Title:LSP Review Initial Findings

Ealing Local Strategic Partnership
Report for Executive Board: 26th May 2010

Title:LSP Review – Initial Findings

Report from: LBE Policy & Performance

Author: Ann Griffiths / Item number
6
Background
This report and an accompanying presentation set out briefly the initial findings from the review of the LSP, underway since the start of this year.
It feeds back the key messages from the work to date, taking into account the interviews with key stakeholders and information from best practice in other areas.
It then proceeds to make initial outline recommendations for the future direction of the LSP, recognising that this will need to be further shaped as discussions continue, and the details and practicalities agreed through an ongoing process of consultation and planning over the coming months.
Detailed reports on findings from stakeholder interviews, and information from best practice in other areas, are in development and will be available for reference as required as the recommendations of the work are developed further through the coming months.
Purpose of report

To enable LSP Exec to consider and discuss the findings from the review of the LSP to date
To make initial proposals for the future direction of the LSP in Ealing
To seek guidance and agreement to next steps for this work

Recommendations
That the LSP Executive:

considers the findings from the review to date and provides feedback on proposed next steps for the project

agrees the outline direction for the way forward for the LSP and provides any feedback as to changes and further work required

Report Body
Introduction
This report summarises the initial findings of the review of Ealing’s Local Strategic Partnership to date. It sets out key messages and suggestions from stakeholder discussions, providing an overview of the themes and ideas emerging at this stage in the review, and a proposed way forward for discussion and debate.
The review of the LSP began in January 2010, following a recognition across LSP partners that after four years in its current form, and in the interests of continuous improvement and effectiveness, the LSP needed to be considered afresh in how it operates and responds to new challenges. The work is intended to deliver an LSP which:

Enables partners to rise to the challenges associated with the tougher economic climate
Improves service performance and efficiency across sectors
Strengthens community engagement, empowerment, and confidence in public services
Improves the focus on effective delivery of services in the community
Generates creative ideas for effective joint working and reduction in duplication
Delivers more effective use of mainstream resources
Moves from performance monitoring of “PIs” to performance management based on resident priorities and needs
Enhances democratic accountability of service providers
Enables account to be taken of any relevant changes in national and local policy
Enables partners to work together to tackle cross-cutting issues such as inequality

Based on initial discussions and steer from key stakeholders, the review has focussed around an initial hypothesis that a particular focus should be given to the opportunity to move towards a more project based approach for the working of the LSP, enabling the partnership to be more action-focussed around specific interventions and work that will directly deliver to meet community needs. This would reflect a wider move amongst key partners to develop clear evidence-based and solutions-focussed approaches to all work.
It is intended that the review will produce a report on findings and proposals for the future by mid Summer 2010, with implementation of the detailed and practical aspects of the future direction by the end of 2010.
Progress to date
To date, the review has taken the form of research into best practice and the national context in which the LSP operates, alongside a series of structured discussions with key stakeholders, and the establishment and liaison with a Review Steering Group. (A list of individuals involved to date is provided in Appendix A. Appendix B outlines the questions used for structured interviews, exploring individuals’ perspectives on benefits and success of the LSP to date, areas for improvement, and specifics around the proposals for the future.)
At this stage, while work is ongoing to take account of the rapidly changing national environment and the external context in which our LSP operates, this report focuses on reporting the views and findings from key stakeholders involved to date with a view to presenting a brief overview of the local perceptions of how our LSP can best deliver improvement and benefits for local people.
Discussions with a wide range of individuals involved in the LSP are ongoing, with a focus over the coming months on engaging political representatives in steering the future direction of the work, and focussing on the specifics and practicalities to inform the detailed recommendations of the review.
Summary Findings
The vast majority of stakeholders involved in discussions to date agree that there is a need for change within the LSP to ensure that it can genuinely respond to local needs and deliver improvements for local people. The overwhelming majority thought that there is much potential to ensure that the LSP is genuinely focussed on adding value, rather than checking or commenting on what is already occurring.
The common message from those consulted at this stage is that the LSP should be less a group of people coming together on occasions to give their personal viewpoints and perspectives of local issues, and sign off documents, and more partners coming together to focus on genuinely joint solutions to cross-cutting issues, understanding more about what everyone can bring to the table, making much better use of each others’ resources and strengths, and working out practical ways to deliver change together.
There is, overall, a clear feeling that the LSP should be more active and actions-focussed, with a general agreement behind the hypothesis tested through this work, that it should move in the future to a more projects-based focus. The outline proposal, of an LSP with far fewer standing boards and many more time limited, task-based projects, was agreed as a positive way forward by all those engaged in the process; there was a strong feeling that the need for standing boards on specific issues meeting regularly was not necessarily the best way to achieve joint working on key concerns.
Partners on the whole recognised that issues of key priority, such as responding to the economic challenges that lay ahead, narrowing inequalities gaps locally and providing a coherent approach to other local challenges, would be best targetted by action-focussed work, with key partners who can contribute to the agenda meeting as required, to focus on tasks and outcomes.
The specifics of the future boards and projects and the links between these remain to be discussed in more detail, but the evidence from stakeholders to date suggest that there are many wider areas of agreement around the detail of how the future LSP should work.
There is a general feeling that we need to be clear about the role and purpose of the LSP and to ensure that all partners involved are aware of the outcomes desired from their involvement. This could begin with a strong TOR to which all partners commit and refer at regular occasions, but would need to be developed and considered for individual boards and activities carried out by the LSP as well.
Partners reflected very strongly that the relationship between the LSP and other decision-making bodies was still unclear; the extent of the LSP’s remit to truly have strategic leadership, with no formal decision-making powers, remained uncertain, and the role of the LSP in commissioning, locality-based decisions, and strategic decisions was often blurred.
Some stakeholders felt that the LSP tried to do everything – to the detriment of the opportunities to add value - and that its remit should be focussed on the areas of local issues or policy which are most important and where the most value could be added. There was also some concern that it may not be able to effectively try to take on strategic, commissioning, and local decisions at the same time without being very specific about its remit – and that all members would need to be clear and committed to the future role they were taking on.
While there was some interest in increasing the role of the LSP in strategic commissioning, there was a general feeling that the initial focus of the LSP should be to concentrate on joint problem solving on key local challenges through working together, and that this area may be something to develop and focus on further down the line once an action-focussed partnership, where all partners genuinely share solutions and approaches to issues, has been established robustly.
There was however a strong interest in the opportunities that local partners in Ealing could take to respond to the economic challenges of future years, working together to deliver efficiencies and to ensure that the best possible outcomes are achieved for local people from the most effective ways of working and delivering services together. Several participants saw the benefit of partners working together to identify and eliminate duplication, inefficient processes, or areas where partners could share their approaches and work on related agendas to deliver better outcomes.
While there are differing views on the current membership of the LSP, there was a general feeling that the representatives sitting on the Leadership group and other boards could be reviewed with a focus on balance and targeting areas where a difference can be made and a significant contribution be brought, including the flexibility to vary membership according to the priorities at any given time.
Several partners have commented that much better use could be made of the strengths and resources of individual partners. There is a sense from some stakeholders that a full understanding of what everyone can offer and bring to the table is lacking – and a suggestion from many that the first thing a refreshed LSP should seek to achieve is a genuine understanding across partners of exactly what it is that each area and organisation can offer to the partnership.
It has also been suggested on many occasions that the partnership should be more community and resident focussed than focussed on specific services or organisations’ contributions, perhaps considering issues geographically. It is suggested that this could help to reduce the risk of individuals bringing only one perspective to the table and being unable to contribute fully on some items unrelated to their area.
This risk can also be reduced by ensuring that the executive leadership board considers genuinely cross-cutting issues, and that the agenda is genuinely open to items from all areas, on which all partners can work together to solve problems together.
There are several strong themes which emerge from consideration of potential future areas of focus and potential projects for the LSP. Of these, the most consistently mentioned and cross-cutting is poverty, including relating this to worklessness, skills and child poverty. There was a general interest in focussing on priorities that could effectively narrow the inequalities gap experienced by many local people.
Other areas of interest that have arisen more than once include facilitating inter-generational work, focussing on specific equalities-related activities, responding to domestic violence, providing a forum for improving existing work ongoing to deliver an effective Census, and further increasing volunteering opportunities and take-up.
Informing proposals
The above information and more detailed findings from research and interviews to date, combined with ongoing discussions over the coming months, will be used to inform the development of more detailed proposals for how future partnerships in Ealing could work in practice.
However, using the information gathered from interviews to date, along with the secondary research on good practice in LSPs and the national policy agenda, an outline for the future of partnership in Ealing could be developed along the following lines:
1)Maintain an overarching ‘executive’ Leadership board of senior officers and members from key organisations.

In order to achieve this successfully, review membership and TOR to ensure that the role of the partnership leadership board is explicit and understood by all. Specifically be clear about the process for decision-making, the extent of the powers of the partnership, and scrutiny of strategic approach taken by partners to deliver the Community Strategy vision for Ealing.
In the early stages of the refreshed LSP, hold an event bringing partners together to explore in more detail their offer and strengths brought to the partnership, and how we can build on these
Ensure that agenda for leadership board meetings are focussed on genuinely strategic, cross-cutting items that partners can make a genuine difference on at an early stage. Consider carefully the structure and frequency of meetings to enable a strategic focus on joint problem solving.
Continue to enable all partners to bring items to the agenda for leadership board meetings
Agree a sustainable and efficient resourcing arrangement for supporting the board and partnership as a whole

2)Enable the Leadership board to consider key major projects on cross-cutting themes, perhaps once a year, identifying areas where all partners are taking action, but could work together better, where a focus on efficiency could add value to the work of partner organisations, or where there is partnership action that could be taken in addition to that currently planned.

Criteria, project management tools and programme management systems for these projects would be established and used to facilitate consideration of proposals for projects through Leadership Group, and monitoring of developments through performance forum.
Initial discussions on these projects should focus on the areas identified by the majority of partners and confirmed by performance and local residents’ views
Arrangements for resourcing and funding the work where it is above what is already occurring will need to be discussed and agreed, but there may be the opportunity to make use of some LAA reward funding.

3)Establish a performance management group beneath the Leadership Board, consisting potential project leads, and other key performance leads from across partnership, reporting on project progress, proposals, and successes. This would flag up key issues and take action on these, raising with the leadership board where necessary. It would also identify key areas of success for building on and potentially publicising to raise awareness of the work of the LSP and key partners.
4)Maintain current second tier boards which are statutory or which partners feel are valuable, if the majority of partners at the current Executive agree to this way forward.

At present statutory boards are the CDRP and Children’s Trust, as well as the Safeguarding Children’s Board at the third tier. (this may be subject to change under new government). The new model should set out clearly how these organisations will be expected to interact with the leadership board – e.g. with engagement when a cross-cutting issue arises which dealt with through wider partnership projects.
Other boards suggested as needing to be maintained as standing boards are, to date, the Stronger Communities Board and the Health and Wellbeing board. Agreement will need to be reached as to how these boards would be resourced, and how they will feed into the wider work of the partnership. This will include considering the third tier boards currently in existence and how the relationships with these would change as necessary.

5)Maintain and build as required a range of networks of key individuals from local partners who can be called upon by the Leadership Board to contribute to specific projects. These could be built from the existing 2nd and 3rd tier boards and other partners who wish to be involved.

Consider developing forms of communication to enable regular update to keep all key partnership organisations informed and giving the opportunity to contribute to and sign off strategies and plans, rather than bringing information or sign off items to partnership meetings.

6)Consider in more detail:

the role of scrutiny in holding partnership and its key projects to account
the role of the partnership in engaging with local people on a partnership basis (linked to the community empowerment work seeking to map existing mechanisms and provide a partnership view of empowerment alongside this project)
links to neighbourhood governance
formal sponsorship, accountability and management of projects and their outcomes, and where decision making lies

Next Steps
The outline findings and proposals provided in the report above will need to be tested and developed in more detail across a wider range of stakeholders over the coming months.
The key focus for June will be to engage with local elected representatives, seeking the political perspective on the future of the LSP and its key areas of focus. At the same time, engagement will be ongoing with the Steering Group and other participants in the LSP to ensure as broad a cross-section of stakeholders as possible efficiently is achieved.
It is anticipated that a comprehensive report on the overall findings and recommendations for the future will be provided by the end of July, with the second half of 2010 focussing on implementing the practical work to deliver the future LSP and considering in greater detail the specifics where required.
In bringing this update to LSP Executive we seek a steer on whether the overall direction of the work and its proposals is agreed, and any advice and feedback as to the areas of focus and development as the project progresses.

APPENDIX A: Stakeholder Engagement