Written evidence submitted by Bridges Outcomes Partnerships (TH0028)

Evidence to PAC on homelessness

Homelessness is driven by a range of complex, intersecting factors, yet too often government’s approach has been to seek to ‘solve’ homelessness through departmental siloes. Those at risk of homelessness often face the same easily identifiable risk factors and helping someone maintain accommodation results in better outcomes and better value than crisis interventions, yet few Local Authorities (LAs) are able invest in preventative services because of short-term funding settlements and annualised budget restrictions

Achieving better outcomes for individuals and communities, and better value for the taxpayer, is possible but it requires a significantly different approach to the design, funding and delivery of support services for those at risk of and experiencing homelessness.

What works

How to deliver it

Three key shifts in the design and delivery of services tackling homelessness can help implement the above changes:

  1. Liberate front-line teams:  from controlling inputs to focussing on shared outcomes.
  2. Invest in prevention:  from rigid, annual budgets to flexible, long-term funding.
  3. Effective partnering between central and local government: from siloed, competitive pots to holistic, strategic co-commissioning.

These shifts don’t require additional funding. All they require is a change in approach to achieve much smarter spending and better outcomes.

 

  1. Liberate front-line teams:  from controlling inputs to focussing on shared outcomes

Today’s complex societal problems don’t fit neatly into policy siloes. Focusing on immediate needs and tackling problems in isolation means we treat symptoms, not underlying causes, so problems recur. This is well evidenced in the number of entrenched rough sleepers who have been through multiple cycles of government support, often since childhood.   

Greater personalisation and strengths-based approaches are needed for people to make meaningful, sustainable changes in their lives – addressing the root causes of their homelessness. Yet we typically contract services with tightly defined specifications of inputs and activities which can effectively inhibit personalisation and delivery innovation.

Instead, commissioning should focus on outcomes and shared goals. We should trust front-line teams to exercise their judgement and do what is best for the individual in front of them, rather than demand strict adherence to a service specification. This freedom is essential for relational working, and in our experience, also leads to more fulfilling roles and higher staff retention.

In practice:

The Greater Manchester Homes Partnership (GMHP)

The Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership (KBOP)

 

  1.                 Invest in prevention:  from rigid, annual budgets to flexible, long-term funding

The current system is too rigid and short-term. The government’s commitment to issuing block grants for Combined Authorities (CA) and three-year settlements for Local Authorities is a necessary but far from sufficient reform. Council budgets are strictly annualised, and there is little flexibility. This works against preventative services, which typically require several years to innovate and trial different approaches. Currently, homelessness services often need to be recommissioned annually, with huge administrative burdens and human resource challenges for both commissioner and delivery partner. This can force a focus on shorter-term activities for reporting within the year instead of long-term, meaningful outcomes.

Instead, we could provide certainty through multi-year budgets and allow flexibility across financial years so LAs can commission services for longer, improving efficacy and efficiency. Commissioning services for longer would allow for greater innovation and enable truly transformational change.

In practice:

The Greater Manchester Better Outcomes Partnership (GMBOP)

 

  1.                 Effective partnering between central and local government: from siloed, competitive pots to holistic, strategic co-commissioning

People experiencing homelessness typically have multi-faceted and complex challenges that do not fit squarely into any department’s (or local government’s) priority spending areas e.g. physical and mental health services, criminal justice, education and children’s services (so many are care leavers / care experienced) as well as housing – each has an important part to play, but they must be truly aligned in order to be effective.  The current siloed system can create uncertainty and additional bureaucracy for delivery teams, and result in sub-optimal services designed around individual aspects of multi-faceted problems.

Instead, we should be pooling budgets to more effectively tackle challenges in a strategic and holistic way, recognising that in tackling homelessness benefits accrue to multiple parts and levels of government. Co-commissioning mechanisms can support more coordination across government and strategic partnering with LAs than the inefficient ring-fencing of small pots of funding or defaulting to burdensome competitive bidding. The Life Chances Fund and Shared Outcomes Fund are examples of how this can be done; we should learn the lessons from these funding innovations and apply them to society’s wicked problems such as homelessness.

In practice:

The Refugee Better Outcomes Partnership (RBOP)

The Single Homelessness Prevention Service (SHPS)

-          SHPS is a distinctive and highly effective service which enables people at risk of homelessness to access accommodation and make progress in their lives to sustain this accommodation and avoid future homelessness. It has achieved such impressive results because of the radical collaboration between central and local government, local landlords and delivery partners enabled by the Social Outcomes Partnership approach and the co-commissioning of the Life Chances Fund. 

-          By supporting tenancy sustainment and facilitating access to housing in the private rented sector, SHPS has helped over 10,800 people in London and Norfolk avoid homelessness. This service has saved LAs £12.1 million by reducing associated costs. Delivered via an outcomes partnership, SHPS improves outcomes for people at risk of homelessness, whilst also driving innovation in service design and delivery, empowering service users and staff, and increasing accountability within the contract process. As described by one commissioner, SHPS represents a ‘unique selling proposition’.

-          A recent evaluation[4] of this service by Homeless Link found that:

-          SHPS’s outcomes contract model is more effective than conventional commissioning. Its intrinsic target focus drives partnership development and an assertive approach by staff to maintaining engagement and encouraging progress with service users. Both of these lead to better client outcomes.

-          SHPS promotes a flexible service delivery approach which makes it more responsive to local authorities’ operating context and enables frontline services to tailor responses to meet changing needs.

-          SHPS frees up capacity for local authority staff to focus on family and other homelessness, thus achieving savings for housing and adult social care services.

-          The support offered to landlords, including protection insurance and tenancy support, has encouraged their initial engagement with SHPS, enhances the service.

-          The eight months’ tenancy support offered by SHPS is instrumental in significantly reducing repeat homelessness – giving tenants sufficient time to build formal and informal support networks and develop self-sufficiency.

-          The holistic and trauma-informed nature of support enhances its impact. SHPS’s strong focus on employment support improves opportunities to access and sustain accommodation in the private rented sector.

Conclusion

There is a broad consensus on what is needed to support meaningful, lasting change in the lives of people experiencing and at risk of homelessness, and that the traditional model of public service delivery is not fit for this purpose. Our experience of tackling homelessness and other wicked social challenges is that aligning funding to meaning, long-term outcomes is a powerful tool for creating more effective services.


About Bridges Outcomes Partnerships

Bridges Outcomes Partnerships (BOP) is a not-for-profit social enterprise that brings together partnerships of expert community-based organisations to design and deliver impactful services on behalf of government in vital areas like employment & skills, housing, education and wellbeing, and support for vulnerable women and children.

Since 2012, we have designed and delivered 69 social outcomes contracts, helping 60,516 people in the UK, achieving £175m worth of outcomes-based payments. Independent analysis by ATQ estimates that every £1 invested in social outcomes partnerships in the UK creates £8.31 of social value including £2.35 in direct fiscal savings to government[5].

About our Model

The traditional input-based model for public service delivery, despite its strengths, is failing to improve the lives of vulnerable people and is achieving poor value for public money. Achieving better outcomes for these individuals is possible, but it requires us to think about service design and delivery in a different way. 

Outcomes contracting provides a compelling alternative to rigidity and lack of innovation inherent in fixed specification contracts. Instead, services are personalised, constantly evolving and improving. Local teams are given the freedom to tailor solutions to individual circumstances, and the training and capability to collect and analyse impact data dynamically to continuously improve the program. In outcomes partnerships, the Government or Local Authority contracts for positive long-term outcomes, radically transforming service provision.  Outcomes-based models can:

-          Enable greater innovation and collaboration, harnessing community power.

-          Empower front-line experts to deliver more flexible, creative, and tailored services to achieve more impactful outcomes for individuals.

-          Ensure clearer accountability because services are evaluated against tangible, human metrics, not short-term, activity or output KPIs so common in standard fee-for-service or payment by results contracts.

Social outcomes partnerships are particularly effective where innovation is required in design (because the evidence base of what works is poor), or in delivery (where promising services exist but underperform their potential). This approach, therefore, is more impactful, and achieves better outcomes for participants and commissioners. By crowding in other sources of funding and only paying for what works, this model results in much better value. Outcomes partnerships are grounded in quantifiable metrics and because of the adaptive management and learning as well as focus on long-term person-centred outcomes, such partnerships provide much better data.

November 2024


[1] https://bridgesoutcomespartnerships.org/work/adults/helping-people-sleeping-rough/greater-manchester-rough-sleeping/

[2] https://www.kirkleesbetteroutcomespartnership.org/

[3] https://bridgesoutcomespartnerships.org/work/adults/health-wellbeing-independence/gm-better-outcomes-partnership/

[4]file:///C:/Users/GraceDuffy/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/J1P4Y7TI/SHPS%20Evaluation_Homeless%20Link_July2024.pdf

[5] https://www.atqconsultants.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/VF-SOC-Social-value-report-update.pdf