Niall McVicar
Children’s Trust Unit, Service Manager
City of York Council
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A little bit of history...
The age of austerity
Continuous improvement
◦ Quality
◦ Culture
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Your strategic triangle
◦ Identifying and taking opportunities
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Challenges
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Studied Physics at the University of York
I became manager of the Children’s
Information Service in 2005
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Okay service, not much continuous improvement
Parkinson’s law in action
Doing things we have always done
Lots of potential
Chair of the National Association of Family
Information Services since 2013
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National Childcare Strategy
A significant cultural shift in how government
viewed and interacted with childcare
Driven by a desire to:
◦ Remove barriers to families working
◦ Reduce child poverty
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Children’s Information Services formed
◦ National CIS strategy 2003-2006
◦ Aim to provide families with information about local
childcare
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Family Information Services formed
◦ Childcare Act 2006 – Duty 12
◦ Aim to provide
 Childcare information
 Any service which could help a parent in their role
Universal
Emerging
Complex
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The age of austerity has polarised the picture
of FIS across the UK.
Magnified the differences between areas.
What factors have caused this polarisation?
◦ Those that have been most successful:
 Were good quality
 Already had a well established culture of continuous
improvement
 Had good “buy in” locally
Outcomes
Awareness /
Collaboration
Quality
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What are we actually trying to achieve?
How will we know if we are being successful?
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Any enquirer who receives information from
us gets and evaluation form two weeks after
they have used us.
Open to positive and negative feedback.
I see all completed evaluations.
Longer term impact studies once every couple
of years.
◦ Looking at impact six to 18 months down the line.
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Measuring impact from the perspective of
practitioners.
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National Association of Family Information
Services – Families First Quality Award
Outcomes
User feedback
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Parents / carers
Partners
Managers
Councillors
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Clients know how LA information services can help them
Clients have the information they need to make informed and
realistic decisions about services available
Clients are enabled to access the service
FIS promote equality of opportunity, celebrate diversity and
challenge stereotypes
Information professionals understand their individual roles and
responsibilities
Staff providing IAG are appropriately trained and qualified and
participate in CPD
Services are planned, monitored, reviewed and evaluated and
actions taken to improve services and meet needs
Information is effectively managed and quality assured
FIS will encourage and guide those who may not otherwise
access services on their own
Partnership working is effective offering seamless and effective
support
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In 2005 I needed to establish a culture of
continuous improvement within the team.
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Participative management
Adaptive leadership
Self reflection
Sharing in our successes
Focussed on:
◦ Making processes as efficient as possible
◦ How to best deliver the outcomes we were aiming
for
◦ Telling our story
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Looking across other Family Information
Services.
◦ National Association of Family Information Services
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Community of practice
◦ NAFIS list
◦ NAFIS Conference
◦ Regional network
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Being open to working with others
collaboratively.
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No better example of the polarisation of FIS
than channel shift.
Principal is one everyone can agree on.
◦ Get people to use cheaper channels to access the
information.
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Universal versus “progressive universal”
Universal
Emerging
Complex
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Basic website information.
No real back up or additional support.
Fractured support from wider world of
children’s services.
No clear understanding of outcomes or how
these would be measured.
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YorOK website launched November 2007
Extensive engagement with range of potential
users
Continuous development lead by the service.
Integration of the website as a source of
information into other processes.
Backed up by information officers within the
service.
Information officer role developed into
projects development and specialism's.
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National project lead by the Family and
Childcare Trust.
Developing models of parent champion
volunteers.
Understood power of informal and formal
sources of information.
Brings those together to work in partnership.
Big improvement in access to information for
families.
Massive impact for volunteers.
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A number of FIS have made excellent use of
social media.
Initial use as a broadcast tool.
Developed further as a channel for families to
access the service.
◦ Greater uptake by dads.
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Virtual champions
◦ Existing parent led groups.
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“We need a directory of...”
Strong FIS had developed robust process and
infrastructure.
Potential to support wider agendas:
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Youth offer
Local offer
Community childcare hubs
Care act
Etc etc
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FIS sit on an incredible range of information.
Awareness amongst families still relatively
low.
Many partners want to make use of this data.
Publish it under and open government
license.
◦ Web service
◦ Widget
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Childcare Bill 2015 – Queen’s speech
Outcomes
Awareness /
Collaboration
Quality
Public Value
Proposition
Operational
Capability
Authorising
Environment
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“Government managers secure the resources
they need to operate not by selling products
and services to individual customers, but by
selling a story of public value creation to
elected representatives of the people in
legislatures and executive branch positions.”
Moore, Creating public value
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Our public value proposition was principally
set nationally but our authorising
environment is local.
Nationally
◦ Improve access to childcare
◦ Reduce child poverty
◦ An element of early help/intervention
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Locally?
◦ Doing it because they have to?
◦ Can key partners see the public value proposition?
◦ Can key partners see the possibility of creating
further public value?
Public Value
Proposition
Operational
Capability
Authorising
Environment
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Niall McVicar
◦ niall.mcvicar@york.gov.uk
◦ 01904 554440