West Midlands-Sector Led Improvement Bulletin – June 2014
Overview
Welcome to the fifth edition of the West Midlands Sector Led Improvement (SLI) bulletin, published on behalf of the
region’s SLI Steering Group.
Since our last bulletin in April, we have been busy bringing together the Performance of the Region report for
2013/14, which provides a narrative for Sector Led Improvement in the West Midlands and will be circulated to all
authorities and key partners towards the end of June/early July.
We have also now agreed the regional Improvement Plans for both Children’s Services and Adult Social Care &
Health services in the region and you can find out more about our progress and activities below.
For more information contact Sue Banks, Director, IEWM. Email: sbanks@westmidlandsiep.gov.uk
LGA Update and activity
The LGA has a range of tools and programmes to support councils to learn from each other and try out new ways of
improving and delivering services, including:
 A programme of corporate and thematic peer challenges: http://www.local.gov.uk/peer-challenge
 The Productivity programme: http://www.local.gov.uk/productivity
 LG Inform and LG Inform Plus: http://lginform.local.gov.uk/
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A recent evaluation of the LGA SLI offer has been published http://www.local.gov.uk/SLI Evaluation. More
information about the full range of support can be found at : http://www.local.gov.uk/sector-led-improvement
Corporate and thematic peer challenges
Since April 2011, 29 of the 33 authorities in the West Midlands have either undergone or are planning some form of
LGA peer challenge. Every authority has access to a corporate peer challenge delivered at no cost once every three
years and one of the great strengths of the offer is the way it is tailored to each council’s needs. The region’s SLI
Steering Group is actively encouraging all authorities to consider some form of peer challenge; if you are interested
in finding out more about how a peer challenge could support improvements in your own authority, please contact
Howard Davis, LGA Principal Adviser. Email: howard.davis@local.gov.uk
LGA Productivity Offer
The LGA’s Productivity Programme supports councils to achieve better for less. It has focussed on critical high spend
areas such as children’s, adults and families, procurement and capital assets. The programme aims to provide
practical support to councils as they grapple with the challenges local government faces to deliver better for less.
The Productivity Expert Support offers to fund a number of productivity ‘experts’ to work with councils over a 6-9
month period of time to assist with their productivity issues. Specialisms include: contract renegotiation,
procurement, income generation, energy efficiency and adult social care. For more information about the offer see:
http://www.local.gov.uk/productivity
LG Inform and LG Inform Plus
LG Inform is a free service, co-designed by the sector that provides you with up-to-date published data about your
local area and the performance of your council or fire and rescue authority. It has been designed to support
councils to manage performance, assist benchmarking and provide a means of data analysis. So whether you are
interested in scrutiny, a particular service area, or simply need an overview, it can help you review and compare
performance with other authorities.
Register as a user at: http://lginform.local.gov.uk/ and you can use the ‘report builder’ function to create maps,
charts, text or tables using any of the value for money and performance metrics that are held in LG Inform. The LG
Inform Knowledge Hub group is a place to share ideas, comments and news about LG Inform. Join this group to hear
more about future plans of LG Inform and share with us your thoughts and ideas for the system.
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LG Inform Plus has recently been launched which supplements the LG Inform service, giving subscribers the power to
drill down from authority wide information to much smaller areas, such as wards. The service is based on the
framework of local government information sharing standards making information easy to use and giving
consistency across the sector. See: www.local.gov.uk/lginformplus
For more information on subscribing to LG Inform Plus and the benefits of doing so see:
http://about.esd.org.uk/subscription-benefits
For a case study on how Harlow Council is using the LG Inform service to collate and present information more
efficiently. See: Case Study: Harlow Council LG Inform. Find out more about LG Inform at:
http://lginform.local.gov.uk/about-lg-inform/faq
LGA Events
Here are details of just a few of the up-coming LGA events that you may find of interest. To see the full list of events
and to register, visit www.local.gov/events
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Making Transparency Work 2014 (Birmingham) – 9th June 2014
Our Place: Introduction to Cost Benefit Analysis (Bristol) – 11th June 2014 & (York) 17th June
LGA annual conference and exhibition 2014 (Bournemouth) - 8-10 July 2014
Adult Social Care Efficiency Programme Event (London)– 17th July 2014
LGA Publications
Here are details of some recent publications available from the LGA website which you may find of interest. Many
are free to download. To see a full list of the latest publications, visit: http://www.local.gov.uk/publications
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Under pressure – How councils are planning for future cuts (May 2014)
In good shape – learning and good practice from the early health and wellbeing peer challenges (March 2014)
Children’s Services
The LGA has recently appointed Children’s Improvement Advisers across the 9 regions. They will work closely with
the LGA Principal Advisers. Our Children’s Improvement Adviser is Claire Burgess and she will be working closely
with the WM ADCS Group, WM Children’s Improvement Board and local authorities in the region where
performance requires significant improvement. Claire can be contacted on Claire.Burgess23@gmail.com.
Improvement activity is continuing at a pace as implementation for the 2014-15 Children’s Improvement Plan gets
underway. The last period has seen continuing progress:
1. 6 authorities participated in The Auditing the Auditors programme during 2013/14. A workshop was held on the
7th May with those who had participated and the sponsor DCS Simon White to identify the learning from the
project, evaluate the impact on both the authorities receiving the challenge and the challengers participating
and to look at developing the process and guidance further for the next phase of the project. Planning for this is
underway with a further 5 authorities due to take part. A small group of auditors will be working together with
representatives from the Early Help Network and the Strategic Performance Network to work on developing the
core elements of an Early Help audit tool that will be available for authorities to use and develop for use in their
own area.
2. Principal Social Workers in the region had their second network meeting in May. A key purpose of this network is
to support the regional development of the PSW role and its impact on supporting frontline social work practice.
The Network will be meeting quarterly with a themed subject for each meeting; will share learning, experience
and academic research as well as supporting the specific priorities relating to practice identified in the
Improvement Plan. It will also have the overview of the Pride in Practice Learning Offer for the region, and this
programme has now been updated for 2014/15.
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3. Performance monitoring - there have been three Effective Use of Data workshops around the region, which
have attracted very positive feedback. There was also workshop on Reviewing and improving
performance management in Children’s Services on 21st May, with a presentation by a representative from the
Department for Education. This workshop looked at the wide range of performance and data management
arrangements, tools and guidance that the region can now benefit from as a result of the recently completed
Strategic Performance project, as well as innovative practice from LAs in region.
4. On May 21st there was an Early Help Commissioning workshop led by Research in Practice and attended by over
40 people, including Early Help leads and Strategic Commissioners from each LA, together with a good
representation from public health. The workshop looked at:
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the contribution that evidence-based programmes can make to addressing need and improving
outcomes;
the costs associated with implementing evidence-based programmes;
the systems and support required to implement evidence-based programmes with fidelity and as
part of a wider system of services for children and families.
5. Workforce Development – implementation of the Leadership and Workforce Development Plan is progressing,
with a particular focus on a development programme for social work team managers, which will include
contributions from the sector in the form of master classes and visits to services. The first meeting of the newly
formed Workforce Development Network also took place on May 20th, where terms of reference were
discussed, to include a role in supporting the development of the Plan.
6. Planning for the annual peer challenge of self-assessments for 2014/15 has begun. The challenge will take place
in October with review of the self-assessment framework taking place in July to support self-evaluation. Many
authorities in the region are using their self-assessments as part of their Annex A intelligence for Ofsted.
7. Ofsted - Birmingham’s recent Single Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services and Review of Local
Children’s Safeguarding Board was published on 23 May and the report can be found here
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/local-authorities/birmingham . Herefordshire have just finished their Single
Inspection by Ofsted and the report will be published at the end of June.
For more information please contact Carola Bennion, interim Children’s Programme Manager, email:
carola.bennion@beaconcandc.org
Adult Social Care
1. The West Midlands Adult Social Care Sector Led Improvement Board Chaired by Martin Reeves CEO Coventry
has been in operation for 12 months and at its May meeting reviewed the progress that has been made over the
last year.
2. All 14 councils have completed a regional ASC self-assessment which is used as the basis for our peer challenge
programme http://adasswm.com/sector-led-improvement/. The first 6 councils who have received a Peer
Challenge (Telford & Wrekin, Walsall, Worcestershire, Dudley, Stoke and Wolverhampton) during 2013/14
reflected on the progress that they had made in implementing the recommendations made in their challenges
and fed back specific improvements that have been implemented as a result. Individual Directors of Adult Social
Care have agreed to publish the recommendations made by the reviewing team on the West Midlands ADASS
website.
3. On 4th April we held a peer challenge summit at which all 14 councils shared their self-assessments and received
challenge from colleagues from within the region. The event was facilitated by Eddie Clarke who has been
delivering our peer challenge programme. http://adasswm.com/west-midlands-adass-challenge-workshop-4th3 West Mids SLI Bulletin published by Improvement & Efficiency West Midlands
april-2014/. Common themes for improvement identified at the summit have been incorporated into our
regional programme.
4. The peer challenges have all included experts by experiences who have contributed to the process by providing
a user perspective on the services being reviewed. Additionally lead ASC elected members have also been
participating in the reviews and this has provided a valuable insight into the governance and financial
management of the authority being reviewed.
5. A draft ‘performance of the region’ report has been produced reflecting the key performance and financial
challenges facing services in the region. It also identifies the priorities that the region is focussing on during
2014/15 and as part of our Improvement Plan.
6. We have developed a regional data set of agreed indicators that complement the national Adult Social Care
Outcomes Framework. Extensive benchmarking has been undertaken as part of the development of Better Care
Fund plans and the WM SLI Board has agreed to develop a matrix of risk triggers that will be agreed at the next
meeting in September.
7. The key strategic priorities for the Improvement plan are the focus on the implications and preparations
required to implement the Care Act, the Better Care Fund and its’ drive to integrate with health services and the
implications of ongoing financial pressures for ‘what good look looks like in a climate of austerity’.
8. The regional improvement programme has defied 10 thematic areas for improvement and has been
summarised as plan on a page www.adasswm.com/wm-adass-iewm-improvement-plan-2014-15/ The regional
improvement plan continues to link closely with the national TEASC programme which is currently being
refreshed to reflect the national focus on demonstrating the impact that SLI is having on adult services.
For further information about the programme contact Pete Jackson, Adult Social Care Programme Manager at
pjackson@westmidlandsiep.gov.uk
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