PeopleToo Partnership Helps Councils Use CareCubed

CareCubed customers can now access specialist consultancy through iESE’s partner Peopletoo to help them maximise the benefits of CareCubed and ensure it is embedded into processes.

iESE has further strengthened the implementation package offered to customers by including specialist consultancy support from its partner Peopletoo. This is available to new and existing customers and is aimed at helping CareCubed clients honestly appraise their current commissioning environment, drive transparency and value for money, as well as analyse CareCubed data to assist with future strategic planning. It will also help provide assurance around the delivery of health and wellbeing outcomes for individuals.

Once new customers are onboard, they complete a self-assessment matrix which aims to get them to reflect on how effective their commissioning and contract management is currently. This is designed to help them appraise areas such as how well the market is working for them and how well current processes are supporting commissioners. Using the service’s open package data, Peopletoo collate a baseline position that provides a measurement to assess the effectiveness of implementing CareCubed and also gives valuable insight as to the current challenges and opportunities in commissioning.

Peopletoo present the baseline and analysis supported by the self-assessment back to the local authority and collectively work with the service to agree key actions and activities and identify where consultancy support could be used to work on the priorities highlighted and deliver some quick wins. As a real-life examples, some councils we are currently supporting have identified the following as priority areas of focus:

Development of key strategic partnerships where councils commission with a high volume of providers across a broad range of costs.
Hands-on support for commissioners and contract managers to upskill teams in relation to provider engagement, provider management and negotiation.
Market sustainability and sufficiency and undertaking collaborative planning for the future together with their partners, including the provider market.

Maggie Kenney, Chief Executive at Peopletoo, said the new implementation package provided worked best when clients are honest and when senior stakeholders are involved. “It is all about maximising the benefits of CareCubed and looking at it in the context of the strategic commissioning cycle. It is a very complex market in both adults and children’s social care right now but for different reasons, and therefore being able to use the rich information coming out of a system like CareCubed is really important,” she explained. “This is a real opportunity to forensically analyse what commissioning is currently delivering for the service and take some of the learning and experience from an external viewpoint. It is an opportunity to look at how commissioning functions and where the focus should be. When you have finite resources, you end up having to be quite reactive and therefore you could be focusing your resources on something that isn’t giving you the maximum benefit.”

Having already taken several new clients through the process, Kenney said it has been revealed that many local authorities are using a large number of providers in quite a reactive way, which is making it more difficult to build strategic relationships. “Quite often the service does not analyse this data and therefore they don’t realise how many providers they are using and the different rates they are securing. We are quite often seeing figures like 60 providers for 80 placements, for example. When you start to analyze that data, you can see the providers you want to work with where outcomes are strong and value for money is greater. A local authority might not currently know whether a particular provider is offering value for money. From the baseline data we would be able to work out who is potentially providing value for money and good outcomes consistently and then drill down to see how they are doing that. Is it that their profit is lower or is it that their operational costs are lower? Then you can start to have a conversation where you say we want to work with you more and how can we encourage and enable that,” Kenney added. This might be through a range of measures, including joint ventures and capital investment, for example. The new add-on consultancy package has been well received by local authorities and Peopletoo is encouraged to see the benefit it is adding to iESE clients. “Whilst CareCubed will drive greater transparency and improve value for money, local authorities can potentially gain so much more from its implementation with our help to use it as a key source in building a robust and informed commissioning cycle,” she concluded.

About PeopleToo

Peopletoo is a consultancy which works with public organisations across the UK to transform services. Founded in 2009, Peopletoo builds on the long-term experience and skills developed by the management team throughout extensive careers in both the public and private sector.

The consultancy has delivered several hundred transformation programmes, working with more than 120 local authorities to identify and deliver sustainable change.

The company’s values are truly aligned with iESE’s, making it a strong and exciting partnership. While traditional consultancies often frontload resources at significant cost, with the risk that the transformation and change is not owned or delivery maximised when they leave, Peopletoo prides itself on delivering sustainable and affordable transformation.

Find out more about PeopleToo by clicking here.

To find out more about how your organisation can benefit from consultancy with Peopletoo contact: craig.white@iese.org.uk