UPDATE NO 225 09 December 2016

SEND Data Benchmarking

The Data Benchmarking group has published the RESTRICTED CIRCULATION benchmarking data for SEND activity. This report is based on the SEN2 data supplied as at 6 October.

The report is published on RESTRICTED CIRCULATION in line with our data sharing protocol as it contains some unaudited data, and small number data which would be suppressed in public circulation documents. For access to the data, please contact your South East Data Benchmarking Group rep, or Alastair Lee (contact details below).

Data Benchmarking Group

The RESTRICTED CIRCULATION Social Care data benchmarking report for 2016-17 Q2 has been published.

As with the SEND report mentioned elsewhere, this report has RESTRICTED CIRCULATION in line with our agreed Data Sharing Protocols.

Schools that work for everyone – ADCS submission

A copy of the ADCS response to the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation (which closes on 12 December) is available here

The response was coordinated by Katy Block, Policy Officer, Association of Directors of Children’s Services. Please address any enquiries to her.

Leadership Development

This week saw the end of the Step up to Leadership course delivery in Surrey.

We continue to offer our successful portfolio of Leadership Development Courses all of which have been positively evaluated by delegates.

We are offering LAs the opportunity to train their own trainers for all our courses. Our aim is to increase the capacity and capability across the region  to ensure future sustainability within LAs. Courses can also be delivered with adult services and/or for schools. Please contact Di Smith, details below, if this is of interest to you. 

All courses are run in-house in the LA who provides the venue. Each course is accompanied by a range of training resources for the delegates including a comprehensive handbook. The current courses on offer are as follows and details of each course and the costs for each can be found by downloading the April 2016 Leadership Development Prospectus. 

Coaching to Improve Performance

Embedding a Coaching Culture

Leading Change in Times of Austerity

Step Up to Leadership   

We can also arrange one-to-one coaching, especially to support newly appointed 2nd and 3rd tier managers

If you require further details or wish to book a course please get in touch with Di Smith (contact details below)

LGA Behavioural Insights Programme – phase 2

Heather Wills of LGA writes:

I wanted to make you aware of a new support programme LGA is launching to develop the use of behavioural insights in service redesign – while we are not specifying the service areas applications should cover, we are looking for projects that aim to manage demand in overstretched services. 

We are now launching phase 2 of the behavioural insights programme, with the LGA offering contributory funding towards up to 5 more behavioural insights pilot projects.  We are willing to contribute £20,000 per project and therefore this offer would suit councils already using this approach in their area that are willing to contribute financial as well as personnel resources towards the delivery of the work.  There is a pro forma to complete with an introduction and specification. 

Do please let me know if you have any queries

heather.wills@local.gov.uk 07770 701188

Principal Adviser London, South East (Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Kent, West Sussex)

We piloted this programme last year in the fields of adult social care, public health and education and skills in Leeds, Liverpool and Lincolnshire respectively – the pilots are ongoing, but in case it’s helpful, some more information about them is below:

• Liverpool (public health): The focus is on reducing sugar consumption to improve health outcomes. It is testing whether displaying sugar content of different fizzy drinks using a Red, Amber, Green system at the point of sale has an impact on sales.
• Lincolnshire (skills and enterprise): The focus is on how to motivate employers (particularly SMEs) to encourage their staff to attend skills and training. Improving skills helps to gain and keep higher wage employment, in turn improving health outcomes and reducing demands on services. There are two trials exploring how to improve communications sent out to employers about training and development for their staff.
• Leeds (adult social care): The focus is on improving efficiency and outcomes during initial contact with adult social care services. The two core aims are: to reduce the 22% of referrals for assessment that do not lead to an uptake of social care support; and to help establish strength based approaches to social care It is trialling a new questions for contact centre operators.