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Developing Local Outcome Agreements for the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund

Summary

BACKGROUND

1. BNSF is a 90 million 3-year (2001-04) programme aimed at delivering real and substantial service improvements in 12 Pathfinder areas in order to help narrow the gap between disadvantaged communities and the wider population. An additional 31.2 million has recently been provided to extend the programme into 2004-05.
2. Local Outcome Agreements (LOAs) play a key role in the BNSF programme by setting out what service improvements each Pathfinder is going to make and the anticipated measurable impacts of these improvements over the lifetime of the programme.
3. Based on a series of structured interviews with Pathfinders and with the Scottish Executive, this report explores the experience of Pathfinders and the Scottish Executive of using LOAs in the design, submission and early implementation phases of the BNSF.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

4. The main lesson from experience so far is that the design of customised LOAs to meet the needs of particular communities is challenging. Consultation, baseline information, and considerable reflection on the most appropriate outcome indicators are required. These issues were not fully appreciated at the outset, and more guidance and training about how to approach the task of designing an outcome based programme would have been desirable.
5. The initial Guidelines for Implementation did not give authorities a sufficiently clear indication of what the Executive expected, and while the sample local outcome agreement which was subsequently produced was clear and helpful, its timing was such that it did not impact fully on the design of LOAs.
6. The timescale for the development of the LOA programme was felt by most Pathfinders to be unacceptably tight and to have created difficulties. The details of the LOA were on occasion being worked out for presentation to the Executive, when consultation with communities and partners was still ongoing. It was acknowledged by all that both Scottish Executive and local partners can be caught between the desire to push ahead with implementation of policies and the timescale required to genuinely engage communities and partners.
7. As a result of these difficulties, some LOAs still required development work after they had been approved, for example to put in place baseline information and to finalise quantified outcomes for the pathfinder programme. The Executive has been appropriately flexible about these adjustments.
8. The main focus of the programme was on improving the quality of life of disadvantaged communities. This focus on improving services in disadvantaged neighbourhoods was not easily transferred to rural areas where deprivation is generally more dispersed and guidance would need to reflect the different circumstances. However, an outcome based approach to improving services is equally appropriate for rural areas.

ADVANTAGES

• Local ownership - priorities are set by partners and communities to reflect local issues within a broad national framework.
• The shift in policy focus to outcomes and impacts - the LOA format makes partners think about impact rather than just delivery and challenges them to consider what approach to delivery is the most appropriate.
• Flexibility - the emphasis on outcomes rather than outputs allows partners flexibility in programme delivery - a positive feature, particularly from the standpoint of community involvement as the services and projects are not pre-determined.
• Clarity - LOAs provide a clear statement of priorities and aims.
• Accountability - there is a transparency about LOA partners and what they aim to achieve. This allows the LOA to act as a reference document for the public and other agencies.
• Partnership - the general view was that the process of drawing up a LOA had helped to engage community planning partners.
• Evidence - emphasis on outcomes means that LOAs have the potential to provide in-built monitoring and evaluation and thus provide an evidence base for future policy development.

DISADVANTAGES

• The challenge of programme design - designing a programme with appropriate performance indicators, in consultation with local people, is challenging.
• Consultation issues - for some Pathfinders the level of community consultation involved in LOAs was excessive while for others not enough time had been allowed.
• Time limited - despite the greater flexibility of payment through Revenue Support Grant (RSG), the BNSF LOAs are still constrained by the difficulties of a time-limited programme e.g. the difficulty of attracting and retaining staff for a temporary initiative.
• Conflict - for a few Pathfinders the use of LOAs led to a deterioration of their relationship with the Executive. Other Councils felt that the Executive had been flexible and understanding.

BEST PRACTICE

9. 'Best practice' Pathfinders were generally those with a clear geographical focus, more tightly focused aims and clarity about the measures of success and the arrangements made to obtain data on these measures. Generally, Pathfinders which started with a strategic focus found it easier to think in terms of outcomes, whereas Pathfinders which started with a set of projects found it more difficult to think in terms of outcomes.
10. 'Best practice' Pathfinders appear to be demonstrating that the LOA approach, with its focus on local needs and measurable improvements, can be made to work very effectively in the context of improving the quality of life in deprived neighbourhoods.

CONCLUSIONS

11. Despite the difficulties experienced, Pathfinders found the evidence based approach implicit in LOAs attractive. LOAs offer a coherent and logical framework within which to develop new policies to combat disadvantage and subsequently assess their effectiveness.
12. While they have at times struggled with the demands of programme design and the selection of appropriate indicators, Pathfinders have endorsed the overall value of the approach. Several authorities stated that they have now adopted a similar approach in other areas of their work.

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