are these possible, or will they bring further work/problems/system changes etc.?
This will also be taken forward in discussion with the stakeholder group.
20. Does the submitted form reflect what data you have to provide?
This will also be taken forward in discussion with the stakeholder group.
21. What systems are used to collect the data?
See response to Q 1 above.
22. Have you any other comments that you would like to make about this collection?
ASC-FR 2014-15 feedback survey report (93 responses) contains comments and suggestions on councils experience of collating and submitting the 2014-15 data.
This will also be taken forward in discussion with the stakeholder group.
23. Can your organisation be named in the final report? (If not we can report the type of organisation, but the comments provided would be anonymous in the report)