For its results to be truly effective and enduring, change at local authority level must be introduced gradually and its progress rigorously managed.
Regardless of how councils respond to government funding pressures, it’s critical to ensure that changes are clearly defined, resourced, executed and sustained if improved service user outcomes and cash savings are to be fully realised.
Councils are attempting to innovate as never before in response to funding challenges, both in their approach to service delivery and their methods of executing change.
According to a budget survey conducted by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), from adult social care budgets in England alone, annual savings of 20% - amounting to £2.6bn – will have been achieved by March 2014. Furthermore, on top of the £1.89bn savings achieved in the last two years, £795m is expected to be shaved from budgets in 2013/14.
Councils are making on average between 6% and 7% savings in adult social care, with most of those savings coming from demand management, prevention and unnecessary bureaucracy.
Inevitably, these savings result in significant change to current ways of working, but if handled well, not a diminution of outcomes. However, regardless of the initiative or the means of delivering it, there remain key characteristics that must be in place: a clear statement of the outcomes sought; the right people in place with the right level of expertise, time to deliver those outcomes; and accurate and timely reporting on the impacts of the changes made.
Of paramount importance is a clear statement of the outcomes sought, with leadership consistency at the forefront of that. Without a compelling reason why the change needs to occur, change is unlikely to happen or be sustainable.
It needs to be communicated in a way that motivates the listener. For example, a care worker is unlikely to respond to a plea to reduce any given overspend, and a service user is unlikely to support a change, the only stated aim of which is reducing the administrative burden on care mangers.
It needs to be communicated thoroughly - a briefing or e-mail will simply not suffice. Evidence shows that change needs to be communicated seven times and in seven ways to be heard and understood, and for it to have a chance of sustainability.
To make any successful change we have to know: full facts of the situation as it stands; what needs to be achieved in response; what has to be done to achieve that result. Finally, what we must ask is: did we achieve what we thought we would?
It is often difficult to collate data and detail in most organisations because it is not collected robustly or gathered in a common form or held centrally. Even if it is, it can be difficult to access and turn into useful information that can inform decision making. Often, the only concrete feedback on whether change has been successfully delivered is when budget out-turn reports are published and this is too late
Despite the time and effort required, it is always worthwhile investing in undertaking a proper business analysis in order to collate that data effectively.
Experience shows that most organisations underestimate the skills required to do this; it is not always easy to track costs and benefits. I maintain it must go without saying that, without this clarity in place to track initiatives through to improved user outcomes and cash savings, local authorities risk delivering programmes that fail to deliver the outcomes they desperately seek. Often the people who know the service best are not necessarily best place to carry out the analysis.
For local authorities, I believe that the key skill sets over the next few years will be programme and change management, business analysis, and communications. These are not business-as-usual skill sets in many local authority services and are especially difficult to justify in this time of austerity.
As a rule of thumb, making sustainable a change in referral behaviour across multiple teams of care managers often takes between six and nine months. It’s then a case of carefully nurturing and analysing design, communications, training, continuing behaviours, responses to emergent issues, and liaising with adjacent process owners.
It is often expected that this work will magically be completed by managers and team leaders without the time, training, or experience to deliver the impact sought. That is absolutely not the case. Local authorities must take care of the skills to achieve change, and change in turn will take care of itself.
Irene Lucas is senior advisor to Newton Europe.
