Councillor Sue Dann (Cabinet Member for Customer Experience, Sport, Leisure and HR and OD) introduced the City Help & Support report and discussed:

 

a)     The item had been brought to the Scrutiny Management Board as part of preparations for future budget planning, as City Help & Support would significantly influence the Council’s approach to service delivery over the coming years;

 

b)    There had been a sharp rise in demand and complexity of residents requiring help and support over recent years, which continued to place extraordinary pressure on Council services;

 

c)     Adult social care, children’s social care, homelessness and SEND were experiencing escalating costs, and these pressures were structural and cumulative rather than cyclical, with new demand added each year and little scope for costs to fall in the next;

 

d)    Rising complexity in adult social care meant more people were entering the system and staying longer, resulting in higher per?person costs and greater overall pressure on budgets;

 

e)     Children’s social care was facing unprecedented increases in placement costs, including high?cost residential care, with the Council often having limited control over market pricing or sudden changes in the needs of children entering care;

 

f)      Homelessness and temporary accommodation demand continued to rise due to the national housing shortage, with temporary accommodation and bed and breakfast usage now a significant and growing budget pressure;

 

g)     These demands were affecting people, not numbers, and the challenge could not be viewed solely as a financial problem. It required earlier interventions and more cohesive support to improve outcomes for individuals and families;

 

h)    Although the Council already delivered positive preventative work, the scale of demand meant the organisation required a new, collaborative, data?driven approach to shift the balance towards prevention;

 

i)      The City Help & Support programme would initially focus on internal Council activity but would, as it matured, expand to work more closely with partners;

 

j)      The programme aimed to ensure people were identified earlier, supported earlier, and prevented from entering high?cost crisis services where possible, enabled by better data, improved pathways and multi?disciplinary working;

 

k)     Early identification required drawing together information held across services including schools, housing, health and family support, to provide a more holistic view of risk and need;

 

l)      The approach aligned with the People Strategy, Children’s Hubs, Health and Wellbeing Hubs, and new data insights being developed across the Council, all of which would contribute to stronger preventative work.

 

Thomas Fowler (Programme Manager) added:

 

m)   City Help & Support was a critical programme with a dual objective: improving outcomes for households and saving money through earlier, more effective intervention, creating a “win?win” for residents and the Council;

 

n)    The scale of the challenge required a whole?system response, as Plymouth residents faced increasingly complex circumstances, including trauma, poverty, insecure housing and rising social care needs;

 

o)    City Help & Support built upon a strong foundation of strategic work already underway across the Council, aiming to bring together previously separate initiatives into a coherent, preventative system;

 

p)    Extensive staff engagement had been undertaken as part of the programme, with many officers expressing frustration at the current reactive model and welcoming a move towards early help supported by better data, better processes and reduced silo?working;

 

q)    Staff had highlighted difficulties arising from siloed teams, fragmented data access and financing systems that did not easily support preventative approaches however, there was also strong optimism that improvements could be achieved;

 

r)     Significant preventative work was already taking place across the Council, including major reforms in children’s social care, expanded health and wellbeing hubs, improvements in adult reablement services and innovative programmes such as Changing Futures and the Plymouth Alliance;

 

s)     Despite strong pockets of good practice, existing work was not sufficient to meet the scale of current and future demand, as many initiatives remained small, isolated or pilot?based rather than coherently embedded across the Council. City Help & Support aimed to correct this by scaling effective practice, reducing fragmentation and embedding consistent preventative approaches across the organisation;

 

t)     The programme had identified several early projects, including developing a Single Citizen View to allow predictive analytics and early identification of households at risk of homelessness or exclusion from education;

 

u)    Multi?disciplinary teams aligned with neighbourhood areas were being developed in partnership with NHS neighbourhood models, enabling more co?located, community?based working;

 

v)     The programme’s design centred on three tiers of prevention: primary, secondary and tertiary, ensuring universal access to support, targeted early intervention for those at heightened risk and comprehensive wrap?around support for those already in crisis;

 

w)   Work was focusing on making better use of community assets such as libraries, hubs and family centres to improve accessibility of help and embed support at the heart of local communities;

 

x)    The programme’s financial model involved using capital receipts to pump?prime preventative work, with the aim of generating a sustainable cycle in which early?help investment reduced long?term costs and enabled further reinvestment;

 

y)     Detailed KPIs, theory of change methodologies and governance systems were in development to ensure measurable outcomes, financial transparency and accountability across services;

 

z)     A full governance framework was operational, involving strategic directors from the key service areas most affected by the programme.

 

In response to questions, the Board discussed:

 

aa)  Concerns about historic difficulties with multi?agency data?sharing, particularly with police and health partners, and the extent to which the Council could currently access the necessary data to deliver the Single Citizen View model. Clarification was provided that the first phase of the Single Citizen View focused on integrating Council?held data, and that legal and data?sharing issues would be navigated carefully before expanding to external partners, with appropriate governance and evidence of resident benefit required;

 

bb)Recognition that the success of City Help & Support would rely on early, lawful and safe data?sharing, and acknowledgment that other agencies would ultimately benefit financially and operationally from reduced crisis demand;

 

cc)  Support for the programme’s aims, noting numerous examples of residents being passed between multiple services or agencies when seeking help, often repeating their story many times and experiencing delayed support;

 

dd)Clarification that any savings or cost avoidance generated through City Help & Support would remain within the programme to support further preventative work, rather than being diverted elsewhere;

 

ee)  Clarification that, while physical visibility had value in some contexts, residents with the most complex needs rarely accessed support through city?centre buildings. Instead, the programme focused on locating services within communities via hubs, libraries and trusted local assets to strengthen relationships, build trust and reduce ‘pillar?to?post’ experiences;

 

ff)    Acknowledgement that library sites were increasingly acting as first?stop contact points for residents and that the broader customer experience programme would address issues of accessibility, signage and improved first contact;

 

gg)  Recognition of the need to reduce the number of times a resident must tell their story, with members emphasising the importance of seamless referral routes, single points of contact and unified multi?agency responses;

 

hh)Recognition that residents presenting in crisis often had multiple underlying issues, and the City Help & Support model was intended to help identify these earlier through data insights and stronger cross?team collaboration;

 

ii)     The relationship between demand management and the Council’s medium?term financial planning, with the Section 151 Officer highlighting that the programme was not about making savings but about reducing the trajectory of demand growth, which was essential for the five?year MTFP;

 

jj)     Recognition that the programme required brave and strategic decisions to shift resources and avoid over?investment in reactive, high?cost crisis provision.

 

The Board agreed:

 

1. To review and feedback on the City Help & Support programme.