The developing Leicestershire Together Integrated Commissioning process 7 September 2011

1. The developing Leicestershire Together Integrated Commissioning process 7 September 2011

2. Programme overview • Task is to take the LT vision to reality • But the reality is that achieving the vision across all public services in Leicestershire is ambitious, certainly in the short term • We are creating a road map for the LT work: • Partly a vision of where we would like to be and what good looks like • Partly a process aimed to get us there • Partly a detailed focus on areas where we can showcase a difference in the short term • We’re working up a document to set out the basics and would welcome your agreement to the fundamentals of the process: draft plans by the end of the year; clarity about priority relationships and interaction; final plan by the new financial year • But equally important is that we will use the document to highlight examples of what success looks like within Leicestershire • We are relying on your permission to nudge partnership working in the right direction: this is a new way of working, not command and control

3. A new process with 3 simple steps • Partnerships will set out their collective objectives and plans to achieve them: • Draft commissioning plans from themes/specialists/ localities by end of December • Identify and communicate with (c.5) priority relationships across other LT groups • Finalise commissioning plans and supporting action plans by the start of the new financial year in 2012

4. Commissioning plans with 5 common features • LT will press for plans to include: • Measurable objectives and outcomes • Highlight priority relationships across Leicestershire Together partnership and an explanation of how this has impacted on plans • Clarity about a) what the board will practically do themselves to achieve these objectives, b) what they will commission from external providers, and c) what they will ask other boards within the partnership to tackle on their behalf. • Identify areas where more commissioning is possible now and in the future • How they will measure performance and learn how to improve in the future. • At the heart of the new process is the production of commissioning plans from each of the Leicestershire Together boards. • Simple and transparent documents that enable boards to be clear with each other about what they are doing and how they are doing it • Not glossy brochures • Based on existing organisational planning • Each board will want to do this in their own way, to reflect their own needs and relationships to others

5. Championing a new way of working • Principles underpinning these plans to drive better outcomes and cost-effectiveness: • Going the extra mile to tackle the problems of other partners • Moving faster towards the collective commissioning of services • Tackle the root cause of stubborn problems • Use partnerships to make hard decisions • Doing right thing at the right level • Take ownership to make the process work • What it is not • Not about rejecting what has come before • Not a top-down service reorganisation • Not one size fits all • Not about the process • Not about ‘County Council take-over’ • Not about pooling budgets without a specific justification • Not about a transfer of accountability We will champion good examples of working in the ‘LT way’ We may challenge where we believe better progress is possible We cannot police this through a tick box exercise

6. Suggested self-checklist for Boards (1) • Are you developing a commissioning plan in time for the new financial year in 2012? • Have you planned sufficient time into your deadlines to review your draft plan yourselves and seek the views of others? • Are you focussing on the mainstream services run from the organisations within your group, not just ‘additional’ grants? • Are you clear about your board’s aims and measurable objectives? • Are you clear how your plan helps meet the outcomes set out in the LT Sustainable Communities Strategy? • Have you identified whether there are any conflicting objectives within the partnership or across to other partnerships? • Have you used evidence from different sources to analyse the fundamental problems you are seeking to overcome? • How will you move from providing expensive acute services towards tackling the root cause of the challenges you face? • Are you doing the right thing at the right level? • How has your plan changed to embrace views and capabilities exercised at both County and District level?

7. Suggested self-checklist for Boards (2) • Have you set out your partnership’s c.5 priority relationships and are you clear where others have identified you in their priority relationships? • How will you engage with these priority partners over the next 6 months in the development of your plans? • Are you clear where you will directly commission solutions? • Have you discussed with new potential delivery partners from the voluntary and private sectors what could be possible in designing and commissioning services? • How will you know whether you made a difference and how you will improve in future? • Are there critical pieces of research that we can put in place now to better know in the future what difference our efforts really made? • How will you communicate your work? • Do you know how to keep others informed about what you are going to do, both within your board, across your priority relationships and staff in your individual organisations?