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Public Service Funding for Day Centres
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Public Service Contracts and Sustainable Funding | Local Area Agreements
Public Service Contracts and Sustainable Funding
It is important to remember that money from you Local Authority should be considered as earned income - you are being contracted to provide a public service, so essentially you are selling a product. This means that to win a contract - which could be a big step on the way to acieving sustainability since it could support a large proportion of your basic running costs - you need to show how your Local Authority's priorities will be met by funding your organisation. Sometimes this can be tricky but with a little charm and a lot of strong, well-evidenced arguments you should be able to convince them.
Important local government funding streams for day centres include the Homelessness Grant, PCT funding, DAT funding and other streams where a day centre's work can make a contribution. When tendering for money from any of these streams, remember to read the relevant documentation first, especially local strategies and priorities.
Here's some tips for securing your public service contract:
- You need to present a good business plan within the tendering process outlined by your Local Authority. This means showing them how your service and its interventions will achieve certain outcomes that will help the Local Authority achieve its performance goals or fulfill its objectives. It will help very much to have good monitoring and evaluation information here so that you can demonstrate concretely the work that your day centre is doing. See the monitoring and evaluation resource for more information about how to formulate and monitor your service's achievements.
- Develop good working relationships. It really is crucial not to underestimate the importance of cultivating relationships with your Local Authority. It can be a really useful way to get the inside scoop on tenders and find out what they looking to fund and to achieve. In many cases, the best way to do this is to concentrate on the positive aspects of your work and theirs - this doesn't mean that you should bottle valid and constructive criticism of your Local Authority, just that you should find the right time and the right way to voice it so that it will have a positive impact instead of simply being detrimental to your relationship. For example, send the relevant people your annual reports and newsletters highlighting your positive achievements and how these contribute to the community, and invite them to visit your centre whenever you are hosting an event or celebrating a success. Voice your criticisms as 'concerns', and suggest ways that your work can contribute to solving the problem. If you can show that you are interested in contributing to the Local Authority's work and that you want to help them improve their performance, you might be able to cultivate a relationship that will improve your Local Area's work, your own work, and ultimately the situation of homeless people in your area.
Don't forget to check out our Further Information and Resources page for more help - the Charity Commission has published an excellent resource called Charities and Public Service Delivery – An Introduction and Overview that not only provides legal guidance but also some sound ethical advice. The NCVO and Finance Hub guides to fundraising and finance are also useful, including the guide on Procurement and Contracting. You might also find the ACEVO briefings on Procurement and Negotiation useful.
Local Area Agreements
The new Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are quite possibly the biggest change in funding for the sector since Supporting People. They are a great opportunity for day centres to obtain long-term sustainable funding - if they can show that they are helping their local area to meet its targets
Homeless Link's Invest to Save and LAAs Pilot Project
In the first quarter of 2008, Homeless Link undertook a pilot project looking into funding for day centres through LAAs using the Invest to Save model. The project helped day centres work through the Invest to Save model, which conceptualises services in terms of objectives, interventions and outcomes and then examined the LAA priorities for each local area to see how these compare with the outcomes of the centre. Day centres showed that their services could contribute to an area's performance on particular indicators such as the employment rate, anti-social behaviour, people attaining independent living and other local priorities. Homeless Link produced funding templates for participating day centres based on their own outcomes data as well as secondary research to use when soliciting funding from local authorities, as well as other sources. In the process, we also explored what tools and support day centres need to obtain more sustainable funding for their services. This information has been used to develop the Funding for Day Centres Project, of which this online resource is a part.
LAA Indicators
One of the big changes in the new Local Area Agreements is that local authorities will now have to choose up to 35 improvement indicators (+ 16 statutory indicators on children and young people) from the National Indicator set , which is made up of 198 possible indicators. This means that not only will day centres have to fit their work into these indicators, but they will also have to put together the right data to demonstrate their contribution. To help day centres to identify the right data to use or collect for specific indicators, Homeless Link has developed some guidance on monitoring and evaluation for LAA indicators .
For more information about LAAs and and LAA indicators relevant to the homelessness sector, please see our excellent LAA briefing .
New: the handbook of indicator definitions has been released, and it reveals some major changes in the 198 indicators. Check out the Homeless Link policy team's indicator update to find out more.
St. Clare's Day Centre
The Worthing Churches Homeless Projects (WCHP), which runs St. Clare's Day Centre, secured £45,000 over three years from its current Local Area Agreement. The organisation saw an opportunity to attach its work to an outcome of the West Sussex LAA that targets preventing premature mortality. It was able to present its case using an Invest to Save approach, and with the funding obtained made day centre employee Karen's part-time post full-time. Since January, Karen has helped to prevent 18 evictions.
The staff team at St. Clare’s
Click here to read about how St. Clare's Day Centre used an Invest to Save approach to obtain its LAA funding, and how this new funding has affected the Centre. There are also some great tips to help you get your organisation's work included in your LAA.
Other Useful Links
- Local Government White Paper Strong and Prosperous Communities Volume 1 : sets out the proposals for the new LAA framework.
- Local Government White Paper Strong and Prosperous Communities Volume 2 : describes how these proposals will change the way local government and its partners tackle particular issues for local services - community safety; health and well-being; vulnerable people; children, young people and families; economic development, housing and planning; climate change; and the role of the third sector. While the first volume of the White Paper is useful, this second volume is much shorter and user-friendly - if you don't have time to read the whole thing, we strongly recommend that you at least flip through this second volume to get a good idea of what local governments should be aiming for, and how you can get involved.
- Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) website : this page has a lot of useful and accessible information about LAAs, including copies of all the current LAAs - download yours now and find out what your LAA targets are and who to contact at your local authority.
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