I would hazard a guess that the majority of you reading this have flown on a ‘low-cost’ airline, booked a hotel online or researched your destination using the internet. Over the last fifteen years or so there have been huge changes in the travel industry as a result of deregulation of the airlines, the rise of the internet and the subsequent development of new business models to take advantage of this.

But what has this got to do with self directed support?

A common question in Adult Services departments is what will happen to the market once people are given greater choice and control, and in particular how will suppliers respond? The truthful answer is that the market moves in mysterious ways and it is very difficult to predict. However as we hope to demonstrate here the travel industry provides some useful indicators as to what could happen as a result of the personalisation agenda.

However good your corporate efficiency programme is, there is a danger it could be totally undermined by the biggest challenge facing councils this decade — the demographic time bomb in adult services.

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Across the country, in councils big and small, a range of battles against the status quo are taking place that add up to a revolution. Consistent with the twin goals of increasing efficiency and improving customer services, it is likely to result in the biggest change to practices in local authorities over the next few years.

Battlefronts in this revolution have been given a variety of names including: “smarter working”, “New Ways of Working”, “modern and flexible working”, “21st Century working”, “Modernising the Way We Work”, amongst others.

The Department of Health have released their Transforming Social Care publication [LAC (DH) (2008) 1]. The period of waiting to see the Government’s requirements for change and restrictions on the Social Care Reform Grant is over. It is now over to you.

Read iMPOWER’s one page summary of the document here

The Government and other partners today have released ‘Putting People First: A shared vision and commitment to the transformation of adult social care.’ It acknowledges that the existing social care system is in need of reform to meet the challenges both now and in the future; and it is prepared to provide funding, £3.5m on average per top tier authority, in order to help achieve this.

The forthcoming white paper on local government and the Lyons review into local government financing are seen as an opportunity for radical reshaping of local authorities. But restructuring isn’t the only way to re-engage people with local government.

Recent developments in local government have made the concept of shared services not only desirable, but inevitable for local authorities.

The concept of ‘shared services’ traditionally involves the delivery of corporate functions like HR, payroll, procurement and IT by a central shared unit on behalf of several partners.

The expectation is straightforward: bringing together services that are frequently duplicated releases cashable savings for all participants, as well as improving the effectiveness of that service through the pooling of expertise.

Personalisation through participation changes the very way in which services are delivered. It is about enabling the individual, alone or in groups, to participate in the delivery of a service.  From being a recipient of services, citizens can become actively involved in selecting and shaping the services they receive.

Local authorities all want to provide better, modernised, customer-driven services. But they operate in a financially challenging environment, with tight settlements from central government and the perennial need to keep council tax rises to a minimum. This perspective looks at the impact that Gershon and the efficiency review will have on local authorities and how they can ensure that this agenda acts as a catalyst for meaningful change.

BBC News and Sport journalists publish over 400 stories a day, with thousands of updates : the website slogan is “updated every minute of every day”. Like any organisation looking to implement a technology solution, the BBC had to ask itself why they would implement a content management system (CMS) and what value would be added. How did the BBC go about assessing its needs? What lessons are there for local authorities?

It is believed that local authorities spend in excess of £40 billion externally each year. There is increasing pressure on councils to meet various central government deadlines in their effort to provide best value to their citizens. Our Perspective looks at some of the challenges that local authorities may be facing and suggest some ‘quick wins’ which will enable elements of e-procurement to be achieved in the short-term without large investment.

The topic of prevention and ISA is one that is in sharp focus for local authorities at the moment. There is pressure from central government to make progress in this area as well as immeasurable benefit in preventing children and young people from being at risk, yet this is a huge and complicated challenge. We take a deeper look at the principle difficulties as well as exploring the different kinds of prevention activities and approaches. 

This perspective tackles the topic of effective partnering between public sector organisations, the potential benefits of getting it right as well as looking at why things can go wrong and some suggestions for managing a successful partnership. 

Experiences of partnering with the private sector have been mixed. We believe that one of the ways to ensure that the partnership is a success, is for local authorities to become informed buyers - this means understanding their own needs, where the pitfalls are, and how to avoid those situations, as well as being prepared to invest the required time and effort into the process.