The challenge

Demand for public services is set to increase and local authorities face significant challenges. Limited resources, demand pressures, the need to be financially sustainable, and complexity –The good news is not only that it is possible to deliver savings in this context, but to deliver ‘good savings’.

We define good savings are those that are not achieved by budget cuts or efficiency gains, but rather as a direct result of achieving better outcomes. Examples include reduced demand for adult social care through increased independence, increased recycling rates, or innovating through commissioning approaches.

The key challenge for local authorities is not the identification of these savings, but the delivery of them – especially if complexity, competing challenges and the need to create shifts in behaviour are not properly planned for.

When leading transformation programmes and managing medium-term financial planning, we regularly come across four fundamental concerns from our clients:

• We can’t cut our costs any more
• We can’t invest in savings where delivery is not guaranteed
• We can’t take money out of demand-led services
• We can’t plan long-term or cope with another crisis

Our approach

IMPOWER supports our clients to:

• Establish credible MTFS targets
• Stand up a transformation programme
• Work alongside client teams to deliver, and grow the client’s capabilities
• Drive measurable savings and outcome improvements at scale
• Build organisational core strength to leave our clients more resilient to future shocks

Effective working in complex systems requires a mindset shift – towards a focus on outcomes and working across organisational and system boundaries.

Based on our successful EDGEWORK® theory of change we have developed an approach which create real confidence in seizing these opportunities – by enabling frontline teams to drive performance change and reach beyond what they can directly control and begin to influence across interfaces and boundaries

EDGEWORK® enables:

• Building behaviour-based approaches to better outcomes
• Designing and driving joint commissioning outcomes
• Implementing place-based models of care and services built around demand management
• Deliver capacity or savings at scale across places and systems
• Create more resilient places by investing in skills transfer and team enablement
• Shifts the focus onto preventing and managing demand rather than simply accepting it as inevitable
• Defines what ’good’ looks like, setting clear expectations around the outcomes achieved for the money spent (value) and how to measure it

Organisational Resilience

We define organisational resilience as the ability to anticipate, adapt to and bounce forward from disruption. Instead of viewing resilience as a response to an event, resilience should be viewed as a capability – having the skills needed to be able to respond to disruption – that can be deliberately nurtured and strengthened. We help public service organisations become more resilient so that they can thrive, despite the uncertainties of complexity.