Whole Essex Community Budgets

1. Whole Essex Community Budgets SOLACE East of England Branch Seminar 7 June 2013 Joanna Killian Chief Executive Essex County Council

2. Whole Essex Community Budget Background……. • Partners across Essex, Southend and Thurrock have long supported the development of Community Budgets as a means of improving local outcomes and have worked to shape the concept since its inception. • In December 2011 partners submitted a successful expression of interest to become one of four Whole Place Community Budget pilots. Since then we have worked with secondees from central government to co-design proposals for sustained system-change in local public services through our Whole Essex Community Budget (WECB) programme. • Proposals developed during the pilot phase will deliver total net benefits worth some £388m to 2019-20 of which £118m will be direct cashable savings. • In March 2013 resources were committed to detailed implementation plans and governance to deliver these proposals and develop further opportunities.

3. Overview of public sector spending Essex

4. WECB Partners

5. Group 1 • Relationship to other boards i.e SELEP and gateways • Don’t duplicate • The board needs to look across other partnerships to address whole system issues • Cant proliferate more structure should commission from e.g subgroups • Need to focus on fewer key issues and avoid overlap/ duplication • Customer join-up and communication • Housing could be a key area to grasp, utilising existing groups • Focus on customer journeys and priorities and how to supress demand • Discipline is needed to avoid getting side tracked • Focus on the areas where partners agree to make progress • "Partnership" rather than "integration" • Allow time for engagement with the right partners eg PCC/ CCGs • Bilateral agreements will continue • Focus on public ownership vs organisational ownership • Need to enable great community resilience, people preparing to manage their own costs • EIB brokering relationships across key issues e.g Health Social Care integration • Assets - lots of work but what's the way into it? Care needed around the level of financial benefit likely • Dealing with realities of government cuts in real terms • Group 2 • Monitor Delivery of WECB • Information sharing mechanism to drive • Communication • Forward plan flows from the above • Prove we could do more by delivering what we've planned • Group 3 • Integration and influence on issues affecting District Councils/ County and other parties ie Education • Early intervention: Reducing "dependency culture" - reactive budgets/ demand • Narrative - Benefit of work for whole community • Impact on multiple issues • Systems changing project • Focus of Public Sector spend - initially £2bn, wider total spend £10bn? WECB Programme Overview Since submission of the operational plan to Government end of October 2012, partners across Greater Essex have been working together to further develop the proposals within these business cases and proposals, refine the delivery plans and seek commitments from key partners Economic Opportunity Community Safety Health and Wellbeing 2 Skills for Growth Reducing Reoffending Integrated Commissioning 1 3 4 5 Family Solutions (FCN) Essex Deal For Growth Reducing Domestic Abuse 6 Strengthening Communities 7 Social Investment

6. WECB Project Updates

7. WECB Project Updates

8. We are ready for growth • A Deal for Growth for Essex would unlock our economic potential. Counties need a seat at the table • The ‘licence to grow’ provided by City Deals should be available to all functional economic areas. That is why we are working closely with colleagues in Southend to ensure alignment with their City Deal and maximise the learning, and the benefit • Government’s Heseltine response was a game-changer. Now that growth deals, ‘Single Pot’ and the development of growth strategies are squarely aligned with LEPs, it is more important than ever for us to reassert the role of our area within our huge LEP • To that end, partners are considering the structure of the South East LEP. We have demonstrated our commitment to the LEP, but we need to absolutely ensure that it is enabled to do the very best for Essex • Irrespective of the LEP, with an integrated strategy for infrastructure investment, an economic growth plan and a Deal ready for Government, we are fully equipped and ready for the challenge

9. What’s the ‘Deal’? • In the ‘Deal’ we articulated a dual role for the Essex public sector in support of business: • Provide fit for purpose infrastructure • Ensure that our young people are employment-ready (incorporated the wider skills business case) • We submitted propositions harnessed by a balanced suite of asks and offers as below: • New, simpler, fit for purpose structures to support growth • Revolving infrastructure fund over 20 years, engaging employers in the provision of 60k additional jobs and 26k additional homes in the medium term • Reinvesting the proceeds of growth in key locations • Support of mortgage deposits; equity investment stakes • A new approach to maximising innovation and working with HE • A reorientation of 16-24 skills provision (to follow) • We need clarity from Government and look to CSR to start to answer some questions

10. More than demand management: Skills for Growth • The skills system is learner-led & fails to drive growth or meet business needs leading to low GVA per job in Essex. Its complexity reduces employer engagement & investment in skills. • In 2012, Essex submitted ambitious Community Budget (CB) proposals to Whitehall, reshaping skills provision for 16-24 year olds to deliver inclusive economic growth • The simplified local employer-led system requires: • an Employment & Skills Board • a single portal/point of contact for business • real-time industry intelligence • greater local determination of rewards for skills provision to meet economic & social needs

11. The skills proposal & where we are… • An outline of radical reform measures for the vocational skills system was put forward in our business case to Government. • Since then, the Government has published its response to the Heseltine Review and agreed that skills funding should be a component of the LEP local growth pot. • We will not know what skills funding will be included in that pot and what flexibility LEPs will be afforded until after the Spending Review. • We are however developing our approach alongside this direction of travel, based on what some City Deal areas have been able to negotiate, remaining consistent with our Community Budgets submission. We continue to put in place a key driver for our proposals – the Essex Employment & Skills Board. The ESB will give a voice to employers, helps to ‘bridge the gap’ between education & industry and shape and challenge the system locally. In response to the aforementioned Government responses/changes, we propose the ESB shape and oversee: • an Online mechanism through which all Employers and Providers can interact and employers can start to drive provision offered locally - MarketPlace • a Fund that can utilise limited public skills funding to leverage significant investment from employers in skills development - locally and equitably, particularly in support of growth sectors and SMEs - Essex Skills Investment Fund • robust intelligence & mechanisms to inform and deliver IAG to young people and shape training provision across Essex

12. WECB – key messages • Community budgets should be focused on sustainable system-change: they have the potential to bring about wholesale system-change in public services: joining-up and co-ordinating services, streamlining processes and improving citizens’ experiences.  • Community budgets should focus on shared outcomes rather than pooled budgets: there are risks associated with the creation of a single funding pot. A focus on shared outcomes and integrated commissioning, rather than on the mechanics of pooled budgets, is what’s needed. • Community budgets are a tool to change culture: Long term, there is great value in changing the culture within the public services. This requires local innovation and greater flexibility within Whitehall and local partners. Policy frameworks established by central government departments must be flexible if they are to support, rather than limit local system-change • Government should not seek to artificially limit the scope of community budget activity: focusing proposals on social outcomes is not enough – economic outcomes are equally important. Despite encouraging Whole Place pilots to develop proposals to unlock economic growth, DCLG have since focused local negotiations exclusively through their city-deals programme.  

13. Social Investment in Essex Essex partners are looking to develop a pipeline of focused social investment opportunities, initially focused on: Drug recovery attracting social investment in service for crack and opiate users to reduce long-term dependency Social isolation reducing isolation amongst older people reducing pressure on health and social care budgets Alcohol reduction delivering savings by reducing the acute costs of alcohol abuse on the NHS and criminal justice system Offender accommodation investing in housing and targeted support to tackle the key drivers of re-offending Offender employment investing in derelict property which can be sold and reinvested when renovated by ex-offenders These will need to be supported with feasibility work, but Essex partners aspire to attract £100million of social investment by 2016-17

14. Summary • The Whole Place Pilots have demonstrated the long term benefit of radical, whole system reforms • Cannot be achieved without strong buy in and collaborative leadership across partners – locally and nationally • WECB has only dealt with about 20% of addressable spend in Essex, much more to be done! • Understanding ‘Place’ is critical to success • www.wecb.org.uk • www.communitybudgets.org.uk