FAMILIES FIRST ST ANDREW’S – WRITTEN EVIDENCE (PSR0006)

Families First Response to the House of Lords Inquiry into the impact of the coronavirus crisis on public services  https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/157/public-services-lessons-from-coronavirus/

The relationship between central Government and local government, and national and local services

1. How well did central and local government, and national and local services, work together to coordinate public services during the outbreak? For example, how effectively have national and local agencies shared data?

Early on in lockdown we were asked what services we were delivering in our area by our local authority. We are a small local voluntary sector agency in receipt of a local authority grant and have a positive relationship with our local authority. 

2. Can you provide any examples of how public services worked effectively with a local community to meet the unique needs of the people in the area (i.e. taking a “place-based approach” to delivering services) during the Covid-19 outbreak?

No; I do know that various local authority departments were trying to respond to the crisis but cannot comment on how strategic this was.

3. Would local communities’ benefit from public services focusing on prevention, as opposed to prioritising harm mitigation? Were some local areas able to reduce harm during coronavirus by having prevention-focused public health strategies in place, for example on obesity, substance abuse or mental health?

I do think local communities would benefit more from an early intervention strategy. What is very hard to measure is how many people are prevented from engaging with statutory services through early intervention measures.

This approach needs a true commitment from all partners to respect and value the contribution all agencies can make. This would need all partners to be involved in the planning and development of local services in more than a tokenistic way.

Role of the private sector, charities, volunteers and community groups

4. What lessons might be learnt about the role of charities, volunteers and the community sector from the crisis? Can you provide examples of public services collaborating in new ways with the voluntary sector during lockdown? How could the sectors be better integrated into local systems going forward? –

Families First was able to be responsive immediately and continued to deliver our services in new and innovative ways. We observed all our health and safety and safeguarding procedures. We did not feel constricted by our policy and procedure; what we observed was local authority employees were interpreting their guidance in different ways. This held some people back from working in partnership with us. Very often our service users tell us how much easier it is to work with and engage with us.

We are a small team so were able to quickly share ideas together until we came up with a plan. We were able to connect with our local partners and networks to provide resources to help families survive and get the help they needed at a local level. We were able to monitor the wellbeing of our service users and get them the help they needed from local statutory agencies such as education and social work. From our experience it was not true collaboration but more signposting because of our local knowledge. As already stated above for genuine community participation to happen all partners need to be involved in the planning of local services as equals. Or, perhaps local authorities need to become a grant provider commissioning services to meet local need.

As a voluntary sector representative, it can sometimes feel confusing as to our place in the system. For example, our local authority wants voluntary sector opinion and representation on most committees but it feels tokenistic. I want to make clear that I am talking from my own organisational experience and that our local Third Sector Interface may have a different experience of collaboration with the local authority.

Our local authority has established Local Improvement Networks, of which I am a member, and these could be the key to more integrated services. I don’t think we are there yet as I am not clear as to the purpose of the group. On the other hand, it is probably down to me to put forward some suggestions.

5. How effectively has the Government worked with the private sector to ensure services have continued to operate during the Covid-19 outbreak?

I do think that the government did the best they could at the time with the knowledge they had to hand. But I do wonder if in providing an immediate crisis response has the long-term future planning been compromised.

Our experience has been a mixture of delivering excellent service and meeting local need with a real worry for the future of our organisation. As a small voluntary sector organisation, we are very used to careful budget planning and efficiency savings. This financial year we were in the unusual position of being financially confident for the year to come and I was focusing my fundraising attentions on 2021 and beyond.

This changed in 4 ways for us when the crisis took hold:

• We were not in a position to apply for any crisis funding as we were financially stable for the year. We did not meet the criteria for these funding opportunities as we were not at risk of closure.
• Most major trusts and grants have paused their normal grant giving process to respond to the immediate crisis.
• Most major trusts and grants are not generating as much income this year as they receive less donations due to the public income reducing. We can reliably predict that there will be even more demand on these grant providers going forward as did happen when local authorities started to cut budgets.
• All local fundraising events have understandably stopped but we rely on this income, with confidence, every year.

We now find ourselves in a position of going from feeling financially confident for the year to worrying whether we may face closure by December if we cannot generate more income.

11 June 2020