The Scottish Government

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Developing Local Outcome Agreements for the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund

Chapter One
Introduction

BACKGROUND

1.1 The Scottish Executive's Better Neighbourhood Services Fund (BNSF) is a 90 million 3-year (2001-04) programme aimed at delivering real and substantial service improvements in 12 Pathfinder areas (Table 1.1). It is intended to advance the Executive's Social Justice objectives and to demonstrate how providing better services can help narrow the gap between disadvantaged communities and the wider population. Local Outcome Agreements (LOAs) play a key role in this 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. The process of LOA development was led by local authorities, with other partners and communities involved to a greater or lesser extent.

Table 1.1

BNSF Pathfinders: Target Groups and Funding (m) (2001-04)

1.2 This report on Local Outcome Agreements is part of a programme of ongoing research relating to the development and implementation of BNSF being carried out by DTZ Pieda Consulting and now Tribal HCH. It is the first of a series of topic reports exploring key issues emerging from the development and implementation of the BNSF programme. The issues for topic reports are being identified by the Scottish Executive in consultation with the Pathfinders

Research questionS

1.3 For the vast majority of Pathfinders, 2002-03 was the first full operational year for BNSF. At this stage of the programme it was difficult to fully assess the role and impact of LOAs. For example, the impact of LOAs on issues such as long-term relationships between councils and their community planning partners will be able to be better assessed at a later date. The objective of this topic report is therefore to assess the role and impact of Local Outcome Agreements in the design, submission and early implementation phases of the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund.

1.4 The report addresses a number of specific questions:

• What was the Scottish Executive's objective in incorporating LOAs into the BNSF's design? Did the Executive feel they adequately conveyed their objectives to Pathfinders?
• Did Pathfinders feel the concept and use of LOAs was adequately explained by the Scottish Executive? How useful did Pathfinders find the Executive's guidance?
• What challenges (workload, data, consultation, timescale) were faced by Pathfinders in submitting and finalising the LOAs? Who were the key personnel responsible for drafting the LOA?
• What challenges were faced by the Scottish Executive during the submission phase?
• Have there been any early signs of change in the nature of the relationship between the Scottish Executive and councils or the way councils engage with community planning partners?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of LOAs (e.g. flexibility, defining own outcomes) compared to other more prescriptive policy approaches?
• Is a best practice model emerging in the design of LOAs?
• Are LOAs too rigid to allow for changing circumstances during implementation?
• What lessons about LOAs have been learnt so far by all concerned?
• With hindsight, what would the Executive and local authorities have done differently in terms of the design and submission of LOAs?

METHODOLOGY

1.5 The report is based on a range of information including:

• prior desk research - review of LOAs and Annual Reports from Pathfinders for 2001-2002
• face to face interviews with Scottish Executive officials involved in the design and implementation of the BNSF Programme
• thirteen telephone interviews with Pathfinder co-ordinators and others - two Pathfinders had more than one LOA and more than one co-ordinator, so more than one interview was needed. The interviews were structured using a topic guide, which is attached as Appendix B. Our normal procedure was to phone in advance to arrange a mutually convenient time for an interview, and then to forward the topic guide to allow the interviewee to consider the issues and prepare for the discussion. In some cases, this preparation involved collating the views of a number of colleagues.

1.6 We sought to interview all twelve Pathfinder authorities, and succeeded in arranging a telephone interview (or interviews in the cases where there were two LOAs) at a mutually convenient time with thirteen out of fourteen Pathfinder co-ordinators. In several cases, the Pathfinder co-ordinator had not been responsible for the submission of the LOA and in these cases, there were further discussions or written submissions from staff who had been involved with the original submission. This was the case in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, Argyll and Bute and Dumfries and Galloway.

1.7 We analysed responses to topic guide questions manually, in order to get a broad sense of the balance of opinion on each topic, but also prepared tables on the responses for some of the more important questions. Elsewhere, we did a manual count of responses, in order to determine what the balance of opinion was on a particular topic. Where seven or more of the pathfinders indicated a view, this is described as the view of the majority of pathfinders. Where we refer to 'a number of pathfinders', this was a view expressed by two or more pathfinders.

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