A big focus for the new government and public service commissioners is to work out how to deliver on the promises of the Big Society and localism, whilst making efficiency savings. Of the thousands of services that exist, which ones can continue to deliver real impact?
Service providers will be challenged to prove their worth and provide evidence of performance and impact.
Service providers will be trying to position their work in a new policy environment and a climate of financial austerity while facing rising demand. How can you demonstrate that your organisation can help meet the challenge? Visit our new Coalition Government Priorities webpage to keep up to date with new policy priorities.
Key questions that commissioners will need to ask about service providers include the following.
• Can the organisation explain clearly what it does, the problems it addresses, its activities, the outcomes and objectives it can measure and what success will look like?
• Do the interventions it delivers create greater public benefit or value (for example is the service preventative or does it target people who are otherwise hard to reach)?
• Does the organisation have direct evidence of it's impact?
• Does the organisation have a results based culture, involving planning, data collection, monitoring and continuous improvement?
• Has a cost-benefits analysis been carried out?
This webpage provides links to resources which can help service providers and commissioners prepare for and answer these questions.
We are pleased to be able to provide the headline performance figures for home improvement agencies (HIAs) for 2009/2010. These figures are based on information from 146 HIAs, providing services into 207 local authority areas.
This year's figures show a continuing increase in handyperson services. HIAs are reporting a similar number of Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) works and a slight decline in other works, but with an increase in the total value of these works.
Download the full report here, or use the links in the right hand column.
