Community Budgets

Written evidence from Birmingham City Council (CB 03)

 

Purpose

 

The purpose of this paper is to provide the Communities and Local Government Committee with Birmingham City Council’s responses to questions identified by the Committee as part of their inquiry to Community Budgets.

Questions

Birmingham City Council would like to respond to the questions as follows:

Are Community Budgets an effective approach to working with troubled families?

In relation to troubled families we are working on ensuring a ‘think family’ approach with families. We have built in the learning from community budgets in Shard End to create the approach to working with families.

We have identified, in order to change outcomes for troubled families we need to:

· Engage with the whole family including extended family to ensure an approach that captures the totality of need;

· Act together with ‘no wrong’ door;

· Lead with whoever is the most appropriate for the family;

· Utilise family contracting with clear positive and negative consequences and roles and responsibilities;

· Engage families in defining the help they need

How can the success of Community Budgets (for Troubled Families, Total Place and Neighbourhoods) be measured, and what are the prospects for Payment by Results?

The Shard End Community Budget Complex Families project introduced the Family Common Assessment Framework (fCAF) as a way to work with families experiencing multiple issues affecting both their own well being, that of the local community and placing a resource strain on public services. Evaluation focussed in Shard End on qualitative research interviewing lead practitioners from a range of service providers.

The research also mapped the journeys of a small group of early fCAF families to analyse in detail the nature of problems that were presenting, the sequence of events, interface with agencies and opportunities to prevent escalation. The findings illustrated the very complex and context specific nature of each families circumstance; the length of time practitioners needed to understand the situation in order to work with a family on a suitable action plan and also the prevalence of factors such as mental health, domestic violence that were often not previously recorded by agencies. Learning was fed into the citywide Troubled Families Programme which uses the fCAF methodology.

As a result of Community Budgets how are, and will Whitehall’s relationship with localities operate and be changed?

The Neighbourhood Community Budget pilot has enabled us to test out a community based ‘bottom up’ approach, building community confidence and capacity and helping to shape local priorities. It has presented significant challenges at both a city and a local level but in the process we have identified key learning points, which would benefit other communities seeking to take the community budgeting path.

Over the period of the pilot strong links have been forged with Department for Communities and Local Government, which has opened up a direct line of communication. This in turn has enabled the pilots to share experiences both locally and nationally. The knowledge hub that has been established has been instrumental in this, alongside conferences and seminars, which have been attended by Ministers. Adopting an intelligence sharing and open communication approach enhances greatly the relationship between localities and Whitewall and will help to create greater understanding of issues identified locally. This relationship also offers the opportunity for two-way feedback to create an environment where local intelligence can be used to inform/influence direction.

 

How are public funds for Community Budgets accounted for, both locally and centrally?

Local authority budgets are not managed, allocated or monitored at a community level and systems are not in place to enable this to happen. The Council does operate a process of Constituency level budgeting and accountability for many services and this process together with its governance framework would provide an initial template for neighbourhood financial management and accountability. Through the Neighbourhood Community Budget Pilot we have managed to obtain a very detailed breakdown of expenditure in Shard End. Over the next few weeks we will be refining this information in a number of ways, firstly to overlay partner expenditure to this, secondly to identify controllable and uncontrollable budgets and thirdly to analyse the extent to which budgets are aligned to the Shard End priorities. However, for the future the city council will need to develop a new ‘operating model’ for a neighbourhood level approach.

How can Community Budgets maximise the use of resources through co-design and co-production of integrated services in the face of reducing resource and outdated modes of service provision?

The public sector faces considerable challenges to deliver radically new ways of service delivery in the light of extremely constrained resources. Traditional ways of operating will not lead to the scale of change needed, and therefore a new approach is required. Co-production will enable public service commissioners and public, third sector and private service providers to collaborate much more intensively and meaningfully with local communities and with people who use services to identify and experiment with more effective approaches with reduced resource. 

In many services, there is still relatively little co-production, so that an even greater challenge faces public agencies. Therefore it is important to identify new areas where co-production could be established and grown relatively quickly and cost-effectively.

Within the Neighbourhood Community Budget pilot, Birmingham’s pilot areas are developing their NCB activity from a strong foundation of experience in neighbourhood management and more recently on community based budget work with families with complex needs in Shard End. Birmingham’s Neighbourhood Community Based Budget pilot is unique when compared to the other pilots as it proposes to undertake activity in three areas of the City: Shard End, Balsall Heath and Castle Vale.

With resources shrinking and allocations being reduced across a number of services, the Neighbourhood Community Budget pilot provides Birmingham an opportunity to test different approaches to co-designing local services. The pilot will identify the level of influence or control required by local people; the services that can or cannot be influenced and the cost effectiveness of this approach. The learning from the Neighbourhood Community Budget pilot will help inform a city wide roll out as part of Devolution and Localisation policy to enable this to be taken to the neighbourhood level.

In 2011 Shard End piloted a community budget based approach to families with complex needs and this opened up the possibilities for greater dialogue with residents. Evidence indicated that residents have often felt ignored and unable to influence decisions to change things for the better. Despite this residents have often come together with elected members, businesses and other partners to develop successful local initiatives.

It is for these reasons that Shard End was selected to pilot the neighbourhood Community Budget.

The aspiration is to work with local people to develop a neighbourhood community budgeting approach in Shard End so that the community can drive locally determined action to resolve some of its deeply entrenched issues.

This has involved exploring each of the five building blocks of a neighbourhood community based budget approach, which are:

a) community involvement

b) governance

c) priorities (service definitions)

d) resource mapping

e) costs and benefits / evaluation

The pilot has enabled us to test out a community based ‘bottom up’ approach, building community confidence and capacity and helping to shape local priorities.

The work completed during the last 12 months to scope local need, engage with residents and identify resources will enable us to move to implementation during 2013. Our objective is to demonstrate better outcomes and value for money. This will also provide the Department for Communities and Local Government with some practical examples of community led approaches.

· Partners in Shard End recognise the changing landscape and have demonstrated their commitment to working in partnership to deliver meaningful co-design of cost effective services. This became central to the design and delivery of this approach going forward. Communities that Care (CtC) phase 1 involved bringing stakeholders together, involving partners in the core group, activating, and supporting a number of activities.

· The Shard End approach has been ‘bottom up’ and this has presented a number of challenges, not least the time needed to engage with people in a meaningful way. The approach undoubtedly brings benefits and enables residents to have real ‘ownership’ of the agenda. However, there needs to be an ongoing programme of capacity building and engagement to maintain momentum. For this reason we are proposing that we work with Birmingham Voluntary Services Council (BVSC) and Birmingham Settlement to establish a locally based support hub for emerging and existing community based groups. In addition we are working with Locality to develop an asset based Community Development Trust in Shard End that will provide a delivery vehicle for future activity.

· Notwithstanding the above, we feel strongly that a bottom up approach to community budgeting is, on its own, not enough to achieve the step change that is needed in Shard End. Without real commitment and buy-in from partners at a strategic level it is difficult to get the decisions needed to change budget and service decisions. Therefore we propose to establish a formal local management board made up of residents and partners to implement the model. The Leader of Birmingham City Council has engaged the support of key stakeholders from across the city in the Shard End project.

· The aim is to establish a parish or ‘community’ council for Shard End. The pilot has identified an appetite to develop this. Detailed options are being designed with the assistance of Birmingham City Council legal department and will be taken forward over the next 18 months.

· The pilot has highlighted the importance of local leadership, particularly from elected members. This has enabled us to overcome barriers with the city council and at a local level.

· The resource mapping exercise has really brought home the power of the community budget model. It has provided residents with information about how money is spent locally and the extent to which they achieve outcomes for residents. For example, the annual expenditure of Birmingham City Council in Shard End is over £32 million, of which over £22 million is spent on education. Set alongside the educational outcomes for young people in Shard End this raises a number of crucial questions for the community and partners alike. Over the next few weeks we will be refining this information in, firstly to overlay partner expenditure to this, secondly to identify controllable and uncontrollable budgets. This will enable budgets to be aligned directly to the service definition and interrogate existing ways of working against allocated resource and identify new approaches.

How can community placed budgeting strengthen participatory democracy by empowering individuals and communities especially addressing processes of exclusion for specific groups?

It is recognized that Social inclusion is important for the future success of Birmingham and its citizens, businesses and communities. Evidence indicates that more equal societies display greater wellbeing among their citizens and foster confidence and greater participation in civic and economic life. By achieving better outcomes, people, families and communities become more resilient, rely less on the state for assistance and are able to shape their own futures. In short, socially included citizens have a greater stake in society. A fairer and more cohesive city brings economic prosperity where citizens contribute to the economy and generate wealth for themselves and their communities.
The Neighbourhood Community Budget Pilot presents a clear opportunity to address some of these issues that can lead to exclusion and has some agreed common aims and objectives between the three areas:

· To see resident-led change with residents playing a more distinctive role in service re-design;

· For the three Birmingham neighborhoods to work together to share learning;

· To enable residents, families and communities to become more resilient and solve their own problems;

· To strengthen and redefine the partnership between residents and statutory bodies;

· To establish integrated community-managed hubs;

· To pool and align budgets and resources where appropriate at a local level where better outcomes can be achieved;

· To identify replicable examples of success which are of use both locally and nationally;

· To demonstrate that prevention is better and cheaper than cure and that, therefore, resident empowerment and neighborhood budgeting results in 'more for less' and real savings by wise investment;

· To implement training and development for residents, officers and councilors which inducts them into the attitudes and skills needed for managing neighborhoods in new, effective ways.

Clearly, the ambition of the Neighbourhood Community Budgets pilot is to put local people at the heart of meaningful co-design of efficient and cost effective services. Therefore, a robust community engagement methodology has been put in place that goes beyond the ‘usual suspects’ and involves the wider community.

Building the capacity of local residents and officers to respond to this new way of working requires a shared understanding of the types of services that can and cannot be managed at neighbourhood level.

Is it possible to use community budgets to reset relationships between local democratic institutions, agencies and the public?

There is a wealth of literature based on evaluation of participative budgeting that shows the value of its methodologies and practice both in the UK and abroad.

In Birmingham building on the experience of Neighbourhood renewal we developed a model for the prioritisation of discretionary resources by means of a Community Chest utilising the Councils Ward Committee structure.

Whilst this resource has diminished in 2013/14 following the strategic top slice for the Birmingham Jobs Fund, it might still be possible to open the current allocation of resource to include an element of Participative budgeting. This includes identifying and agreeing priorities for funding at a locality level, whether at a neighbourhood, ward or district domain and seeking expressions of interest via a bidding process in line with the current approach. Additionally it might be possible to take this further. For example by issuing a community or neighbourhood prospectus setting out identified priorities and a call for ideas and proposals on how these could be delivered.

Alternatively this could be undertaken by holding community or neighbourhood funding conferences bringing together a range of funding streams and through a deliberative process issuing resources to pitches made at conference. Generally these would be for a smaller package of resource. In both examples we bring together participative and representative democracy at a priority setting and resource allocation phase.

How can Community Budgets be used as a tool to enhance local health improvement and narrow the health divide?

Community Budgets have the potential to shift from a deficit, paternalistic, centralised model which promotes interdependence with local communities. The risk is that local communities may feel that they have other priorities which do not directly lead to health improvement. However, this probably means that we are using a deficit model of health, namely ill health, rather than a positive approach which looks at wellbeing, especially mental wellbeing. If this approach was allowed, it could genuinely lead to better positive health at a local community level.

What role can health and wellbeing boards play in facilitating Community place based budgeting across all local agencies?

There are several major obstacles to advancing this agenda at a strategic level. The first is that some public agencies are measured on reducing deficits. The move to community budgets shifts this and requires a different way of collecting results at a city level. The second is that the NHS is funded by output "results" such as number of operations, emergency admissions. There is no incentive to not have an operation or be admitted.

The health and wellbeing board can facilitate a local, strategic framework to advance a variety of community approaches as well as innovating around outcome collection. However there are barriers which have to be addressed at a national level. HWBB can lobby for these discussions. At its centre is an enabling model for HWBB from national government, focussed on key discussions outcomes which will materially drive positive wellbeing, such as employment, reducing isolation etc.

April 2013