Assembly Conference 2010: The Third Sector and the new Political Landscape

The main proposals within the bill are:

GP Consortiums

All primary care trusts (PCTs) will be abolished in April 2013 and will be replaced by a number of new consortiums of GPs. The GP consortiums will be responsible for spending around £80bn NHS funds on treatments for their patients. It is not known how many GP consortiums there will be, however they may have different boundaries to those of local authorities, or cover several local authority areas.

Commissioning

The GP consortiums will commission most but not all healthcare. They will be responsible to a new independent NHS Commissioning Board, which will itself commission some services, such as dentistry. The NHS Commissiong Board will hold GP consortia to account for the quality of health outcomes they help to produce and their financial performance, given they will be responsible for a substantial slice of all public spending.

Wellbeing

In order to promote greater democracy and accountability in the NHS, each local authority will have to set up a health and wellbeing board to oversee the quality of local services, present local people's views and draw up a health and wellbeing strategy for the area.

A new organisation called HealthWatch England, will provide advice to the NHS Commissioning Board, Monitor and the Secretary of State. It will also advise the Health and Social Care Information Centre of the information which would be of most use to patients to facilitate their choices about their care. Based on information from local HealthWatch organisations, HealthWatch England will also have powers to propose CQC investigations of poor services. At a local level, Local Involvement Networks (LINks) will become local HealthWatch organisations and will continue to ensure that the views and feedback from patients and carers are an integral part of local health and social care commissioning.

Local HealthWatch will be funded by and accountable to local authorities and will be involved in local authorities' new partnership functions. To reinforce local accountability, local authorities will be responsible for ensuring that local HealthWatch are operating effectively, and for putting in place better arrangements if they are not.

Local HealthWatch will also proide a source of intelligence for national HealthWatch and will be able to report concerns about the quality of providers, independently of the local authority.

Hospital Trusts

All hospital trusts will have to become semi-independent foundation trusts by 2014. About half of England's hospitals already have that status. Once all have become foundation trusts, they will compete for patients with each other. Part of that bidding to treat patients will involve "price competition" - the ability to charge less for an operation or course or treatment than the maximum NHS "tariff". It will be easier for hospitals to merge, or take over another which is nearby. The Office of Fair Trading will be able to refer any proposed merger or takeover to the Competition Commission if they feel it would create an unfair monopoly in any area.

You can track the bill's process in Parliament by visiting: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/healthandsocialcare.html     

The council are proposing a new offer that will aim to deliver efficiency and quality, building on the Department of Health’s “Vision for Adult Social Care”

The  new offer is based on the idea that the majority of people can use their own resources and skills to care for themselves and the community.

The new offer includes:

•  Access for everyone to information, advice and signposting
• Services that prevent people from needing care in the first place
• Individual budgets for people with low incomes/savings whose personal care needs are critical
• A more jointed up service with Health that keeps people out of care and helps them stay independent in their own homes
• Access for everyone to information, advice and signposting
• Services that prevent people from needing care in the first place
• Individual Budgets for people with low incomes/savings whose personal care needs are critical
• A more joined up service with Health that keeps people out of care and helps them stay independent in their own homes

The council proposes to use new funding from Health to develop a new model of care, rather than keeping the current one. The budget will be used to give communities and people more control – the new investment will be protected but it will be used to deliver change.

The new money will:

• Develop capacity so that the funding reductions can be managed by new approaches
• Invest in the community and third sector to support their greater role in providing care
• Deliver financial benefits for health and care by doing things very differently

The new offer is based on the following outcomes:

1) Quality of Life: to ensure the quality of life of all citizens -  today, tomorrow and always. This is a new offer for an existing outcome.

2) Health: to assure the health of citizens through a single approach to health and care and to meet the strategic ambitions of a world class city.

For more information about the consultation please visit: www.birmingham.gov.uk/socialcarevision

Assembly follow up: In February 2011, the Assembly's Health and Social Care network will host a meeting to discuss the consultation proposals in more detail, including the impact on and opportunities for the voluntary sector. More information about this meeting will be made available soon.

In the meantime: you can post your comments about the consultation on this blog post.

On Monday 22nd November, members from the Personalisation Sub Group met with Peter Hay. The aim of the meeting was to get an update on the implementation of personalisation across the city and to create a space for constructive dialogue between the voluntary sector and the city council through the Third Sector Assembly.

The following points were covered in the meeting:

• The "vision" for Personalisation in Birmingham
• Empowerment of service users
• Importance of the market place and how to invigorate the market
• Diversity and equality
• Quality standards and monitoring of services
• Support for smaller voluntary and community sector organisations to be involved in the market place
• Vulnerable groups and barriers to access
• Support for staff and service users
• Budget concerns
• Withdrawal of funding to voluntary and community sector organisations
• Advocacy support

The notes from the meeting can be downloaded from the Personalisation Sub Group section on this website.

Brought to you by GovNet, this conference will help you to understand and give you the chance to discuss:

• The Work Programme and the Government’s welfare reform agenda
• The latest strategies and initiatives to help move those who are unemployed into work
• The Universal Credit - ensuring that work pays
• The provision of skills from Universities, private and voluntary sector institutions and the role of the market in raising standards
• How to ensure those who are unemployed are getting the right skills training which will allow them to move into work, and will keep them motivated
• Skills for Sustainable Growth - Investing in to ensure the workforce has the skills the economy requires now and in the future
• Big Society - engaging community groups and working in partnership to increase employment
• The City of Lincoln Council’s Apprenticeship programme, and how this has developed the skills of its 16-24 workforce and increased employment among this age group
• And much more…

For further information about the conference and how to book, please visit: http://www.welfare-employment-skills-conference.co.uk/index.php

On Wednesday 8th September 2010, the Learning, Training and Employment Pathways Network met to discuss the Work Programme in terms of the national policy context and to explore how the voluntary sector can become more involved with the Programme.

What is the Work Programme?

The Work Programme will offer a single, personalised welfare-to-work programme for everyone. The programme will be contracted out and payments will be made on results.

The Work Programme sets out four "get Britain Working Measures":

• Work for yourself - offering access to buisness mentors; finanical support for 6 months for new business start ups
• Work Together - promoting volunteering opportunities
• Work Clubs - Community led organisations to support jobseekers return to work
• Youth Action for Work - increase in apprenticeships, additional Further Education college places and increase in University places

What does the Work Programme mean for the voluntary sector?

Whilst the voluntary sector is essentially financially excluded from being prime contractors, due to the amount of capital that the primes will be expected to have; the voluntary sector will have a role in supporting and engaging with the Work Programme.

The VCS need support to engage with the Work Programme, to understand the risks and opportunities, and to be capacity built to engage and enter the Work Programme as expert voices or delivery partners.

The VCS skills lie in representation, advocacy and the engagement of the disenfranchised and seldom-heard communities. How can the sector still bring those voices and experience to the table, and advocate for proper support and needs assessment and relevant outcomes and employment pathways for these groups?

The following opportunities for the voluntary sector were identified:

• The DWP Framework removes the costs of bidding
• Enhanced security over contract period
• Learning private sector business skills through mentoring
• Infrastructure for partnership, innovation and learning
• Enables focus on clients rather than contract management

The full report from the event, can be downloaded below.

The Learning, Training and Employment Network wants to hear from you!

Do you have any comments to make about the Work Programme? Do you think that there is an opportunity for the voluntary sector to get involved? Do you have any concerns about the Programme? If so, please post your comments on this blog. The Learning, Training and Employment Pathways Network will be keeping voluntary organisations up to date on the progress of the Work Programme.

Tamsila Tauqir works for the BVSC. She's the compact action advisor and chaired the discussion on Compact, which is the agreement the statutory sector and the voluntary community and faith sector. It deals with how the two sectors can work with each other.

Current consultation of the new Compact document, which will end on July 12.

Tamsila said the main points of the discussion were:-

• It's important that the document deals with the practical issues of working relationships between the statutory and third sector.
• Tamsila said that Birmingham case studies and national case studies will be used in the drawing up of the consutation of the new document.
• The national case studies will help to bring a wider perspective of best practice.

Lisa is the director for community regeneration for Castle Vale Community Regeneration Services. She chaired a group that discussed how the financial cuts and the new government are likely to affect children and young people.

The group spoke about the Future Jobs Fund, which is for young people who are unemployed and has been scrapped.

• They wondered what it would be replaced with, because there will be many jobless young people - in particular considering the likely cuts to the Department of Work and Pensions.
• They talked about where or when will organisations see the outcomes of the money spent through Brighter Futures, which is a strategy for young peoples' health.
• Spoke about the need for advocacy for family support.

The group also discussed collaboration - and what the third sector could bring to the table. They said:

• We need to be representative
• It is important to provide evidence of outcomes.

Yvonne Davies is the chief executive of the Birmingham Citizens Advice Bureau. She chaired the panel discussion on learning, training and employment pathways, as part of the World Cafe. As Yvonne points out in the interview, there were a number of issues that came out of the discussion, some coming from the new political and economic landscape, which are listed below:

• Stop the self-invented bureaucracy that is hampering the Working Neighbourhoods Fund and other interventions. Just let them work.
• Champions: It has to be an enabled role not just pandering to scrutiny.
• Soft outcomes: Remember them!
• There is not enough emphasis on informal/non-accredited training.
• Further education colleges are not the only provider of formal qualifications
• We can train people for work but there has to be a job for them.
• There should be a funding stream for work/job creation
• A focus on who is employed, targets for taking on harder to reach groups in to work, for example percentage of employed disabled people.
• How many young apprentices has Birmingham City Council  taken on?
• Invest in social enterprise - let them into the bidding process.

Yvonne also spoke about the implications of the morning's sessions - where the new political landscape and the cuts that we are all expecting were talked about.

While the World Cafe discussion groups were taking place Brian Carr, chief executive of BVSC, to talk about the conference and the events of the day.

Brian said that, while this was a period of great challenge for the third sector - with savings to be found - it was a also a period of great opportunity. Both Jackie Mould of Be Birmingham and Cllr Sue Anderson had spoken in detail about how they wanted to see much more co-operation between the third and public sectors and Brian agreed.

He also said that there may be considerable unease within the sector but that was to be expected. The important thing was to take advantage of those opportunities. Brian explained that collaboration was required in order to reserve services. In particular, he pointed out that the sector should be geared up to make the most of this new political landscape.

Cllr Sue Anderson is Birmingham City Council's cabinet member for adults and communities. She was at the assembly to talk about the changes in the local political landscape that had come about as a result of the recent elections on May 6.

Cllr Anderson, who represents Shenley Ward, explained how with much tighter budgets the future will be tough for both local government and the third sector.

• She committed to protecting frontline services wherever possible
• Promised a more consistent approach to the third sector
• Said that this was a period of uncertainty but the council had planned.
• She said they were looking at how they could make much better use of the resources they had, by opening buildings more often.
• She said that there were buildings that were 'awful'. 'We need to make better use of our buildings and we are introducing new buildings'.
• They are looking at how many managers are really needed.
• She said that 'hopefully not, but maybe in the future' people will be made redundant.
• She said that council staff feel vulnerable - not just the third sector - as a result of the budget constraints.
• But she said there was an opportunity. Now the council would have to look at all providers, not just the city council.
• The budget tightening means there will be some decommissioning. It was essential that money was spent 'very carefully'.

She made a few important points about the immediate future.

• There will be an emergency budget on June 22
• She said she was looking at savings, not cuts.
• It's key not to fill new positions straight away because of the uncertainty
• She didn't yet know what would come out of the changes in the national government
• She said she wanted to fight for the third sector, but 'we're all in this together'.