Building Resilient Families and Communities- A Performance Management Framework

Building Resilient Families and Communities- A Performance Management Framework April 2013

Document details Document version Version 7 Date revised Contributors: 31 st May 2013 Sharon Moore Staffordshire County Council Barbara Hine Programme Development Manager Document produced by: Names: Contact: Lauren Jackson, Strategic Performance Officer Susie Bentley, Research Manager T: 01785 854561 E: lauren.jackson2@staffordshire.gov.uk 2

Performance Management Framework 1. Introduction This document is a proposal outlining how Staffordshire should manage the performance of the Department for Communities and Local Government s Troubled Families Programme. An agreed multi-agency, robust Performance Management Framework is key to the success of the programme. This document is intended to be a point of reference and provides information about the processes involved, guidance in terms of the tiers of intervention and key dates that colleagues should be aware of in terms of performance reporting. 1a. Background Information The business case 1 for Staffordshire s approach to Troubled Families outlines the way forward for Staffordshire in relation to the challenge it has been given by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). This opportunity fits with our shared strategic partnership ambitions for Staffordshire to have a thriving economy and to be a safe, healthy and aspirational place to live by joining up the public sector s response to a small number of high need families who across generations continue to experience poor life outcomes at significant cost to the public purse. The ambition is to work with an identified cohort of families to bring about lasting change by putting in place dedicated whole family interventions, integrating our strategies and systems and engaging with communities to build sustainability. The DCLG define a Troubled Family as a household that has serious difficulties including parents not working and children not in school- and which has a negative impact upon the local community, such as crime and anti-social behaviour 2. We see this as an opportunity to change how we work together as partners as well as with families and the community itself. Staffordshire County Council has been tasked with leading the Troubled Families project locally. However, this must be done by working not only with public and voluntary sector agencies but the community and family itself to radically change the way in which we do business. In addition, Staffordshire is keen to work closely with Stoke-on-Trent City Council in developing its approach. Change will involve more than good case management and through co creation of sustainable solutions we want to ensure lasting change. This will involve empowering the family and community to take ownership of the issues that they identify as contributing to multi generational issues within their local area. 1b. Troubled Families in Staffordshire There are currently 349 families identified for Cohort 1 of the project. Over the three year period, 1400 families are expected to be worked with and performance information will be required for all of these families. 1 Staffordshire s Approach to Troubled Families - Project Outline Business Case, March 2012 2 Financial Framework for the Troubled Families programme payment-by-results scheme for local authorities, March 2012 3

1c. Performance Management Working Group In order to develop a mechanism for reporting performance of the Troubled Families programme, a Performance Management Working Group was formed, with representation from a range of services. This group aims to develop performance arrangements to support Troubled Families, until this becomes business as usual. This group will be expanded to include partners. 4

Performance Management Framework 2. Measuring Success The high level outcomes of the project are ultimately to turn around the lives of the families that are worked with and reduce the cost to public services. The Troubled Families programme is a results based funding scheme (Payment by Results- PbR). Although it is important to understand what needs to be captured for PbR, it is also important to measure and track wider improvements; both within the families and the wider community. 2a. DCLG Management Information Management information is requested from DCLG on a quarterly basis in relation to: 1. the number of identified families that meet the criteria, 2. the number of families who are being worked with, and 3. the number of results payments that are estimated to be claimed at the next opportunity. The Insight, Planning and Performance Team will collate this information and submit to DCLG within the required timescales (see Appendix B for timescales). 2b. Payment by Results The DCLG has indicated that in order to receive the Payment by Results (PbR) grant at the end of the life of the project (March 2015) the following must be achieved: That within those families successfully worked with: Each child in the family has had fewer than 3 fixed term exclusions and less than 15% of unauthorised absences in the last 3 school terms; and - A 60% reduction in anti-social behaviour across the family in the last 6 months; and - Offending by all minors in the family reduced by at least 33% in the last 6 months If they do not enter work but achieve the progress to work (one adult in the family has either volunteered for the Work Programme or attached to the European Social Fund provision in the last 6 months); or At least one adult in the family has moved off out-of-work benefits into continuous employment in the last 6 months (and is not on the ESF provision or Work Programme to avoid double-payment) There are seven key performance measures which need to be baselined and measured over time (to evidence change): Performance Measure Organisation 1. Number of fixed term exclusions Staffordshire County Council 2. Number of permanent exclusions Staffordshire County Council 3. School attendance Staffordshire County Council 4. Number of Anti-social Behaviour reports relating to the household Staffordshire Police 5

5. Number of proven offences and type committed by the child or young person of the family 6. Number of adult family members on the Work Programme or ESF provision 7. Adult family members claiming out of work benefits* Youth Offending Service, Staffordshire County Council Staffordshire County Council Job Centre Plus * The length of time will also need to be monitored for the PbR It is recommended that these measures are the focus for the Performance Management of Cohort 1, and it is these measures that should be baselined. The baselining should provide a snapshot for the 1 st October 2012 (when the list of families became available). Staffordshire County Council will be able to collect payments for each eligible family if they achieve the results set out above. It is expected that based on the average length of a successful intervention with a family and the timeframe for showing the results, that results based payments could be claimed around 12 months after the intervention has started. It is important that we deliver maximum value for money and so we need to ensure, as far as possible, that central government does not pay twice for the same family achieving the same outcome under different programmes (e.g., ESF). The payment structure of the Troubled Families Programme assumes that Staffordshire is taking advantage of these schemes in order to avoid double payments. This means that DCLG will fund up to 40% of the costs of turning around the lives of 5 out of every 6 troubled families in Staffordshire. 2c. Local Performance Monitoring In addition to the Payment by Results criteria, there is other information that we may wish to capture for our own requirements. Further work will need to be undertaken in terms of availability and frequency of the data and who is responsible for capturing that data. This is to be developed in conjunction with partners and service areas. The central Administrative Assistant for Building Resilient Families and Communities will send out a template to District Commissioning Leads around the start of every month which asks for details at a local level (see Appendix B for information required and timescales). These completed templates should be returned to the Admin Assistant who will collate the information and maintain a spreadsheet to track progress. 2d. Additional Information A wealth of information will be tracked in the Family Plan which will also need to be captured through the Family Star 3 for performance monitoring individual families. This will measure against the following outcomes: Promoting good health 3 Family Star TM Triangle Consulting Social Enterprise Ltd 6

Performance Management Framework Meeting emotional needs Keeping your child safe Social networks Supporting learning Setting boundaries Keeping a family routine Providing home and money Case Studies will also be required to provide examples of best practice and provide the more qualitative results of the programme. We will also look at the wider impact on the communities where these troubled families live. 2e. Evaluation The Troubled Families programme will be evaluated covering what has happened under the programme, the difference it has made to families as well as to the way services are delivered and the savings that have been achieved by local areas 4. This evaluation will be much wider than the results reported under the payment by results scheme, reflecting the wider aims of the Troubled Families programme. This will build on a national evaluation. 4 Financial Framework for the Troubled Families programme payment-by-results scheme for local authorities, March 2012 7

3. Performance Management Process Due to the scale of the performance management, partner involvement is crucial to the success of the framework, and ultimately the successful outcomes of the project. It is recommended that partner organisations build Troubled Families into their Business Plans so that there is a committed multi-agency approach both to the delivery of the programme and its performance management. Performance will need to be baselined and monitored for all of the families worked with on an agreed basis to show how the programme is progressing. This information will also need to be aggregated to provide a report at district/borough level and for the County. The following steps need to be taken: 1) Identify who holds the information referred to in sections 2a and 2b, including named contacts. These named contacts will then be responsible for collating the data. 2) Baseline the data referred to in sections 2a and 2b in line with guidance set out in the Financial Framework for the programme. 3) Report at a family level so that it s possible to aggregate up to produce reports for the districts/boroughs and the county on an agreed basis. 4) Embed this into the governance of Troubled Families as a tool to understand to what extent we are meeting outcomes, challenge performance, and make claims for PbR. 8

Performance Management Framework 4. Responsibilities Role Ownership of list of families Maintenance and routine updating of family progress Data management including identification, collation, monitoring and tracking Data collection on agreed basis Performance Reporting Interpretation of reports (highlighting and explaining exceptions) Responsible organisation/team Building Resilient Families and Communities Project Board District Admin Insight, Planning & Performance Team Tina Evans Job Centre Plus, Chief Inspector Simon Tweats Staffordshire Police, Andrea Nisbet Youth Offending Service, SCC, Local Support Teams SCC (supported by Insight, Planning & Performance Team, SCC) Insight, Planning & Performance Team (supported by the Safer Communities Team) Building Resilient Families and Communities Project Group 9

5. Data Management Staffordshire County Council s Insight, Planning & Performance Team will be responsible for the identification of troubled families and data management of the list. The list of families to be worked with will be collated centrally so that families being worked with may be tracked and monitored; to support performance management and providing evidence for claims under the payment by results scheme. The Insight, Planning & Performance Team will support the performance management process of the programme by working closely with both internal service areas (such as Families First) and partner organisations, to ensure that the most up to date information is collated and analysed so that it may be made available for performance reporting. 5a. Identification Criteria The criteria for troubled families are those that: 1. are involved in crime and anti-social behaviour, 2. have children not in school, 3. have an adult on out-of-work benefits, 4. cause high cost to the public purse. The fourth criteria is known as local discretion. This can be used to identify additional families or prioritise those already identified as meeting the first three criteria. The focus of these additional criteria is to include families who are high cost and those with health problems. This also enables district and borough councils to have their input on who should be included on the list using local knowledge and intelligence. There are two ways that families can be considered under local discretion : 1. Countywide Data Sets: The analysis of additional data sets at a county level (including adult offenders on the Probation caseload, cases open to Local Support Teams (LSTs) and the Integrated Offender Management caseload) that can be matched to the list of families that meet two out of the three official criteria. These data sets are agreed by the Project Group and analysed/matched by the Insight Team. 2. Local Knowledge: Families identified by local partners that are considered appropriate to include on the programme. Data in relation to these families should be obtained locally (coordinated by District Commissioning Leads or District Managers) and supplied to the Insight Team, who will include them within the cohort if it can be evidenced that they meet the criteria for inclusion. 5b. Identification process The Insight Team collate and quality assure the datasets outlined in section 5a, including school exclusion data and youth offending data, as well as the local discretion data. In order to identify adults claiming out-of-work benefits, families meeting the first two criteria are shared with the Department for Work and Pensions. Once this information is returned, families meeting all three criteria (or two out of three criteria, plus local discretion) are identified. These families automatically qualify for inclusion on the programme. 10

Performance Management Framework 5c. Dissemination and confirmation of family list Once all households have been identified that meet the official criteria outlined above, the list of families will be uploaded to Capita (see section 5d, below). This information will then be available for District Administrators supporting the programme to download and disseminate as appropriate. Districts will then have the opportunity to verify the list, based on local knowledge. Families may only be removed from the list if they no longer live at the given address, or members of the family have left the household, meaning that they no longer meet the qualification criteria for the programme. No other families should be removed for any other reason. If families are removed from the list at a local level, then they must be replaced with additional families identified through local knowledge. The original number of families that are identified should be the same as the number that are ultimately worked with. As it is unlikely that all of the information from DWP will be returned at the same time, it has been agreed that the list for Cohort 2 will be sent out to districts for those families that meet all three criteria as they are returned, rather than waiting for the entire list so that districts can start working with cohort 2 as soon as possible. 5d. Role of Capita Capita ONE is the main system that is used for capturing information relating to the families. An involvement form is created for each family, which links directly to existing records relating to children and young people. Information relating to school attendance and school exclusions are recorded here. Documents containing evidence of working with the families and their progress will be attached to these cases, including the Family Plan, Outcome Star and the action plan. District Administrators will be required to update Capita with additional progress information on a routine basis (see Appendix B for information required and timescales). There are also fields in Capita for the District Administrators to tick once they believe there have been sufficient improvements to make a claim for payment by results, or if a claim is likely to be made in the next 6 months. 11

6. Tiers of Intervention The DCLG has provided the following guidance for the application of the Programme which clearly defines the categories of interventions required with families in accordance with their needs. Family Intervention Practitioners Intensive Family Support Lead worker Existing duties FAMILY INTERVENTION intensive Intensive work with small caseloads of families e.g. <5 FAMILY INTERVENTION light Less intensive work with larger caseloads. 5-15 at any one time FAMILY INTERVENTION Superligtht Named lead for family located in another agency The 5 Family Intervention Factors One worker dedicated to a family Consider the family as a whole Practical hands on Support Persistent, assertive and challenging Common purpose and agreed action 1 Source: DCLG- The model from Working with troubled Families The assessment process must inform any decision regarding the level of intervention required by the family. This decision should be reached in discussion with the family and consideration of the number of presenting needs (breadth) and how entrenched these needs are in that family (depth). In doing so, reference should be made to the local discretion indicators listed below: Emotional and mental health problems Drug and alcohol misuse Domestic abuse Teenage pregnancy Homelessness (or risk of) Families of prisoners Families known to Local Support Teams The following is suggested as general guidance but this is subject to the assessment process:. 12

Performance Management Framework Frequency of Contact by Level of Intervention Intense Light Super Light At least three Visits per week Approx two Visits per week Approx one Visit per week Once the relationship has developed and family plan produced, discretion can be used to reduce the amount of direct contact. It is important to note that if none of the families meet one of the criteria they do not need to be forced into a category (e.g., if none of the families are identified as needing to be worked with intensively, this category does not need to be filled and families can just be worked with at a light/super light level of intervention as appropriate). Allocated Cases The definition of an allocated case is that a key worker/lead worker has been identified to work with the family. Open Case The definition of an open case is that the key worker/lead worker has contacted and commenced work with the family, implementing the model of operational practice as outlined in Building Family and Community Resilience: Staffordshire s Operating Model. 13

Appendix A Payment by Results from Central Government Staffordshire County Council will be able to collect a payment for each eligible family if they achieve the results set out in the box below. The results are largely the inverse of the problem criteria used to identify families for inclusion in the programme. The table below sets out a summary of the results on which payment will be made in 2012/13. Measures and definitions for results have been chosen that, as far as possible, are already collected within existing administrative systems. This is intended to keep the process of claiming results-based payments as simple as possible. It is expected that, based on the average length of a successful intervention with a family and the time frame for showing results, that results-based payments should be claimed around 12 months after the intervention has started. There will of course be variables here the complexity of the family, the length of time it takes to start getting results and, in some cases, time lags in verifying results. Result Attachment fee Results payment Total They achieve all 3 of the education and crime/asb measures set out below where relevant: 1. Each child in the family has had fewer than 3 fixed exclusions and less than 15% of unauthorised absences in the last 3 school terms; and 2. A 60% reduction in anti social 700 per family 4,000 per family behaviour across the family in the last 6 months; and 3. Offending rate by all minors in the family reduced by at least a 33% in the last 6 months. 3,200 per family If they do not enter work, but achieve the progress to work (one adult in the family has either volunteered for the Work Programme or attached to the ESF provision in the last 6 months). OR At least one adult in the family has 100 per family moved off out of work benefits into 3,200 per family 800 per family 4,000 per family continuous employment in the last 14

Performance Management Framework 6 months (and is not on the ESF Provision or Work Programme to avoid double payment). Note that for the crime, ASB, education and progress to work results, if one of the measures is not relevant, the full results payment will still be made. For example, if a family does not have a youth offending problem, but does satisfy the ASB and education criteria and enters the programme on this basis, the County Council would still be able to claim the 700 in 2012/13, provided the education and ASB results had been achieved (and that youth offending had not subsequently occurred). Furthermore, if all the adults in the family are in work, but they nonetheless satisfy the ASB/crime and education criteria and enter the programme on this basis, the County Council would still be able to claim the 100 in 2012/13, provided everyone in the family stays in work. 15

Appendix B - Key Milestones, Timescales and Responsibilites, 2013/14 (Data Management) Key to colour coding (responsibilities) Insight & Performance Team District Commissioning Leads (DCLs) Other (see notes below) Central Admin District Admin Meetings Quarterly updates DCLG management information Quarterly performance ACTIVITY / TASK Meeting dates 1 Project Board 2 Workstream Leads 3 Performance Working Group 1 a b c 1 a b 2 a b c 3 a b c 1 a b c d Quarterly updates Central admin circulates template Content completed and returned to central admin Quarterly updates recorded and collated Updating Capita Family progress information collated (ongoing) 'Outcome' box complete where relevant Verifying results List of families data suggests are eligible for a claim shared with DCLs DCLs liaise with district teams to verify suggested results List returned to Insight Team Final submission Data collated relating to families identified and worked with DCL returns checked and aggregated Submission made to DCLG Data extracts Data extracted from Capita (exclusions and attendence) Youth offending data extracted and provided to Insight (Families First) ASB data extracted and provided to Insight (Police) Worklessness data extracted and provided to Insight (JCP) 2 Data cleaned and aggregated to family level 3 Family level results aggregated to district and county level 4 Strategic performance report circulated May June July August September October November December January February March April 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 1 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 2 9 16 23 30 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 3 10 17 24 31 7 14 21 28 5