Memorandum from Fairbridge
1. FAIRBRIDGE
1(i) Fairbridge is submitting this response
from the perspective of a medium sized national charity (turnover
around £10 million) which receives approximately 60% of its
income from statutory sources, mainly local authorities. In the
past much of this income has been in the form of statutory grants,
but we are now generating a growing proportion of this income
through commissioned service provision.
1(ii) Every year we win the trust and commitment
of over 3,500 young people that most other organisations have
found it impossible to engage. All are outside education, training
or employment or at risk of dropping out and face multiple problems.
We offer a combination of challenging learning experiences and
personal support through which young people can build the self-belief
and personal social and life-skills they need to succeed in life.
1(iii) Our objectives have synergy with
the government's agenda to tackle social exclusion. Our personal
development programmes are designed to support young people to
achieve many of the outcomes set out in the Every Child Matters
framework and our work contributes to a wide range of PSA targets
including NEET reduction, improvement in school attendance, reduction
in teenage pregnancies and reduction of re-offending rates.
2. OUR GENERAL
RESPONSE TO
THIS ENQUIRY
MAY BE
SUMMARISED AS
FOLLOWS
Fairbridge believes that the concept of commissioning
services to the Third Sector has great potential to benefit both
users and the state and should be extended. Developments are,
however, needed in the design and practice of the commissioning
process to ensure that it does not, perversely, destroy those
aspects of the Third Sector which cause it to be more effective.
3. EVIDENCE SUPPORTING
OUR VIEW
THAT THIRD
SECTOR PROVIDERS
ARE LIKELY
TO PROVIDE
BETTER PUBLIC
SERVICES WITHIN
OUR AREA
OF WORK
3(i) Fairbridge has historically provided
its services to `difficult to reach' 13—25 year olds outside
education, training and employment. However over the past two
years we have introduced a separate programme targeting under
16s which includes those at risk of exclusion or whom have excluded
themselves through non attendance, although they may still be
on the school role.
3(ii) Results from our under 16 pilots show
that young people who have been unwilling to participate in mainstream
education have committed to Fairbridge. Although they have often
failed to achieve at school, whilst with Fairbridge many have
worked towards accredited ASDAN awards. Schools have been keen
to work with us because we have specialist expertise in tackling
behaviour, are able to accommodate different learning styles and
can provide more intensive support for those who need it outside
the classroom setting. Some of our teams now have waiting lists
for referrals from teachers.
— A report by OFSTED on our provision
graded young people's achievement as excellent in 25% of sessions,
very good in 50% of sessions and good in 25%. There were no unsatisfactory
sessions, which the report concluded "is impressive for this
client group". The report also concluded that "Fairbridge
provides very good value for money".
3(iii) In terms of over 16s, we have focused
on engaging challenging NEETS (young people not in education employment
or training) with multiple needs and earned a reputation for engaging
the most difficult to reach.
— We have examples of working with
statutory services, such as Connexions, who have needed our help
to access our clients. Recently we have been approached by agencies
piloting Activity Agreements aimed at persistent NEETS because
they know that we are more able to reach those whom they are trying
to help, but have found difficult to engage.
3(iv) There are a number of important reasons
why Fairbridge is able to win the trust and commitment of those
statutory services often find it difficult to engage. Whilst some
of these are to do with the expertise held within such a specialist
service, others are a result of an ethos which must be recognised
if we are to continue to provide services.
— A three-year longitudinal research
project conducted by Charities Evaluation Services provides hard,
statistical evidence that for young people at risk engagement
in Fairbridge improves long-term prospects in education, training
and employment. The research identifies a number of factors as
being significantly responsible for this outcome, the most important
of which are staff and ethos. Our ethos is all about providing
a highly personalised client focused approach. The fostering of
this culture requires the freedom and flexibility to meet individual
needs. This is often not available within statutory services and
must not be stifled by an overly restricted commissioning process.
Accommodating the personalisation of public services within an
accountable commissioning process is possibly one of the greatest
challenges facing the delivery of public services.
— We recognise small achievements that
are relevant to the needs of our clients. We focus on developing
the behaviour, attitudes and stability in lifestyle that enable
a young person to engage with education and training. This means
that our programmes focus on personal and social development.
Too often programmes targeting our client group fail because providers
are chasing formal qualifications inappropriate to the real needs
of young people. This means that those commissioning services
need an informed understanding of user needs in order to set appropriate
outcomes (see para 5(iii) below).
3(v) We believe that commissioning can result
in higher quality provision, particularly if it means that service
provision requires specialist expertise and skills which do not
exist within existing mainstream services. Whilst this is recognised
by the process of grant making, the move to commissioning has,
in our experience, resulted in closer co-operation with mainstream
statutory services.
— For example, the commissioning of
services to Fairbridge in London by CAMHS in Southwark has led
to an improvement in quality of delivery of a tiers 1 and 2 service
for youngpeople. One of the main reasons for this has been the
way that the service has provided a missing "joined up-ness"
within the borough that wasn't there before. This is partly due
to Fairbridge's work, and partly due to the commissioning process
which meant that rather than giving a grant and letting the delivery
organisation get on with it, the commissioners have stayed involved
in terms of managing and monitoring the grant and helping Fairbridge
to make links where needed with other Statutory services. We have
also been called on as a great example of project management by
the VCS to support another VCS organisation, commissioned under
the same round, as they were struggling.
4. VIEWS ON
THE IMPACT
OF COMMISSIONING
ON THIRD
SECTOR PROVIDERS
4(i) Fairbridge managers who responded to
this consultation were generally in support of an increased move
towards commissioning, despite the work involved. They welcomed
the respect which has come with greater accountability and openness.
Increased transparency has also tended to encourage a move towards
full-cost recovery. Our experience has been that the commissioning
process has resulted in increased professionalism and respect
with increased application of the principles enshrined within
the Compact. Given the level of work involved contracts have sometimes
been for more than 12 months, which means that we are more able
to effectively plan service provision.
4(ii) Despite these advantages, our managers
have some concerns arising from their experiences of the commissioning
process and its potential negative impact on our service provision.
4(iii) The commissioning process often demands
the submission of highly detailed specifications which demand
a high level of resource input. Third Sector organisations often
have limited business development resources because they need
to be able to demonstrate that a large proportion of their costs
are spent on direct service delivery in order to attract private
sector funding. As a result, the commissioning process risks drawing
resource away from operations with the possible threat to service
quality. Fairbridge has resisted this by investing in a new business
development management tier, but this may pose a threat to voluntary
donations.
— An example of the resource wasted
in the commissioning process is provided by the recent commissioning
of provision by the Children and Young People's Fund. We were
on this occasion unsuccessful in gaining funding and received
a letter explaining the reasons why with some detailed bullet
points. We wanted to take these into account to learn for the
future, but felt that they did not reflect our submission. We
subsequently found out that other organisations received the same
letter. The opportunity to apply to provide services was widely
promoted and over 600 organisations applied, 97 were short-listed
and under a third of them were eventually awarded a grant. This
is not a good use of our time—30 grants from 600 applicants
gives a 5% chance of success. All 600 of us must have spent a
fair proportion of £3million chasing this relatively small
pot of funding.
4(iv) Our greatest concern is the potential
loss of innovation, which has historically been one of the greatest
strengths of the Third Sector. Despite the above our example,
much of our experience of local commissioning has been that specifications
are extremely detailed and deadlines are often utterly unrealistic.
This means that we start the process with the mindset of having
to complete forms and a preoccupation with budgets and management.
We have no problem with this level of detail which is often necessary
for public accountability, but the process means we are have to
by pass a the blue sky thinking of initial creative development.
This can be avoided (see para 6(ii) below).
4(v) Our experience is that local authorities
often need much greater understanding of the services and organisations
they are seeking to engage if they are to manage the process more
effectively.
— An example is provided by our experience
of Hackney's Children's and Young People's Services (CYPS) commissioning
the Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) provision for
term time. The tender was announced to Team Hackney (the LSP)
but not to anyone else, and the LSP did not publicise the opportunity
themselves. One member of the LSP is a VCS rep from the local
support service, so notified the VCS. This gave us a two week
turnaround to complete a 25 page Pre-Qualification Questionnaire
and five page explanation of services. Of 106 submitted, only
22 were eligible for a full application, this is not surprising
given the timescales involved. The Voluntary and Community sector
community launched appeals and following investigation the conclusion
was that the forms used were the same ones used for procurement
of waste disposal, stationary orders and cleaning services. These
forms could not be completed to reflect the needs of and services
for young people.
5. RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR IMPROVING
THE COMMISSIONING
PROCESS
5(i) In many cases contracts are available
to levels of provision which are beyond many smaller third sector
organisations. Fairbridge would often like to be part of a consortium,
rather than a lead partner and thus sub-contract, but it is often
very time consuming or impossible to find out who is applying
to be a lead partner. This can be avoided.
— For example the Lottery recently
invited "expression of interest" from organisations
wishing to be either a lead partner or a subcontractor for its
Wellbeing grants. This list was then circulated to all those who
registered which enabled us to identify those we could approach
to develop joint submissions. It also meant that we could assess
the competiton and make an informed judgment about how much time
we should spend on the application process. It may well be that
this process is followed in some cases in the commissioning of
public services, but this has not been our experience.
5(ii) In order to continue to encourage
innovation, we would like to see a number of additional stages
in the commissioning process. Expressions of interest should be
followed by a request for an outline idea to achieve simple goals.
Commissioners should then short list from those submitted before
asking for more detailed tenders. This will ensure that resource
in the earlier stages is focused on service design rather than
the process of "form filling".
5(iii) The Third Sector has an extremely
good grasp of the needs of its clients and should therefore be
consulted in the design of the prospectus for services to be tendered,
particularly regarding the setting of appropriate outcomes . It
is possible to do this without conflict of interest provided this
is done in an open manner.
— An example of good practice is provided
by recent development of the prospectus to deliver a support programme
to meet the needs of adults facing chronic exclusion by the Social
Exclusion Task Force (based within the Cabinet Office). The prospectus
was informed by two specially commission pieces of university
research, a series of visits to Third Sector service providers
undertaken by the programme team and discussion and consultation
with a range of agencies involved in supporting the identified
client group. The resulting prospectus will be publicised in the
national press.
February 2007
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