Communities and Local Government CommitteeWritten evidence from Newcastle City Council
SUBMISSION BY: CLLR JANE STREATHER—DEPUTY CABINET MEMBER (CHILD POVERTY), NEWCASTLE CITY COUNCIL
Cllr Streather leads on Child Poverty which is a cross-cutting priority for Newcastle City Council. Tackling child poverty relates to the councils four priorities—A Working City; Tackling Inequalities; Decent Neighbourhoods and a Council Fit for Purpose. The aim is to make tackling child poverty everybody’s business. Regarding children, she is the lead member for “Resilience, Prevention and Early Intervention.” Jane has been a Newcastle City Councillor since 2012 representing Kenton ward which contains the Cowgate Estate with very high levels of poverty and deprivation. She has a professional background in social policy, social services and early years in the public and voluntary sectors and also as a self-employed research consultant.
1. Introduction
1.1 This report provides an overview of our experience of working with the Troubled Families Programme. It has been submitted on behalf of Newcastle City Council to support the DCLG Committee in its call for evidence for its enquiry into Community Budgets.
1.2 In May 2012 The Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council accepted the challenge of “turning around” the lives of 1010 families, the target allocated to the city by the DCLG, by May 2015.
1.3 In January 2013 Newcastle submitted a claim within the Payment By Results (PbR) framework for outcomes achieved with 132 of the Troubled Families cohort.
1.4 This report will describe the work that has been done to achieve this result, the context in which the work has been delivered including the Community Budgets pilot and the challenges and opportunities afforded to the Council and partners in delivering against targets for the remainder of the programme.
2. Local Context
2.1 In Newcastle the Troubled Families Programme is known as the Newcastle Families Programme. Newcastle has a long history of supporting families with multiple and complex needs and we wanted to recognise that locally the Troubled Families Programme is part of a wider offer of support and challenge to families in the city. That offer is based on assumptions about the families having strengths on which to build: Newcastle has worked hard to create a culture in which families are seen as having resources to make changes for themselves, given the right support and the right challenge at the right time. The Newcastle Families Programme wants families therefore to see eligibility as something that will benefit and support their family through a difficult set of circumstances. Branding families as “Troubled” is considered a risk to their engagement with services.
2.2 In Newcastle one in three children lives in poverty. In some of our wards the levels are higher. In the Walker ward for example it is 56% and in the Westgate ward 59%. Our data shows that 40% of families eligible for the Newcastle Families Programme live in the four wards in the city with the highest levels of deprivation. This needs to inform our thinking given the evidence of how poverty impacts on children’s well being and the ability of families to cope with complex difficulties.
3. Executive Summary—Newcastle’s Experience of Delivering the Troubled Families Programme
3.1 Newcastle’s approach to implementation has been to build on existing good practices, strengths and what we know works.
Key factors are:
Partnership Working Newcastle has a long history of working in partnership which has been important in successfully implementing the Troubled Families programme.
Designing services on practice that has a strong evidence base.
Examples of this are the Family Intervention projects, Multi Systemic Therapy, Options 2, parenting programmes: Strengthening Families, Incredible Years, Triple P, our own local evidence of the efficacy of CAF to support integrated working.
A strong focus on robust data systems and analysis to inform work and understanding. It is this data rich infrastructure that has enabled us to make a claim under the payment by results regime early in the life of the funded programme.
A commitment to integrated systems and working practices to deliver good outcomes for children and families and which will be sustainable; we feel that we have a strong platform on which to build.
3.2 Newcastle has used the Troubled Families Programme to develop a whole system approach to working with families. The delivery programme, funded in part from the Attachment Fees, includes intensive family support offered through the Family Intervention projects (FIP) “key-workers”. These key-workers have been aligned closely to schools and based alongside Probation Service teams to support closer integrated working. The well established FIP model and other intensive evidence based interventions ie Multi Systemic Therapy and Options 2 (known locally as Changing Trax), working with families where there is a risk of a child in the family entering care or custody and with families at risk of having a child removed due to adult substance misuse respectively will only be appropriate for a minority of our cohort. (We estimate this to be around 25–30%). We have therefore actively engaged key partners to work together to achieve the outcomes of the Troubled Families Programme (predominantly through existing mechanisms such as through the Common Assessment Framework). The delivery programme also recognises that investment in workforce development is crucial if practitioners (working directly with families) are to be equipped with the skills and confidence to support and challenge families with complex needs.
3.3 The Newcastle Families Programme is in the first year of a three year programme. Whilst much of the first year has been developmental, there have nonetheless been positive outcomes for families through the work represented in the delivery programme and by partners. In addition to the 132 families achieving the success criteria set out by the financial framework by January 2013, representing improved school attendance and a reduction in youth offending, wider positive outcomes are also being achieved. For example, between January and March 2013, the Community FIP (working intensively with families eligible for the Newcastle Families Programme) achieved outcomes relating to improved housing, improved parenting ability, better engagement with relevant services, improved emotional wellbeing, and support around financial needs.
4. Newcastle’s Response to the National Troubled Families Programme
4.1 In July 2012, the Newcastle Families (Troubled Families) Programme Board agreed a set of principles that underpin the development of the Delivery Programme. These are:
The Newcastle Families Programme is not one service or project, rather we are looking to build and strengthen services into an integrated system that meets the needs of families with multiple difficulties.
Investment in the embedding of processes, systems, culture change and the workforce development will leave a legacy of integrated whole family working.
We are enhancing and expanding existing provision-doing more of what our data tells us works.
Families with the characteristics that make them eligible to be included in the programme are not homogenous and will require a varied intensity of response.
Use of data and its analysis informs service development.
Universal services can be supported to sustain their effective engagement with families in the programme to ensure relevant, appropriate and effective virtual Teams Around the Families.
Use of the Common Assessment Framework will underpin the Programme for families not subject to other integrated/multi agency plans (eg Child protection Plans, Integrated Offender Management plans).
The experience of families informs programme development.
4.2 A strong record focusing on data and outcomes has also helped us have the infrastructure to make an early claim. With previous funding for family and parenting support from the then Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), a dedicated data specialist role was established in the city council to look at outcomes and impact for families. Robust performance management arrangements and focus on analysing impact has helped make the case to sustain investment from Council resources for parenting and family support programmes. Those strong performance management arrangements—quarterly reporting on progress against key milestones (housing, school attendance, parenting ability, engagement with services, emotional wellbeing, developmental needs, finance, behaviour, safeguarding) were in place before the programme was launched. This has helped to ensure that interventions funded through previous grants from DCSF have been largely sustained through use of the Early Intervention Grant.
4.3 While implementing the Troubled Families Programme has taken considerable time and resource, this continuation of services providing support for families has made this significantly easier than it would otherwise have been.
Our analysis of the families who are eligible for this programme revealed that a great many already have integrated plans in place-either as part of a Children’s Social Care plan, the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), or a Youth Offending Team (YOT) intervention. There are a significant number however where there was no evidence of a team around the family. This has led to the development of the role of Integrated Working Mentors. A team of mentors will make sure that the right people are brought together and supported to work with the family to do an assessment and develop a plan that addresses the priorities of the programme.
4.4 Newcastle has a Families at Risk Intensive Support Service (FRISS) management group which has a multi-agency composition to oversee the work of intensive services such as Changing Trax, Multi-Systemic Therapy team, and family intervention projects (including the one run by Your Homes Newcastle (ALMO) in partnership with the local authority since 2007). These relationships with key partners have continued into the Newcastle Families Programme Board. Our Youth Offending Team is managed by a partnership and our Sure Start Childrens Centres offer an integrated Family Support offer, and have local partnerships with parent representation.
4.5 We believe, that to achieve the desired outcomes sustained over time multi-agency working needs to be embedded in existing systems and approaches (such as through the Common Assessment Framework). Newcastle has been asked to work with a substantial number of families and we decided quite early on in the development of the delivery programme that it would be impossible to task one team or project to work with all of them. Our needs analysis also indicated that the majority of the families were already in touch with, or actively working with, one or more services. It was also apparent that families had various levels of need and that one size might not fit all.
4.6 The Newcastle Model is best described as a whole system approach in that any of our services working with eligible families are part of the programme but that ways of working within those services may well need to change to ensure that they are working whole family and are addressing the specified outcomes. We have estimated that between 25–30% of families in the programme will need Intensive Family Interventions from initiatives such as the Family Intervention projects, Changing Trax and Multi Systemic Therapy. Around 70–75% however will need support though less intensive family intervention and Teams Around the Family within the CAF arena. Newcastle is using the Troubled Families Programme as a vehicle for accelerating our integrated working journey.
4.7 Newcastle’s initial success claim reflects existing services and practice does get results and is a great foundation to build upon. One of the central assumptions behind the Troubled Families Programme is that most of the resources required to achieve successful outcomes with a family, are already being provided by partners. Given the timescales between the start of the Troubled Families programme and the first claim date, and the time taken to develop local responses, it is clear that Newcastle’s initial success claim represents the work of this existing resource. Within schools and academies, as well as within the Local Authority, there are family support and attendance officers working to address poor school attendance; we have an effective youth offending team (who, over recent years, have significantly improved the rates of first time entrants into the youth justice system);our intensive family support services address a wide range of issues for families with complex and multiple needs including unemployment, school attendance, and crime and anti-social behaviour.
5. The Newcastle Families Delivery Programme
5.1 The delivery programme has a number of elements to reflect the diverse needs of families and practitioners within the programme. There are six key themes which make up the programme. Progress on these is monitored by the Programme Board.
Theme 1: Reshaping and expansion of existing Community Family Intervention Project/Service and expansion of therapeutic evidence based practice for families with most complex needs, (Video Interaction Guidance).
Theme 2: Prioritising and enhancing the family support and multi-agency offer with settings and communities with high numbers of families in the programme.
Recognising the high number of families eligible for the programme with one or more child/ren in the Pupil Referral Unit and other alternative provision to introduce a whole family approach. (Byker, Cowgate and Walker)
Theme 3: Support to enable better integration of adult/children’s services around families.
Build on existing work with Probation Service, drug treatment services, prison service.
Support the further embedding of CAF/Team Around the Family protocols in adult services, relevant to the need of the cohort.
Theme 4: Support to Lead Practitioners and enhancing Team Around the Family.
The Lead Practitioner or keyworker role is key for delivery of outcomes.
Development of “virtual team” of Champions drawn from partner agencies to each provide support to practitioners and teams around the family to ensure robust assessments and tightly monitored planning and delivery.
Development of team of Integrated Working Mentors to ensure each family in the Programme has an appropriate plan.
Theme 5: Supporting skill development of workforce.
Prioritising practitioners working with the Newcastle Families cohort, recognising that supporting families with multiple and complex needs is an area of expertise that requires enhanced skill development.
Ensuring “fit” with developments to apply Munro recommendations around workforce development.
Joint training across partner agencies.
Theme 6: Support parenting programmes.
Resource to provide additional evidence-based parenting programmes for families eligible for the programme.
6. Challenges in Implementing the Programme
Data collation required for the programme, linking data on individuals with family members, being able to monitor the progress of individual households.
The time lag between a family becoming eligible and additional work commencing can, at times, be largely due to the data collection and communication process.
There has been a familiar challenge in helping agencies and practitioners to think wider than their particular service user and beyond their own narrow definition of success for clients.
A narrow definition of eligibility and success within the Troubled Families programme.
7. Are Community Budgets an Effective Approach to Working with Troubled Families?
7.1 Like many of the Community budget pilots Newcastle’s Neighbourhood level Community Budget has a strong emphasis on families and prevention—this was a natural progression for the Council and partners as it followed our direction of travel. However, our experience of the Community Budget is that the launch of the pilots and the Troubled Families Programme at around the same point in time did not help, and in some ways created duplication of conversation and/or confusion in partners.
7.2 The Newcastle Families Programme responds to need and the requirement to meet the national targets. The Community Budget provided for much softer, resident and peer led intervention at an early stage—the intention is to reduce the number of families entering into the Troubled Families programme in the first instance, reinforcing the principle of how we interpreted the Community budget programme as a whole where savings would be generated upstream through early work.
7.3 In Newcastle, the Community Budget is managed by the Council. However decision making on how those funds may be used to commission work are led by the community. In such a way accountability can be maintained without placing the onus on communities at this point in time—the challenge of the Community Budget and local involvement was managing the fear factor in communities regarding making decisions for their wider neighbourhoods.
7.4 The overall objectives of the Community Budgets pilot and the Troubled Families programme are compatible. The means of delivery of each however are not similar. The Newcastle Families Programme relies heavily on a central coordination function that manages the data, information sharing between agencies, performance management and commissions work to be carried out at local level. With the exception of one volunteer family support programme the majority of interventions in the Cowgate area (site of the Community Budgets pilot) are based on this citywide needs analysis. It has been problematic to consider devolving decision making about Newcastle Families resources to a very local level.
8. Future Challenges
8.1 We are pleased with the progress to date. Newcastle has got off to a good start but we recognise that the next phase may be more challenging for the following reasons.
Some analysis of the characteristics of those families with successful outcomes has been carried out, but we do not at this stage have the level of intelligence required to isolate what it was that made the difference to the family.
As the programme progresses, we are keen to analyse the impact of the elements of an initiatives within our delivery programme on (a) the particular outcomes required for success claims, and (b) wider positive outcomes for the family, as well as the difference to integrated working practice.
Working within the context of budget reductions planned for 2013–16. At this juncture £100 million is on course for being removed from the Council’s budget and services are closing. Notwithstanding the council’s commitment to developing preventative services across the board this will take some time and will be difficult to achieve in the context of budget reductions. Some important universal (primary prevention services) will be lost and missed by vulnerable families. There is particular concern about the viability of Sure Start Children Centres and the Early Intervention Grant which may be £10 million less in 2016 compared to 2013.
We are yet to see the full impact of “welfare reform”. Newcastle is committed to monitoring the impact on families with multiple disadvantages and complex needs. We are concerned those families will see a reduction in household income, and that this income is also a loss to the local economy. Families will also be affected by the overall reduction in public services as a result of these austerity measures now being implemented.
An increase in child poverty is likely. Even though the council is working to reduce child poverty and in making the challenge to do so “everybody’s business” this will be difficult to achieve given economic and social policy forces outside of the council’s control.
Newcastle’s targets for 2013–14 are challenging and more is required of partners who are all faced with decisions around budget reductions. Whilst we have national evidence of the cost of families with complex needs and how this way of working will realise savings in both human cost and to public services, we will need to provide local evidence to our partnership to maintain their current investment. Achieving a step change in integrated working brings its own challenges to partners who may not afford the need to do so such a high priority.
9. Conclusion
Newcastle would be pleased to elaborate on the content of this brief written submission if required.
May 2013
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