Decision details

Salford City Council - Record of Decision (Cabinet)

I, Councillor Tracy Kelly, Statutory Deputy City Mayor, in consultation with the Cabinet and in exercise of the powers contained within the City Council Constitution do hereby approve:

recurrent funding of the Better Outcomes New Delivery (BOND) Programme from the integrated fund of £2.591m (21/22 prices) following a positive recommendation from Children’s Commissioning Committee and Health and Care Commissioning Committee.

The Reasons are:

·         A report was presented at the meeting of the Children’s and Health and Care Commissioning Committees in November and December 2020 and provided  summary  information of the programmes in the Better Outcomes New Delivery (BOND)programme formally known as Best Value. It was submitted to the Governing Body, witha recommendation from both Commissioning Committees, for formal approval and received a positive recommendation.

·         The report provided the background for the programme and detailed the investment bySalford Clinical Commissioning Group into four programmes of Children’stransformation. Each programme has interdependencies and seek to improve theoutcomes of Salford children and families.

·         The programmes were implemented based on evidence of effectiveness from otherparts of the country and localised to work with our existing systems. Eachprogramme was funded on an invest to save basis and there is a summary below of the savings and cost avoidance for each programme.

o   Original estimated pressure reduction/cost avoidance against “do nothing” over 5-year period to 2023/24 £4.8m

o   Actual placement cost avoidance to date against “do nothing” £2.315m

o   Estimated cost avoidance from cases referred/open to all programmes not becomingOutside Placement £4m

o   Estimated long term cost avoidance of DA/Trauma Informed programme of £0.5m

·         The evaluation report provided the evidence for the recurrent business case.

Options considered and rejected were:

Discontinuing the BOND programme and services.

Assessment of Risk:

Risks and mitigations are identified in the report to Cabinet.

The source of funding is: The Integrated Fund.

Legal Advice obtained: Supplied by Tony Hatton, Principal Solicitor

·      Last year the Council appointed the research and design charity Dartington Design Lab to work with them and the CCG to develop and deliver a formative and summative evaluation of the Council’s Best Value Programme (now BOND), with a view to improve outcomes for children, young people and families by applying research and best evidence to everyday practice, balanced with user and practitioner involvement.

·      The BOND programme has seen the CCG make investment into the four programmes of transformation set out in the report, to enable Children’s Services to provide and deliver improved outcomes for children in new ways, and help reduce budget pressures whilst doing so and ensuring compliance with the Council’s statutory duties.

·      Recent reforms have placed a strong emphasis on local authorities to meet their duties in the assessment and delivery of services for children and young people, and the report provides the background for the programme as well as detailing the investment by the CCG into the programmes, which were introduced following researched experiences across the country and localised to adapt to Salford’s needs, together with savings appropriate to each programme

Financial Advice obtained: Supplied by: Chris Mee – Strategic Finance

Manager Ext 0434

The financial implications of these proposals are set out within the report to Cabinet.

Procurement Advice obtained: Supplied by Christopher Conway Tel

0161 686 6248, Date Provided. 18.01.2021

Procurement acknowledges the contents of this report and confirms it understands the pressures in relation to rising costs for these services moving forward and agrees with the recommendation to approve recurrent funding.

HR Advice obtained: N/A

Climate Change Advice obtained: N/A

The following documents have been used to assist the decision process:
Salford Best Value Programme: Children’s Service Redesign - Case for Change Investment Proposal June 2019 Children’s Commissioning Committee Best Value Assurance Report 4th September 2019 Children’s Commissioning Committee

Contact Officer:  Debbie Blackburn

Telephone number: 0161 607 6678

(Please delete from the list below any which are not relevant).

·         This document records a key decision which was included in the Council’s Forward Plan

·         The appropriate scrutiny to call-in the decision is the Children’s Scrutiny Panel                      

For Democratic Services use only

This decision was published on 10.02.21                                           

This decision will come in force at 4.00 p.m. on 17.02.21                                                   unless it is called-in in accordance with the Decision Making Process Rules.