Reviewing Kingston's Adult Social Care Transformation Programme
31ten were asked to review the Council’s Adult Social Care Transformation programme and to support the ASC department to design savings proposals to support the budget setting process in FY21/22 with a focus on:
- Providing targeted delivery support to at risk programmes – for example, we provided project management support to Kingston to support the closure of a directly provided day centre
- Co-design of savings and growth proposals – these included scaling up a successful Shared Lives scheme, taking an increased strengths-based approach to domiciliary care and supported living placements across Learning Disabilities, Mental Health, and Older and Vulnerable People, increasing joint funding of packages with the NHS, Fairer Charging and telecare, technology-enabled care, and increasing the use of the Disabled Facilities Grant
- Refocusing the transformation programme for 22/23 including proposals around reshaping the voluntary sector to support effective demand management including identifying services to be delivered on behalf of the Council
The Role
Our approach was based on:
- Regular programme of engagement: directorate workshops, regular 1:1s with heads of service, weekly check-ins with assistant directors, monthly reviews with executive director
- Developing savings proposals: reviewing the transformation programme, pinpointing areas for stretch savings and new savings (including feeding in best practice and evidence from other councils), co-designing proposals alongside service leads and finance
- Joining up: mapping key interdependencies across the council (e.g., with children’s services and housing) and factoring these into the development of proposals, as well as grounding the programme in a wider care system transformation context
Key Outcomes
The key outcomes from the work included:
- An agreed list of 22/23 priority areas, with a savings range of £1.2m-£2.3m agreed by service leads and finance
- Named leads for each area, with clear responsibilities for delivery within the service and in key enabling services (finance and digital)
- A three-phase roadmap for ASC transformation, providing a framework for delivering the transformation programme and covering sustainability, development and wider care integration
