Delivering Public Services in Northern Ireland A Voluntary Perspective Maurice Leeson Assistant Dire

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Delivering Public Services in Northern Ireland
A Voluntary PerspectiveMaurice Leeson
Assistant Director Strategic Development
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Outline of Presentation

• Background
• Policy Context
• Changes in how services from the sector are
  commissioned
• Current Challenges for the sector in Service
  Delivery

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Background

• Government is the largest funder of the
  activities of the sector- 216 million (35 of
  total income of the sector).
• 1 in every 5 organisations is dependent on 75 or
  more off their income from government sources.
• Funding generated from the provision of public
  services has increased from 19m (7.7 of
  expenditure on sector in 2000/01) to 68.34m
  (31.6 of expenditure on sector 2004/05)
• State of Sector 4 (2005)

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Compact

• Part of the role of the sector is to provide
  services in an open, equitable and accountable
  way
• A shared principle in the compact is the
  acknowledgement that funding and other forms of
  support by government is a an important means of
  strengthening the capacity of the voluntary and
  community sector and enabling it to contribute
  effectively to the attainment of government
  objectives.
• Compact 1998

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Investing Together

• Continually chasing short-term funding
  programmes has promoted a climate of instability,
  distracts organisations from their key purpose,
  deters strategic planning and leaches essential
  expertise and experience.
• Investing Together (October 2004)

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Investing Together (2)

• lack of recognition by funders of full delivery
  costs, lack of investment in relevant skills and
  knowledge and the need for a more secure funding
  base to facilitate bidding for public service
  contracts
• Investing Together (October 2004)

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Positive Steps

• We will encourage and support more effective and
  wider-ranging involvement of voluntary and
  community organisations
• Government will actively promote a longer-term
  (7-10 year) outcome focused approach to
  programmes that significantly involve the
  voluntary and community sector
• Positive Steps (2005)

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Contribution of Sector to Transforming Public
Services

• A partner in innovation
• A partner in designing services
• A campaigner for change
• Partnership in Public Services

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Barnardos Role in Public Service Provision

• Providing distinctive services to most vulnerable
  children and young people
• Influence social policy and social care practice
• Build our influencing work on our services

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Service Provision by Barnardos NI 2005/06

• 46 Services across NI worked with 11,072 children
  and young people and their families
• 80 of organisational turnover is statutory
  income
• however
• 70 of the services received some degree of
  voluntary income

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Changes in Service Delivery

• Shift from services delivered in partnership to
  services delivered on behalf of statutory
  authority under contract/SLA
• Shift from small number of core sources of
  funding to multiplicity of funding
• Shift from loose to tight specification of
  services
• Shift from preferred supplier model to
  competitive tendering

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Contracts

• Larger payments, for purposes defined by the
  funders, linked to tightly defined objectives
  ands establishing a legal relationship between
  funder and recipient. Contacts are also likely to
  be associated with formal procurement methods and
  rules.
• Working with the Third Sector (2005)

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Service Level Agreements

• No standard contract
• Degree of specification of service provided
  varies
• Emphasis on outputs
• Slow to adapt to shift to outcomes
• More focus on price than public value or
  quality
• Technical issues-insurance/ HR policies/Freedom
  of Information

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Challenges in Public Service Delivery/Contracting

• Holding on to organisational distinctiveness
• Holding on to an advocacy/influencing role
• Managing risk in service delivery
• Adapting to competitive tendering
• Review of Public Administration

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Holding on to Organisational Distinctiveness in
Contracting

• Risk that service delivery role will erode
  organisational distinctiveness
• Challenge for Voluntary sector is to define
  distinctiveness and promote it in contracting
• Challenge for funders is to recognise
  distinctiveness of Voluntary sector in
  contracting

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Holding on to an Advocacy/Influencing Role

• Policy Influence at Government level
• Challenge of advocacy at service level
• Funding involvement in policy development

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Coping with Risk Involved in Delivering Public
Services

• Security of funding
• Full Cost Recovery
• Managing variable planning horizons
• Review of Public Administration
• Loosing Independence
• Holding on to innovation
• Outputs/Outcomes

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Adapting to Competitive Tendering

• Cost of tendering
• Developing tendering capacity

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Review of Public Administration

• An opportunity for the sector
• Coping with short term uncertainty

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Final Thoughts

• Potential Contribution of Implementation of
  Positive Steps
• Longer term funding and planning framework
• Full cost recovery
• Shift to systems based audit
• Resourcing of policy work as part of funding
  relationship
• Positive Steps (2005)