Case studies: implementing outcomes based accountability in

Local Government Education and Children's Services Research Programme

implementing outcomes basedaccountability in children’s services

case studies

Authors of the case studies:Caroline BergeronTamsin ChamberlainNalia GeorgeSarah GoldenEllie MundyClare SouthcottFiona Walker

Published in July 2010by the National Foundation for Educational Research,The Mere, Upton Park, Slough, Berkshire SL1 2DQwww.nfer.ac.uk

© National Foundation for Educational Research 2010Registered Charity No. 313392

Introduction

Outcomes Based Accountability (OBA) is an approachthat Children’s Trusts and Children’s Services can use toassist with planning services and assessing theirperformance. The OBA approach focuses on outcomesthat are desired and monitoring and evidencingprogress towards those desired outcomes. OBA makesa distinction between two types of accountability:

• population accountability, which is about improvingoutcomes for a particular population within a definedgeographical area

• performance accountability, which is about theperformance of a service and improving outcomes fora defined group of service users.

Using the OBA approach entails the use of a Turningthe Curve exercise. This involves identifying the desiredoutcome, projecting what would happen over time ifnothing changed, and then planning changes whichwill lead to improved outcomes or ‘turned curves’ thatmove away from the initial projection. A second keyfeature of OBA is the use of performance managementcategories which distinguish between ‘How much didwe do?’, ‘How well did we do it?’ and, the mostimportant category, ‘Is anyone better off?’

This report presents nine case studies which each focuson using OBA in Children’s Services.

• Case study 1 focuses on using OBA to assist withdeveloping the Children and Young People’s Plan(CYPP) and to develop further parenting services andextended schools.

• Case study 2 focuses on applying the OBA approachto performance monitoring of all contracts across the

spectrum of Children and Young People’s Servicesincluding, for example, mental health services andimproving accessibility to leisure and positiveactivities.

• Case study 3 focuses on using OBA to review theCYPP and in relation to specific performanceindicators, such as first-time entrants into the criminaljustice system.

• Case study 4 focuses on the Children’s Trust’s use ofOBA to support the monitoring of a locality-basedproject.

• Case study 5 focuses on how OBA has been used bythe Business and Commissioning Team to improvethe performance of services, and subsequently thelives of children and young people.

• Case study 6 focuses on the OBA approach from aregional perspective involving work withneighbouring authorities, and more locally on usingOBA to reduce under-18 conception rates.

• Case study 7 focuses on how the OBA approach hasbeen used to develop the CYPP, where it wasintroduced to ensure that the priority areas in theCYPP were more outcomes-focused.

• Case study 8 focuses on how OBA was used in ‘hot-spot’ wards where there were long-standing issuesrelated to high rates of teenage conceptions.

• Case study 9 focuses on the use of OBA to improveschool attendance, alongside its use across theChildren’s Trust to address smoking, obesity andunder-age conception rates.

implementing outcomes-based accountability in children’s services: case studies 1

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Summary

This case study is based on the informationprovided to NFER through interviews with two localauthority (LA) staff from a London Borough Counciland background documentation supplied. Bothinterviews focused on how the OBA approach wasused to assist with developing the Children andYoung People’s Plan (CYPP). The second interviewalso covered wider issues relating to using OBA todevelop further parenting services and extendedschools. This case study demonstrates how the OBAapproach can contribute to the development of aCYPP that focuses more closely on outcomes andensures the Children’s Trust is able to evidence theimpact on outcomes.

Key learning

OBA can be used by Children’s Trusts as a jointplanning tool when developing their CYPP.Implementation can be supported by:

• starting gradually – select a service area tofocus on, such as extended services, and thenmove into other service areas

• having experienced OBA mentors – whocan introduce the approach to others andsupport implementation

• having the support of senior managers– for example involving staff at Director andDeputy Director level in workshops so theyunderstand the principles of OBA and can seethe potential benefits of using this approach

• tailoring the OBA approach as required– rather than using it too rigidly.

Who was involved?

The Knowledge Management team led ondevelopment of the CYPP. Key heads of service,including the Head of the Knowledge Management

team, Deputy Directors and the leadership team,have been taking forward the OBA approach withinChildren’s Services. The Children’s Trust ExecutiveBoard agreed to the OBA approach being used forthe development of the CYPP, and Board membersattended the OBA training and workshops.

Many partner agencies involved in the Children’sTrust also attended OBA workshops including thepolice, the health sector, housing associations,voluntary organisations and schools. Parents andchildren and young people also attended someOBA workshops.

How was OBA used?

The LA needed to revise their CYPP for 2009–11.They decided to use OBA to make their CYPP more‘alive’ and meaningful for children and youngpeople and for the professionals who would beworking to deliver it. The LA also wanted to beable to evidence impact on the Every Child Matters(ECM) outcomes for inspections, including theComprehensive Area Assessment.

In 2008, a needs analysis was carried out toidentify the key issues and outcomes which neededimproving. In early February 2009, the Children’sTrust organised nine Turning the Curve workshopson the key issues including teenage pregnancy,parenting support, obesity and early years services.Children’s Trust partners were invited to attend theworkshops. The workshops started by identifyingthe outcome and the data available. Attendeeswere then given ‘the opportunity to share all of ourinformation and all of our knowledge about theissue’. ‘Low cost, no cost’ and ‘off the wall’solutions were brainstormed ‘to get some freshthinking and innovation into the thought process’.Bringing together different perspectives was verybeneficial as it enabled agencies to consider arange of approaches and options. For example,ideas put forward by representatives from thehealth sector on teenage pregnancy and obesityhad not previously been considered by LA staff.

2 implementing outcomes-based accountability in children’s services: case studies

The use of OBA in Children’s Services: Case Study 1

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When drafting the revised CYPP, the ideasdeveloped in the Turning the Curve workshops wereincluded, including the low cost or no cost ideaswhich OBA encourages. The LA tried to use theOBA approach to focus the CYPP on outcomesrather than on processes. In addition to the OBAapproach being used to develop the overall CYPP,specific teams within Children’s Services used OBAto monitor performance within their service areas.

• Extended services use OBA to monitor theperformance of their services in terms ofquantity and quality. This informs thecommissioning process. For example, in schoolsthe quantity measures include the number ofchildren attending an out-of-school club andthe number of sessions attended, and thequality measures include improved schoolattendance.

• Extended services have used OBA to developtheir parenting strategy by conducting a Turningthe Curve workshop with key partners. Thefocus was on the outcome of parents beingconfident and having a positive relationshipwith their children. A performance managementframework based on the OBA model has beendeveloped to monitor the success of the service.

• The Local Safeguarding Children’s Boardused the OBA methodology to assist withensuring their annual plan had more of anoutcomes focus and to strive to identifyappropriate outcomes relating to safeguarding.Report cards are one element of this andofficers are working to identify outcomes toinclude in the report card rather than processmeasures but this has proved difficult to achieve(report cards set out plans to improve outcomeswith indicators that can be used to monitorprogress).

The barriers and challenges when implementingOBA identified by interviewees included:

• the approach not being embeddedacross the Children’s Trust as a wholebut led by Children’s Services which is anagency (the LA) within the Children’s Trust.

Although Children’s Trust partners wereinvolved in OBA through, for example, theTurning the Curve workshops, it was felt thatgreater engagement of strategic managersacross the whole Children’s Trust may havehelped embed the use of OBA more widely.One interviewee felt that OBA could becomemore embedded by offering more training andevaluating the impact of using OBA anddisseminating learning more widely

• lack of time and capacity to involve all ofthose required within the Children’s Trust,particularly in the Turning the Curve workshops

• managing change: Embedding the processof OBA requires managing a process ofchange from a focus on processes to a focuson outcomes. One interviewee felt that havingan OBA champion could contribute toovercoming this.

Impact

OBA has enabled Children’s Trust partners to focuson outcomes when developing their CYPP priorities.OBA has also enabled the extended services teamto have a stronger focus on outcomes whenmonitoring the performance of services. As a resultsome services which were not delivering goodenough outcomes are no longer funded.

Interviewees felt it is perhaps too soon to assessthe impact that using the OBA approach has hadon outcomes for children and young people.However, the gap between the mostdisadvantaged young children and other youngchildren in the Early Years Foundation StageProfile (NI 92) has narrowed in 2009.

Next steps

The LA intends to evaluate the impact of OBA. Oneinterviewee reflected that OBA could also be usedwithin the LA for ‘tough decision making’ whenpreparing for anticipated future budget cuts. If thereis less funding available, OBA could help determinewhat to focus on, and where to prioritise futurespending so as to achieve desired outcomes.


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Summary

This case study is based on the informationprovided to the NFER through interviews withtwo local authority (LA) staff from a CountyCouncil in the South East of England and onbackground documentation they supplied. Bothinterviews focused on applying the OBA approachto performance monitoring of all contracts acrossthe spectrum of Children and Young People’sServices including, for example, mental healthservices and improving accessibility to leisure andpositive activities.

Key learning

OBA can be used as a framework forcommissioning and contract monitoring.Implementation can be supported by:

• using the OBA performance grid to distinguishbetween indicators which focus on ‘Howmuch do you do?’, ‘How well do you do it?’,‘Is anyone better off?’

• using action learning sets facilitated by anexternal consultant, which was a particularlyuseful way of ‘honing in my thinking about itthat I couldn’t have done just by reading abook … or using a tool kit’

• including all relevant parties – ‘It might be abit time consuming but it will result in muchsmoother working.’

Who was involved?

The Children and Young People’s Trust (CYPT)Board support the use of OBA and agreed to thecommissioning strategy across Children’sServices and the Primary Care Trust whichembodied the OBA approach. The divisionaldirector for commissioning and the joint

commissioning divisional manager in theChildren’s Services directorate have taken thelead on driving forward the OBA approach. Theyboth attended team meetings across thedifferent service areas to discuss the reasons forusing OBA and to highlight the potentialbenefits. In turn, operations managers whoreport to the divisional manager use the OBAapproach in procurement.

How was OBA used?

Approximately two-and-a-half years ago (in2007), the LA decided to start using OBA for theperformance monitoring of all contracts to ensurethat service delivery was more focused onoutcomes. It stated: ‘Our strategy is to beoutcomes focused, and this was a tool that helpsyou to be outcomes focused.’ In the pastmonitoring was said to be more focused on howmany people used a service and not whathappened as a result of using the service. TheOBA outcomes matrix (see Figure 1) wasincorporated into the standard servicespecification template and the monitoringframework to help distinguish between outputsand outcomes and quantity and quality with thefocus on ‘How much did we do?’ ‘How well didwe do it?’, and ‘Is anyone better off?’ Each timea service specification for a contract is developed,the outcomes matrix framework is used fordeveloping a set of performance measures. Anextract from an outcomes matrix framework forChild and Adolescent Mental Health Services(CAMHS) is included in Figure 1.

Staff attended various workshops and seminarswhich were organised by Local GovernmentImprovement and Development (LG Improvementand Development) including action learning sets.1

These events enabled staff from different LAs toshare ideas and issues on implementing OBA intheir authority.



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OBA is routinely being used by staff involved incommissioning to provide a framework forthinking about performance indicators. OBAassists with ensuring a focus on how to measureoutcomes. For example, every contractincorporates the OBA grid with all partspopulated, in particular, the ‘bottom right’ box onoutcomes.

In order to help staff adopt the OBA approach, aseries of internal Turning the Curve exercises havebeen held with staff from a range of servicesincluding mental health services, teenagepregnancy and occupational therapy. A workshophas also been run for local voluntary sectororganisations. One interviewee highlighted thatOBA was largely embedded in the process ofdefining service level agreements, monitoring andreceiving feedback: ‘…I wouldn’t be able tobullet point and say we are doing these things[using the OBA approach because] it has sort ofbecome embedded in our work’.

The main barriers and challenges of using OBAhave been:

• ensuring that all staff understand theapproach – this may take time and requirespersistence because of the need to learn theconcepts which are part of the OBA approachand ‘sometimes you can’t predict what youhave to do for people to have that light bulbmoment’ so ‘if they don’t get it, you have totry again’

• writing service specifications based onoutcomes – this was difficult for some staffwhen the approach was first introduced.However, this challenge has slowly beenovercome by staff providing support andguidance to each other

• ensuring that all staff outside of thecommissioning team have an understandingof OBA – this is necessary to ensure that allcan contribute to defining appropriateoutcomes and that there is a consistentapproach adopted. This requires additionalresources to ‘spread the message’.

Impact

The OBA approach has helped staff to devisemeasurable targets and outcomes and becomemore focused about what they are trying toachieve. All contract monitoring procedure formsand monitoring of service level agreements focuson outcomes.

Service providers present routine feedback onservice-user views and use a formal system of a‘before and after’ questionnaire with users tomeasure impact. One interviewee said: ‘Thefeedback process as a result of OBA is now anestablished process that we did not havepreviously.’

The OBA approach has given staff whocommission services a way of focusing on the five


Figure 1 Extract from outcomes matrix framework for CAMHS

QUANTITY QUALITY

OUTPUT or EFFORT Children and young people:

e.g. number of referrals

e.g. number of service users

Children and young people:

e.g. waiting: percentage offered an assessmentwithin 4 weeks

e.g. priority access for specific vulnerable groups,such as percentage of service users ‘looked after’ or‘care leavers’

OUTCOME or EFFECT e.g. customer satisfaction: NUMBER who atthe end of the service, children and youngpeople report the main presenting problemimproved

e.g. NUMBER of re-referrals within 12 months

e.g. customer satisfaction: PERCENTAGE who at theend of the service, children and young people reportthe main presenting problem improved

e.g. PERCENTAGE of re-referrals within 12 months

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outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda. Ithas also provided clarity about the distinctionbetween inputs and outcomes.

OBA has promoted a collaborative approach toworking towards a set of outcomes and has ensuredthat staff are accountable for those outcomes. Atthis stage the LA had not identified specific wholepopulation outcomes that had improved as a resultof OBA because of the difficulty of attributingcausality in some cases. However, for service specificoutcomes, the commissioning annual report to theChildren and Young People’s Trust highlightedimproved outcomes for children and young people inseveral areas and OBA was the key tool in gatheringthis information.

Next steps

Although the use of OBA is embedded in thestrategic approach to contracting, interviewees

felt that there remains scope for furtherdevelopment in taking forward OBA at anoperational level. The next steps will involvemonitoring whether the outcomes are improving,and if not, repeating a Turning the Curve exerciseto explore alternative actions. In those instanceswhere outcomes are improving, discussions willfocus on how further improvements can bemade. One interviewee said: ‘We have now got away of measuring outcomes so we need to go onto all the things associated with that so youcould argue it’s just the start of the journeyreally.’

Note

1 Action learning is a process of learning andreflection. It normally takes the format of agroup session, where participants areencouraged to share their experiences, skillsand information with others.


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Summary

A Children’s Trust in the North West of Englandhas used OBA to review the Children and YoungPeople’s Plan (CYPP). In addition, the OBAapproach is used in relation to specificperformance indicators, such as first-time entrantsinto the criminal justice system.

This case study is based on the informationprovided by two local authority (LA) staff andbackground documentation supplied. Oneinterviewee gave an overview of how OBA hasbeen used by the Children’s Trust, while thesecond focused more on applying the approach towork on first-time entrants to the criminal justicesystem.

Key learning

OBA can be used to help make the CYPP moreoutcomes focused. This can be facilitated by:

• ensuring there is high-level commitment toOBA within the Children’s Trust. This entailssenior LA officers engaging staff by providingsupport and guidance about the approachand ensuring staff are aware of how it caninfluence outcomes

• making OBA accessible to all staff, forexample through the promotion of goodpractice and by using common terminology or‘branding’ to describe OBA so that it isaccessible to a range of stakeholders,including young people

• training people in OBA, including partnersfrom across the Children’s Trust.

Who was involved?

The performance, planning and commissioningteam within Children’s Services are the coreofficers involved in OBA and the Children’s TrustDevelopment Officer has championed the use ofOBA across the Children’s Trust sub-groups. Stafffrom across the Children’s Trust (for example, theMaking a Positive Contribution outcomes sub-group, related to the National Indicator NI 110:Young people’s participation in positive activities),have been involved in OBA workshops.

How was OBA used?

OBA was introduced after a small number of staffattended a Mark Friedman conference on OBAthree years ago (in 2006). As a result of theconference, the format for information sharingworkshops was replaced by the Turning the Curveelement of the OBA approach. This involves usingdata and stakeholder knowledge to understand thestory behind the baseline and provides aframework for planning how to achieve resultswhich are an improvement on the projectedbaseline. The Children’s Trust decided to use OBAin the review process of the CYPP and incorporatedit into the terms of reference of the performanceimprovement group. The performance, planningand commissioning team led a pilot initiative whichinvolved each of the outcome-based sub-groupsselecting one performance measure linked to oneof the CYPP priorities. A Turning the Curve exercisewas undertaken in order to understand better whatwas working and what could be improved. Thispilot was monitored by the performanceimprovement group and was found to besuccessful in a number of ways, including thosenoted below.



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• Partner agencies found it useful to sharepractice and ideas on preventative services inorder to recognise what was working well andto identify any gaps.

• Clear pointers were established on how towork effectively within multi-agency teams.Subsequently, where there were concerns overperformance on a particular indicator, theOBA approach was used to bring partneragencies together to undertake a Turning theCurve exercise and devise an action plan toaddress performance concerns.

The performance improvement group haveembraced the OBA approach as a useful tool tohelp improve outcomes and have used theapproach to help ensure the priorities in the CYPPwere more outcomes-focused, by establishingperformance indicators to be measured usingOBA. The group felt this would help to raiseawareness, and further embed the OBA approach,across the Children’s Trust.

The Making a Positive Contribution sub-groupused OBA in a different way in July 2009, in theirwork on reducing first-time entrants to thecriminal justice system (National Indicator NI 111).The group used OBA to understand why there hadbeen a significant reduction in the number of first-time entrants in 2008/09 compared to theprevious year and to measure the extent to whichthe initiatives undertaken by the Children’s Trusthad an impact on this. In order to do this, thegroup held a workshop and asked participants toshare their views on the causes and forcesinfluencing the improvement and to consider thestory behind the improvement by sharing casestudies and looking at organisational andstructural issues. Following this, the groupcompleted an OBA performance matrix.

The barriers and challenges with using OBArelated to:

• ensuring there was commitment andsupport at a senior level – theinterviewees felt that, although there was

high level verbal commitment to OBA, in somecases, it was seen ‘as useful in one scenariorather than as something [the LA] can usemore widely’. Interviewees felt that, withfurther support from senior LA officers ‘wecould make much more rapid progress’.

• ensuring enough staff were involved –there seemed to be only a small group of OBA‘champions’ within the LA and therefore ‘achange in staff could have a big effect onwhether OBA would really continue to beused’. Broadening the staff involved throughincreasing training opportunities wouldaddress this issue. In addition, the promotionof successful work and good practice wasseen as essential in acting as a ‘springboardto more universal commitment’.

• enhancing the accessibility of OBA formore staff – it was reported that someofficers were initially put off by the languageused in OBA. One way suggested to helpimprove this was to ensure the OBA languageis made accessible to all stakeholders,including young people, through the use ofdifferent terminology. For example, this couldinvolve referring to Turning the Curveexercises as data and information sharingmeetings.

Impact

The Children’s Trust have used OBA in someaspects of their work, such as performancemonitoring, and this had been beneficial. Forexample, one interviewee reported that ‘ourreviewed CYPP is much more outcome focusedsince we have adopted an OBA approach’ and,similarly, another commented on the ‘clear andmethodological way of looking at outcomes’achieved by the use of OBA.

OBA has had a positive impact on partnershipworking. Reflecting on the recent work on first-time entrants, one interviewee commented it wasan ‘an excellent example of how people can bevery much involved in performance management,


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because it can easily lapse into just one personreporting on figures’. Similarly, anotherinterviewee reported that outcome sub-groupmembers found the Turning the Curve exerciseshelpful in order to understand the range ofagencies who have a part to play in makingimprovements, and this is important forpartnership working.

Both interviewees acknowledged that it was notyet possible to evidence improved outcomes forchildren and young people as outlined below.

The use of OBA did not yet sufficiently adhere toevery stage of the process in order forinterviewees to be able to state that ‘OBA hasdefinitely helped us to change direction or

ultimately achieve better outcomes for youngpeople’.

OBA has been used to identify the reasons behindthe success in reducing the number of first-timeentrants to the criminal justice system. OBAprovided a framework enabling partners tocontinue to focus on the good practice identified.Data on the number of first-time entrants in thenext monitoring period will help to evidence theimpact of OBA on outcomes for young people.

Next steps

OBA will continue to be promoted across theChildren’s Services team by sharing the practiceto date.


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Summary

This case study is based on information gatheredby NFER through interviews with two localauthority (LA) officers, supported by backgrounddocumentation. One of the Local Area Agreement(LAA) priorities in a rural County Council in theSouth West region has been to address the highlevels of deprivation and challenging outcomesfor children and young people in one of its towns.The Children’s Trust is addressing the issues in thetown through several outcomes-focused‘Narrowing the Gap’ programmes. Staff within theauthority felt that OBA would be a suitable modelto help drive forward their outcomes-focusedagenda for the town as it would focus partnersmore on ‘outcomes straight away rather thanbeing bogged down by … processes’. They are inthe initial stages of using the approach to ensurea ‘Healthier and Safer Homelife’ for children andfamilies.

This case study outlines the Children’s Trust’s useof OBA to support the monitoring of a locality-based project, which is currently at an early stageof implementation.

Key learning

Implementation of the OBA approach can besupported by:

• ensuring the OBA model is understood.It was felt to be crucial for Children’s Trustpartners to ‘understand the model and thestory’ together to ensure joint buy-in. Mostagencies work in a process driven way and, toensure commitment, the OBA approach has tobe presented confidently and comprehensivelyso staff can see how it can support improvedoutcomes. Interviewees felt the OBA approachwas easy for different groups of people from

different backgrounds to understand, andcould help to drive forward the improvementof outcomes

• agreeing a common language at thestart of the project. It is vital to ensure thatthe OBA language, of outputs and outcomes,is understood by all involved so that issues areaddressed with an outcomes focus

• using a facilitator who is not closelyinvolved with any of the key partners.The facilitator can adopt an enabling role,rather than being ‘part of the group’

• ensuring effective leadership of theOBA approach. OBA will help to identify theaction needed to improve outcomes. Goodleaders are required to support the changeprocess.

Who was involved?

The Children’s Trust began using OBA in March2009 and partners from both statutory andvoluntary agencies have been involved in takingthe ‘Healthier and Safer Homelife’ projectforward. The Children’s Trust team, includescounty and district councillors, representativesfrom the police, schools, the Primary Care Trustand faith community groups. Colleagues from theYouth Service, Connexions and Jobcentre Plushave also had an active role in the project.Planning and service delivery partners were alsoinvolved.

There is good representation from a range ofservices on the project board and the projectworking group, with the recognition that ‘thewhole community has a responsibility for thewellbeing of children and their families, ratherthan just one service’.



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How was OBA used?

The LA identified one of its towns with a highlevel of deprivation, where it was felt that OBAcould be used to help improve outcomes,particularly for vulnerable children. The town hashigher than average levels of:

• under-18 conceptions

• accident and emergency attendance andemergency hospital admissions

• drug-related and violent crime

• childhood obesity.

The Children’s Trust is addressing these issuesthrough a number of outcomes-focused‘Narrowing the Gap’ programmes and OBA isbeing used to help drive forward this agenda. Asone interviewee explained: ‘There’s already somegood work going on in [the town], but [OBA] isall about coordinating it and bringing it together’by providing a mechanism for partners to focuson where they want to get to rather than ‘aprocess driven way of working’.

Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of the issueswithin the town, the Children’s Trust decided touse OBA to focus on a priority area that was‘linked to the whole family, not just the child’,and which cut across multiple service areas. Theproject group agreed to use the OBA approach inthe ‘Healthier and Safer Homelife’ project. OBAwas seen as an effective tool which could helpthe Children’s Trust to focus on outcomeindicators. The OBA approach provided theopportunity for the team to map out the entireproject from inception through to expectedoutcomes. Two Turning the Curve workshops havebeen held. These were attended by key partners,including members of the town’s Poverty ActionGroup, childcare providers and coast andcountryside services. The target population wasidentified, an action plan was developed and theroles of each agency agreed. A further meeting

took place with a focus on mapping services andundertaking a gap analysis.

At this early stage of implementation, there wereno major barriers associated with using OBA, butinterviewees identified the following more minorissues:

• the language: ensuring the language ofOBA was consistently understood by thoseinvolved across the Childrens’ Trust, inparticular the meaning of outcomes incontrast to outputs

• progressing sufficiently: while the OBAapproach has been well received,implementation had been slower thanexpected. This was felt to be because initiallyOBA had been championed by only one ortwo people, although the pace of change wasimproving as the Children’s Trust adoptedOBA as a preferred way of working.

Impact

At the time of the interviews, the implementationof the OBA approach was at an early stage, and itis therefore too soon to comment on whetheroutcomes for children and young people haveimproved or whether OBA is the appropriatemodel to adopt. However, at an organisationallevel OBA was providing an opportunity forpartners across the Children’s Trust to look atissues in a different way.

Next steps

Following the Turning the Curve workshops, theproject team have identified a range of health-related indicators for children and families in thetown which they will continue to collect to createa baseline against which outcomes can berecorded, and against which the impact of OBAcan be measured. They are developing an ActionPlan and score cards to show progress on theidentified indicators.


Summary

This case study is based on the informationprovided to NFER through interviews with twolocal authority (LA) staff and backgrounddocumentation supplied. Both interviews focusedon how OBA had been used by the Business andCommissioning Team. This case studydemonstrates how OBA can be used to improvethe performance of services, and subsequently thelives of children and young people.

Key learning

OBA can be used by LAs and Children’s Trusts asa way of performance managing services, byensuring they are focused on outcomes.Implementation can be supported by:

• ensuring capacity and engagement fromprofessionals involved, in terms of being giventhe time to attend OBA training and beingable to evidence the work they are doing bycollecting information and measuring theoutcomes. Teams involved need to be clearabout the benefits of evidencing outcomesusing OBA

• having an OBA lead who is able to be themain point of contact, provide support, andgather and coordinate information.

Who was involved?

The Business and Commissioning Team have usedthe OBA approach to develop localitycommissioning. A variety of individuals atdifferent levels have been involved, including keymembers of teams and senior managers. TheQuality Compliance Officer leads OBA for bothlocality commissioning and action planning in theteams working with vulnerable groups of childrenand young people. This includes working directlywith service providers.

The LA funded a consultancy agency to providesupport with OBA through initial training andaction learning sets.1

How was OBA used?

Before OBA was implemented, there were a widerange of projects for children and young people inthe LA which were funded through the InclusionFund, and procured through a straightforwardand open application process. Services andorganisations were able to request funding for aproject by submitting an application. Theseprojects supported large numbers of children andyoung people, but the families who were usingthe services tended to be those who were verygood at accessing support, rather than theharder-to-reach families with higher levels ofidentified needs that the LA wanted to target.These target groups included: children withdisabilities or complex needs, poor schoolattendees, young people who had been excluded,children on the child protection register, rurallyisolated children, migrant families, young carersand children at risk of anti-social behaviour oralcohol/substance misuse.

The use of OBA to support the process of ensuringthat services that were procured by Children’sServices were targeting the children and youngpeople the authority wanted to target wasintroduced as a pilot in 2008. Prior to this, in2007/08, 80 projects had been funded enablingover 9,000 children and young people to accessshort-term activities but these children and youngpeople were not necessarily from the targetgroups. In contrast, in 2008/09, fewer projects (24)had been funded, as a result of detailed monitoringthrough OBA identifying which services wereunable to achieve the aim of targeting specificgroups. These 24 projects were focused onproviding on-going support at an early interventionlevel for children in the target groups, such as:access to emotional health and well-being support



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in schools, positive diversionary activities andtargeted, family-based support for young offenders.

The services that were purchased were monitoredusing the OBA performance matrix which focuseson quantity, quality and outcomes of the service:

• quantity – how much do you do? – numbersof children and young people supported bythe project

• quality – how well do you do it? – howpositive they found this support, based onservice-user feedback returns

• outcomes / effects – is anyone betteroff? – for instance, emotional support inschools was measured by changes in self-esteem, and behaviour in school and at home.

An OBA Turning the Curve workshop is held todeal with any performance issues, such as lowlevels of feedback from children and youngpeople who use the services. Although all servicesask for feedback, the response rate was felt to be‘quite low’. The Business and CommissioningTeam will use a Turning the Curve workshop towork with service providers to try to find out whythis was the case, look at good practice fromother LAs around service user feedback and thengenerate specific action plans for service providersto improve the response rate from users of theirservices.

Following the success of the pilot in targetingservices to ensure attendance of harder-to-reachgroups in May 2009, the Business andCommissioning Team began to use OBA to assistwith locality action planning. The locality teamsparticipated in an event to ensure that they had agood understanding of an action plan, includingthe use of SMART principles (Specific,Measureable, Achievable, Realistic andTimebound), and how they would assess impactrather than focus on processes. The action planswill be monitored on a quarterly basis to see ifthey are having the intended impact of ensuringthat the most vulnerable target groups use theservices.

The main initial challenges for implementing OBAwith locality teams were as follows:

• workload concerns: Professionals wereconcerned that OBA would create a lot ofadditional work for them rather than viewingit as evidencing work they were alreadyundertaking

• service providers feeling threatened: Inaddition to the teams, the change was alsosaid by one interviewee to be viewed by someservice providers as ‘very threatening,particularly if it identifies that the services theyare providing are not having the desiredoutcome, with the knowledge that theoutcome of that is that they cease to exist’.

Information sharing with some of the multi-disciplinary locality teams could have beenimproved, such as highlighting the importance ofattending the training events and workshops.Some professionals within the localities felt OBAwas not in their remit, and still do not understandwhat OBA means. If more professionals had beeninvolved from the start they would all be ‘singingfrom the same hymn sheet rather than it being acascade effect’.

Impact

OBA has enabled the LA to ‘evidence someexcellent outcomes for children and youngpeople’. Data on services included in the pilotshow fewer children and young people receivingsupport overall, but an increase in numbers ofchildren and young people from the target groupsreceiving support, as a result of the more focusedservice provision. In 2008/09, approximately two-thirds of all children receiving support were froma target group.

Large percentages of children and young peoplereported positive outcomes following the targetedservices and support they received:

• 78 per cent (1395 children and youngpeople)2 made new friends (NI 50)3

• 59 per cent (106 children and young people)reported now having someone to talk to (NI50)3

• 56 per cent (2554 children and young people)accessed inclusive/diversionary activities (NI110)4

The majority of these positive outcomes were animprovement since the implementation of OBAand interviewees felt that OBA was associatedwith these positive changes because its use hadled to more targeted services. That so manychildren made new friends was a ‘big thing’ forthe LA, because a large proportion of childrenwithin this LA live in rurally isolated areas. Inaddition, 67 per cent of young offenders had notreoffended 12 months after their targeted supportended (NI 19).

OBA has proved useful for practitioners too, as itenables them to evidence the positive impacttheir work has on children and young peoplerather than just how much work they have done.The focus on outcomes is beneficial because‘everybody is always working really hard anddoing their best, but to be able to evidence whatthat has actually meant for young people is a realboost’.

The Business and Commissioning Team have alsofound OBA useful because, as one intervieweesaid, ‘it basically tells us what works and whatdoesn’t work’. It achieves this by providing amechanism that allows them to determine whichlocalities are not targeting as well as they could,and where more work is needed, for instance,

where practitioners are not linking up well withavailable services that Children’s Services hasfunded. As a result of detailed monitoring throughOBA, the LA have decommissioned some serviceswhich have not been able to achieve the requiredoutcomes, and reinvested the money elsewhere.This has led to a reduced number of projectsfunded working with fewer children and youngpeople overall, but more work with specific targetgroups of children and young people.

Next steps

The LA intends to embed OBA fully within localitycommissioning and locality action plans, andmore widely across Children’s Services. In thelonger term, the aim is to use OBA universallyacross the LA.

Notes


2 These numbers are based on a range of datasources and funded projects provided by theChildren’s Trust.

3 National Indicator 50: Emotional health andwellbeing – children and young people userperception.

4 National Indicator 110: More participation inpositive activities.

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Summary

This case study is based on the informationprovided to NFER through interviews with twolocal authority (LA) staff and backgrounddocumentation supplied. One interview focusedon the OBA approach from a regional perspectiveinvolving work with neighbouring authorities. Thesecond focused more locally on using OBA toreduce under-18 conception rates.

Key learning

OBA can be used as a framework to promotecollaborative working between LAs and as aframework for Children’s Trusts to plan to tackleparticular issues such as reducing teenageconception rates. Implementation can besupported by:

• ensuring it is driven from the top down– make sure that there is senior managementapproval otherwise implementation couldbecome more challenging than it needs to be

• collaborating with other LAs in theregion – to share skills and knowledge, thusin turn, developing expertise in OBA at aregional level

• planning it in – ensure that use of OBA byindividual staff is manageable by ensuringtime to implement it effectively is factoredinto staff workload.

Who was involved?

At a regional level, officers across five LAs andthe Regional Improvement and EfficiencyPartnership (RIEP) are involved in a project thataims to cascade the benefits of the OBAapproach to other LAs. This is managed by a

project board and the roles of the staff involveddiffer but largely focus on commissioning.

At the local level, colleagues from Children’sServices and the Primary Care Trust (PCT) areworking closely to take forward the OBAapproach in order to reduce under-18 conceptionrates. Colleagues from the Youth Service as wellas education officers are involved in the Turningthe Curve exercises and action learning sets. Onesaid that ‘there is quite a wide range of peoplethat we have been speaking to and getting theminvolved to help make this a successful project’.

How was OBA used?

At a regional level, the use of OBA hadpreviously been inconsistent and shared learningwas not disseminated. The LA decided to bid forfunding from the RIEP to share the benefits ofOBA with neighbouring authorities. The projectlaunched in March 2009 with a regionalconference. Officers were asked to identifyprojects where OBA could be used to improveoutcomes for children and young people. Ten outof twelve LAs in the region decided toparticipate. Each LA nominated a local project.Six action learning sets were created to promotethe regional use of OBA.1 The learning sets areexternally facilitated and provide officers withsupport when applying OBA to their projects. Theaction learning sets have also provided anopportunity to network and discuss challengesand issues. In addition, there is also some taughtinput on OBA. The LA decided to promote OBAat a regional level because the interviewee feltthat, having attended a few sessions organisedby Local Governemnt Improvement andDevelopment (LG Improvement andDevelopment), ‘there is a growing evidence basethat it works’. From a regional perspective thebarriers and challenges included:



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• ensuring capacity and developing askills base – staff need time allocated to beable to focus on OBA and attend the actionlearning sets. Equally, time is needed to buildskills and confidence in using the approach

• minimising the risk that OBA might beperceived to be ‘just another initiative’ ratherthan a tool to assist with planning. In order toovercome such perceptions, OBA is beingembedded through making it part of, ratherthan additional to, individual staff’s existingwork, and disseminating its benefitsregionally.

At a local level, under-18 conception rates wereidentified as a particular challenge facing the LA.These rates were higher than those of otherauthorities in the region. The OBA approach hasbeen used in developing the local teenagepregnancy action plan to try and seek a betterunderstanding of cultural attitudes that prevailwithin the area that make it socially acceptable tobecome pregnant at an early age, and to try andTurn the Curve in order to reduce the teenagepregnancy rate. To achieve this, the LA hasarranged a series of Turning the Curve exerciseswith various groups, including young parents andthose over the age of 18, to try and explore andgather information on the culture of under-18conception. In addition, a working group hasbeen established to implement OBA and toensure that the required outcome is achieved.

The two main challenges in terms of using OBAto reduce under-18 conception rates were:

• overcoming a deep rooted culture withinthe area of the social acceptabilitysurrounding teenage pregnancy. It isanticipated that the planned Turning theCurve exercise with young people to identifythe cultural attitudes towards teenagepregnancy will help establish how these canbe challenged

• ensuring that there is realunderstanding of the OBA model – OBAmay appear straightforward because ‘it isabout speaking in plain language and settingout a plain simple outcome’, but the term‘OBA’ can be used ‘a bit loosely’ andtherefore care is needed to ensure it is fullyunderstood.

Impact

After only six months, following the introductionof OBA in the LA, it was perceived to be too soonto be able to identify improved outcomes forchildren and young people. It was hoped thiswork would have an impact within a year.Feedback from the Turning the Curve exerciseswith different groups in relation to teenagepregnancy will provide a good indication ofwhether the right things are currently being doneat a local level, and if not, help to identify whatchanges need to be made. As an intervieweeobserved: ‘I think the simplicity of it [the OBAapproach] is definitely going to help us breakdown any issues.’

The regional strand of the project has helped tofurther promote collaborative working in theregion. More specifically, it has helped LAs toshare their skills sets, and thus further developexpertise.

Similarly, it was felt that collaboration betweenthe LA and PCT to tackle the issue of under-18conception had been beneficial in terms ofbuilding relationships for the future.

The OBA approach, which helps steer the focusaway from inputs and outputs and towardsoutcomes and making a difference was felt byone interviewee to be a positive change: ‘I thinkthat philosophy really does help because I thinksometimes you get caught up in looking at what’sgoing on … rather than whether it is making adifference’.


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Next steps

The regional project will be reviewed when thelearning sets are completed in December 2009.There could potentially be a phase two of theproject and discussions are currently taking placeabout what this might involve.

The next steps for OBA at a local level will bedependent on the success of the current projectsthat are under way. The LA is planning to

continue using OBA because it focuses on whatmatters most – the outcome.

Note



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Summary

This case study is based on the informationprovided to the NFER through interviews withtwo local authority (LA) staff from a CountyCouncil in the East of England and onbackground documentation supplied. The focus ofthe case study is on how the OBA approach hasbeen used to develop the Children and YoungPeople’s Plan (CYPP). OBA was introduced toensure that the priority areas in the CYPP weremore outcomes-focused.

Key learning

In order to use the OBA approach in developing aCYPP it is recommended that Children’s Trusts:

• ensure all relevant staff understand theOBA methodology and have ownership of it– this requires time for staff to ‘get to grips’with OBA and champion it at strategic level andteam level to support the routine use of OBA

• use data effectively – think through thekey data that is available before doing aTurning the Curve exercise

Who was involved?

Initially, the Assistant Director of Children’sServices championed OBA. More recently, theperformance and improvement team who providesupport and drive the processes for developingand refreshing the CYPP have helped move theOBA approach forward at a strategic planninglevel. The team that is responsible for overseeingthe district Children’s Trust partnerships willchampion the OBA approach across the districts.There are also other ‘champions’ who are startingto spread the use of OBA across Children’sServices in the planning process.

How was OBA used?

OBA was first used to develop the 2008/09 CYPPbecause a senior manager with responsibility forperformance and planning considered it to be astrong methodology that would improve theprioritisation and focus on outcomes in the CYPP.The previous planning process had resulted in alarge number of priorities without any clearprioritisation. As a senior manager explained: ‘Wedecided that this would be a way of radicallychanging the methodology we used for drawingup the plan and actually focusing it properly onthe right outcomes.’

The CYPP priorities were identified at a strategiclevel informed by national priorities and localneeds. For each CYPP priority, workshops wereheld with representatives across the partnership,including staff from the LA, schools, police andthe health, probation and fire services and thevoluntary and community sector, to explain theconceptual framework of OBA and to identify thetarget population. The workshops also focussedon what success would look like and whichperformance measures would help to indicatewhether improvements had been made.

As noted below, there was some improvement inoutcomes identified as a result of the OBAprocess. The OBA methodology was viewed as a‘helpful framework … it is really good to havethat tight focus on restricting your indicators andyour actions’, and it has been used to refresh andextend the CYPP for 2009/11. Similar sessionswere held with officers as in 2008 but these weresimplified: for example, limited to explaining theapproach and providing examples of how OBAhas helped to achieve outcomes. In addition, afew sessions were held for officers involved in thestrategic planning work. These sessionsintroduced the OBA methodology and provided



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an opportunity to try out a Turning the Curveexercise in a practice environment.

The main barriers and challenges in using theOBA approach included the following.

• The approach takes time to understandand is particularly difficult for individuals whobecome involved part way through. It wassuggested that, if OBA is to continue to beused as the main methodology, new staffshould be given training and coaching aboutthe approach at their induction.

• It is essential to gain acknowledgementand understanding of the distinctionbetween a population and a performancemeasure and maintaining a focus onoutcomes.

Impact

The LA has seen continued improvement in someof their educational achievement areas. Morespecifically, aspects of narrowing the gap forminority ethnic groups have been positive.However, it was felt to be difficult to attributeimproved outcomes for children and young peopledirectly to OBA, as one interviewee noted that theOBA approach can lead to improvements inplanning, which in turn may lead to improvementsin outcomes as a result of better planning. Theapproach has ‘helped them [staff] to have a clearfocus, to keep their eye on the indicators and tobe confidently asking the questions about impact’.

In terms of the staying safe priority area, it wasfelt that OBA has encouraged officers to look for

innovative ways to collect information identifiedas key through the OBA process, which is difficultto measure or for which data is not readilyavailable. For example, the LA has trained agroup of young people to act as informationgatherers and investigators in their own schoolabout, for example, bullying. When staff havescrutinised the data which emerges from theinformation gathering exercise and haveidentified the key issues, they contact the trainedstudents and ask them to find out moreinformation.

The OBA approach has resulted in more frequentperformance monitoring linked to clearerperformance indicators – as one intervieweestated: ‘we have got more information, moreregularly that we can look at and that is a gooddiscipline’ – and fits with a wider commitment inChildren’s Services to enhance performancemanagement. Staff now have a betterunderstanding about why the priorities have beenidentified and the actions that need to be takenin order to achieve them.

Next steps

Interviewees indicated that OBA continues to beregarded as a useful methodology to support theplanning process because of the focus onpriorities, outcomes, indicators and the keyactions required to work towards the outcomes.Officers are currently in the process of refreshingthe action plans within the CYPP which willinvolve a series of Turning the Curve exercisesfocusing on progress. There will also be ongoingmonitoring and measuring progress againstperformance indicators.


Summary

This case study is based on information providedto NFER through interviews with two localauthority (LA) staff from a County Council in theEast Midlands, and on backgrounddocumentation supplied.

Children’s Services used OBA to Turn the Curve in‘hot-spot’ wards where there were long-standingissues related to high rates of teenageconceptions, and although schemes were in placeto address this, the conception rate in these areashad not noticeably decreased. Turning the Curvewas appealing as an alternative way of examiningwhy underage conception rates in ‘hot-spot’wards were not reducing quickly enough. Thefollowing demonstrates how OBA can be appliedto reduce the under-18 conception rate(supporting National Indicator 112).

Key learning

OBA can be used as a framework for planninghow to improve specific outcomes such asreducing the under-18 conception rate. It hashelped the Children’s Trust to focus directly onthis particular outcome. Implementation can besupported by:

• forward planning – being clear about thepurpose of OBA and how it will be applied

• investing in time – to help people at boththe strategic and operational level understandthe different concepts associated with OBA.

Who was involved?

The Local Area Agreement (LAA) ProgrammeManager and the Local Teenage PregnancyCoordinator were both involved in the OBA work.Partners from the health team, police and

regional teenage pregnancy coordinatorsattended a one-day event.

How was OBA used?

Although overall levels of teenage conceptionsacross this LA are lower than the nationalaverage, in some ‘hot-spot’ wards, teenageconception rates are much higher than thenational average (more than 60 per 1000). Theconception rates were not improving and theChildren’s Trust implemented OBA in mid-2008 toenable them to Turn the Curve and reduce theunder-18 conception rates in the hot-spots.

A one day event using the Turning the Curvemethodology was held to bring professionalsbased in the ‘hot-spot’ wards together. A range ofpartners attended the event, including those fromthe health service and the police. The event wasexternally facilitated by a Teenage PregnancyCoordinator from the North West region whoshared her experience of using OBA in reducingthe under-18 conception rate. Participantsexamined ways in which they could:

• gather intelligence across the partners toidentify issues in these wards: that is, tounderstand the ‘story behind the baseline’

• establish improved ways of workingcollaboratively

• use new initiatives to try and reduce teenageconception rates.

The Local Teenage Pregnancy Coordinatordeveloped local action plans based around theoutputs from the day. These action planscontained a variety of no or low-cost pieces ofwork (which the OBA approach encourages)aimed at focusing on small-scale projects to helpreduce teenage conception rates. For example,



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improving circulation of sexual health andcontraception information available to youngpeople, and updating and widely promoting theLA’s directory of these services among all partners.

The main challenge encountered was:

• an incorrect assumption initially that OBAwill ‘do the work for you’ which it does not,as the approach needs to be resourced, interms of preparing and organising theengagement of staff effectively and followingup on agreed action.

Impact

There have been reductions in teenageconceptions across the LA following the use ofOBA, although there are still issues in the hot-spot wards. Interviewees were reluctant toattribute the reductions specifically to OBA anddid not consider there was a causal link. Oneconsideration was the time-lag between OBAactions and national data being published

(reported to be around two years in terms ofteenage conception data) which was felt tohinder the LA in being able to evidence impact inthis area. It is therefore difficult to determinewhether or not OBA itself has had an impact onteenage pregnancies until the 2009 teenageconception data are published in 2011.

OBA has helped the LA to move to a moreoutcomes-focused approach to their work. Thelanguage of OBA such as ‘improving outcomes’,was found to be helpful because it is easy tounderstand.

Next steps

Thus far, OBA has been used as one tool to assistthe planning process. The planning process will bereviewed for the next CYPP to ensure that thefocus is on outcomes. This will include anevaluation of whether the use of OBA hassupported a reduction in teenage conceptions.This evaluation will inform the next steps to betaken with using the OBA approach.

Summary

This case study is based on information gatheredby NFER through interviews with local authority(LA) staff and background documentationsupplied. A number of challenging areas wereidentified in a Metropolitan Borough Council withhigh levels of deprivation, located in the WestMidlands. This case study explores the use of OBAto improve school attendance, alongside its useacross the Children’s Trust to address smoking,obesity and under-age conception rates, andoffers some key points to support othersimplementing an OBA approach for serviceplanning and provision.

Key learning

The key points recommended to Children’s Trustswishing to successfully implement the OBAapproach are to:

• ensure buy-in from key partnerorganisations – for example, the LA, thePrimary Care Trust, the fire service or thepolice. OBA presentations and workshopsshould involve all partner organisations wherepossible, and ensure that key aims andexpected roles are realistic and clearlycommunicated. This will ensure relevantservices are working collaboratively andaddressing all factors which may inhibitsuccessful implementation

• demonstrate how the approach hashelped to improve performance – it iscritical to provide ‘real examples [and be ableto] explain the process’

• provide sufficient staff resources andcapacity to implement the approach –confident and knowledgeable staff areimportant when facilitating OBA and liaisingwith stakeholders.

Who was involved?

OBA has been used across a set of sharedpriorities owned by the Council and its partnerswithin the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP). Thefocus of attention has been in relation to anumber of Local Area Agreement (LAA) priorityareas to address ‘more stubborn targets’. Priorityareas have included smoking and alcohol abuse,obesity, under-age conception rates and helpingpeople and business through the economicdownturn. Several OBA workshops have beenfacilitated by the partnership and the Council’sCommunities Unit and a wide range of colleaguesfrom the statutory and voluntary sector wereinvolved.

In relation to school attendance, a number ofpartner organisations were involved in takingforward the OBA approach. Colleagues includingdistrict partners and members of the seniorleadership team from a pilot school, workedcollaboratively on strategies to address schoolabsenteeism at school and LA level.

How was OBA used?

OBA was marketed to the LA by the Departmentfor Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, nowDepartment for Education) as a tool to developand improve services and ‘the appeal of focusingon outcomes was key’ to implementing OBA. TheLSP team felt that OBA would be a good way ofproblem-solving and addressing ‘a number of …underperforming areas’ within the LAA. The OBAapproach was initially used within Adult Servicesand, later, elements of it were used in relation tosmoking and teenage conceptions. Turning theCurve exercises were used as staff in theChildren’s Services team also felt that OBA wouldbe a suitable method to use to increase levels ofschool attendance. OBA encouraged LA staff tofocus on outcomes and to ‘look at absenteeism in



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a different way, enabling a range of differentagencies to be involved’.

An LA colleague held an introductory OBAsession for senior staff and those engaged incommissioning across Children’s Services, toexplain the benefits of using the approach toaddress school attendance. Subsequently, threeTurning the Curve workshops were held over aperiod of two months, where key partners werebrought together to interpret the schoolattendance data story. One workshop was spentintroducing the priority area, the second involvedinterpreting the data story and the third wasspent identifying and targeting schools to includein the pilot and discussing strategies to addressschool attendance. Of the 12 target schoolsidentified, one school expressed an interest in thepilot.

The LA wanted to develop a preventativeapproach, so the baseline in approaching theproblem was not ‘how you deal with non-attendance, but how you encourage attendance.What you put in place to make kids want to go toschool rather than dealing with the consequencesof kids not attending school.’ Consultation withchildren, as the service users, was recognised asan important first step in tackling the problemand children were asked ‘about what theythought was important about attending schooland what made them attend’.

An OBA school attendance action plan wasdeveloped to ‘fix the problem’, including keyindicators drawn up during an OBA workshop.The action plan included initiatives to encourageattendance, such as lunch time activities, awardsfor good attendance and a variety of otherstrategies designed to ‘create a culture of goodattendance at the school’. The action plan wasput into practice over the course of an academicyear, and has now been implemented for a fullacademic year.

The main barriers and challenges encounteredwhen using the OBA approach across theChildren’s Services and the LSP team within theLA included:

• allowing sufficient time for OBA tobecome a frequently used tool in serviceplanning. There were some challengesexperienced in widening the use of OBA acrossthe LA. However, this was said to be true ofany new methodology, which may be ‘difficultto get people to use for the first time and beopen minded to new ways of working’

• ensuring buy-in from seniormanagement. There has been mixedresponses to the approach as senior managersreportedly found it difficult to see therelationship between OBA and meetingtargets and did not see an explicit linkbetween its use and achieving value formoney, which was a key priority for them.They were said to have a view that OBA ismore suitable for community partnershipworking and cannot be used effectively totackle larger scale priorities. This was said tobe partly because some senior managers viewOBA as a theoretical model which they wouldprefer to pilot initially on small-scale projects.This had not prevented the introduction of theapproach, and wide participation by partnersusing it, but it is not necessarily owned by thehighest levels of management within theCouncil and its partners.

The main challenges for the Children’s Servicesdepartment when delivering the schoolattendance project were in:

• gaining commitment of partners to useOBA. In relation to school attendance, 12schools were invited to take part in the OBApilot; however, only one school chose toparticipate. One interviewee felt this was likelyto be because the schools were confident thatthe attendance strategies they wereimplementing would help to address lowattendance in due course. Intervieweessuggested that using the OBA approach witha range of schools with different contexts, interms of absenteeism, and then sharing theeffect of doing so with other schools, wouldoffer further opportunity to assess the impactof OBA and to widen its use

• sustaining motivation and commitmentthroughout the life of the project. Whenthe project initially started, a number of keystakeholders had signed up and wereprepared to become involved. Towards theend of the project, numbers had declined andincreased support from partners would haveensured it was an even more worthwhileexercise, although it should be noted that thisexperience is not unique to OBA and isrelevant for many initiatives. The LSP hasappointed an OBA lead for a period of 18months to work with partner organisationsand to sustain their involvement, a role whichcolleagues are not always in a position tomanage effectively due to other commitments.

Impact

In relation to the school attendance project, therehave been a number of follow up meetings withthe pilot school since the OBA approach wasimplemented and the attendance initiatives areworking well. The school indicated that ‘over thecourse of the year, there were signs thatattendance had improved’. Attendance ismonitored on a weekly basis and schools wereable to review attendance data regularly.1

However, LA staff felt it was difficult to attributeany increase in school attendance solely to OBA,due to other strategies being undertaken at theschool. One interviewee felt this was notnecessarily a problem in itself and that ‘OBA is notsomething we should be considering on its own.We need to consider it as part of a wider problemsolving approach.’ Overall, the OBA approach wasrecognised as a factor in improving attendanceoutcomes and endorsed by school personnel for‘engendering a much more positive attitude toschool attendance’ among children at the school.

OBA enabled collaborative and partnershipworking by bringing partner organisations‘together on a shared agenda, with sharedoutcomes’. This allowed colleagues to addressschool attendance issues – traditionally an issuetackled solely by schools – with a more unifiedapproach, as opposed to one institutionaddressing problems in the usual way.

The OBA approach offered the opportunity to‘look at many different kinds of solutions to aproblem and specifically encourages no cost andlow cost solutions’. LA staff particularlywelcomed this approach and the shift in focusto encouraging children to attend school, ratherthan trying to address the different factorsassociated with non-attendance.

Next steps

The LSP team have appointed a new member ofstaff specifically to champion OBA and to takethe approach forward. Senior LA officers feltthat the OBA approach would gain wider andmore systematic use across the LSP by beingchampioned by a dedicated postholder, whowould also have the time available to ensurethat involvement from partner organisationswas fully sustained. In order to widenawareness and use of OBA across a range ofservice areas, the team is currently consideringthe development of an accreditation programmefor ‘OBA champions’ within each partnerorganisation. OBA champions will be able todrive forward the approach in their respectiveservice delivery areas. The team are alsoworking with the Regional ImprovementEfficiency Partnership (RIEP) in their region, topromote OBA as a tool to help improveoutcomes, support performance improvementand to contribute to the successful delivery ofLAAs.

Within Children’s Services, the OBA approach isbeing used on a project to increase physicalactivity as part of a strategy to reduce obesity,where there will be further opportunity toevidence the impact of the approach.

OBA is currently being used in a number ofother areas across the LA encouraging a focuson ‘outcomes as opposed to outputs’.

Note

1 This data was not shared with the researchteam.

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Documents

Case studies: implementing outcomes based accountability in