Consultation on Supporting People Investment

On 9 March 2011 Manchester City Council approved its budget for the coming year. The budget sets out how the Council intends to make £109 million of savings over the next financial year, rising to £170m in 2012/13.

As part of the overall strategy for bringing expenditure in line with the budget settlement, funding levels for all services currently funded through Supporting People will be reviewed. 

Services provided by Supporting People currently include:

• Accommodation Based Support 
• Floating Support and outreach services 
• Handy Person Services

Achieving value for money - proposed methodology  

In order to determine whether or not to provide funding to services in the future, and if so what level of funding to be provided, it is proposed to apply a methodology that assesses value for money by taking into account factors relating to the quality and cost of the service.

Weighting
It is proposed to weight quality and cost equally (50% each) and to apply this approach to individual elements of each service to evaluate the extent to which they will deliver value for money.

This methodology is subject to consultation and therefore may change.

Assessment

Quality: Total of 50 marks

Assessment of quality will include consideration of strategic relevance, and performance.

Strategic Relevance - 30 marks

Strategic relevance is determined by taking a range of factors into account, including:

• Does the service contribute to Manchester 's Community Strategy? 
• Does the service help to support a statutory duty i.e. a service to a customer with assessed needs under Fair Access to Care or a Homelessness duty under the Housing Act 1996 as amended by the Homelessness Act 2002? 
• What evidence exists to support ongoing investment in services? For example evidence of potential cost benefits 
• Location: Are services provided within the communities they seek to support (this will include consideration of sustainability of the neighbourhoods in which they are located using the supported housing constraint categories). 
• Does the service contribute to the following? 
  • Tackling worklessness 
  • Preventing dependency, supporting independence and self-reliance 
  • Prevention and early intervention 
  • Personalisation 
  • Supporting families and adults with complex needs 
  • Supporting recovery from crisis

Performance - 20 marks 

It is proposed factors relevant to assessing the use and performance of services will include: 

• Contribution to outcomes evidenced by performance information National Indicators (NI) 141/142 - 15marks  

NI 141 measures the number of people who are receiving a Supporting People Service who have moved on from supported accommodation in a planned way, as a percentage of total service users who have left the service.

NI 142 measures the number of people who are receiving a Supporting People Service who have established or are maintaining independent living, as a percentage of the total number of service users who have been receiving Supporting People services during the period.

• Throughput/utilisation - 5 marks

It is proposed that there will be a quality threshold of 30/50 i.e. this means that services will need to achieve a ranking of 30 marks (in respect of quality) if they are to be funded.

Cost - 50 marks

It is proposed that factors relevant to assessing cost will include:

• Are there services which could be available elsewhere, or through other means which can be delivered more cost effectively? 
• How does the cost of provision compare to providers of similar services compared with similar or better outcomes?

Equality Impact Assessment
Manchester City Council has a duty to assess the equality impacts of our services, functions and policies, with particular regard to race, gender and disability.

It is recognised that an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) should be an integral part of service planning to be carried out whenever the Council plans, changes or removes a service, policy or function.

Equalities issues as well as the criteria for investment summarised above will be considered as part of the consultation process.

Detailed Equality Impact Assessments will be completed to inform future commissioning decisions. This will reduce the risk of a disproportionate impact upon any group.