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As of 31st May 2007, providers have needed to complete the short-term form for all clients exiting their service and submit them quarterly. The long-term form needs to be completed annually on a sample of clients. Forms are completed and submitted electronically and analysed centrally by the Centre for Housing Research in St Andrews who also already analyse the client record form.

The data is made available to local authorities on a web-based system, around five weeks after the end of each quarter. Key reports are provided for each local authority, presenting their data broken down by primary client group and service type and benchmarked with national and regional outcomes. Local authories also have access to the outcomes data at individual service and provider level. They can access their raw data if they want to carry out further analysis.

 

Providers can access their data via the local authority Supporting People team commissioning their service. This should be sent to providers each quarter. If it is not offered by SP teams, providers are advised to chase this up and request it. It offers a wealth of information on key outcomes which can be of use to providers in a number of ways, including learning more about what works and evidencing their service outcomes for other stakeholders.

 

Providers are not able to log in to the CLG website directly to access their own data, but can use the site to view outcomes data across primary client groups and service type for individual local authorities, regionally and nationally. This will enable providers to benchmark their own service outcomes against national or local averages for the first time.

Service providers are increasingly recognising the value of using distance travelled tools such as the Outcomes Star as an integral part of their work with clients. Experience has shown that the tools provide focus, structure and clarity in the keywork process and can aid client change, and that the data they generate can contribute to learning and service improvement.

 

It is now likely that local authorities will increasingly encourage the use of such tools as good practice and a few are even going down the route of requiring the use of a distance travelled tool as part of their contract conditions. The Audit Commission, which has already recognised the use of the Outcomes Star as good practice, may move further in this direction.

It is likely that the majority of Local Authorities will have enough provider level outcomes data available from the combination of the CLG outcomes form questions and providers own distance travelled tools. However, where authorities want additional outcomes information, they are encouraged to use only those listed in the national "basket of indicators" circulated by the CLG. This was developed to encourage consistency and minimise the administrative buden on providers. Most of the indicators are only for specific service types, not across all services.

 

Providers may therefore need to familiarise themselves with the indicators in the basket and check that they would be able to collect additional outcomes information on specific services from the basket of indicators if asked to do so.

 

In the short-term, it is possible that at least some local authorities will request additional information not in the national basket as some authorities developed their own set of indicators prior to the CLG outcomes form and basket being completed. Where this is the case, providers may need to take the initiative in pointing local authorities back to the principles of the national framework and the CLG form and national basket of indicators.

View the basket of national outcomes indicators

Looking a few years into the future, providers can expect outcomes information to become part of the normal discourse about services. They are likely to be a standard part of service contracts and contract monitoring though there are no moves to link funding to outcomes. Further, both providers and commissioners will become more familiar with outcomes data and better able to interpret and use this for learning and improvement. Services will recognise which indicators are most useful and will start to get a sense of what kinds of outcomes a certain kind of service should be achieving. The availability of national outcomes data will facilitate benchmarks to emerge.

It is also possible that, whilst the national framework allows providers to choose their own outcomes tools, over time certain tools will emerge as the most favoured by providers and/or commissioners. The Outcomes Star is emerging as the most widely used of such tools in the homelessness sector. Agencies in the homelessness field in London are already discussing the benefits of sharing distance travelled data. A new data analysis facility soon oto be added to this website will make that an immediate reality for users of the Outcomes Star. In the mental health sector the Mental Health Providers Forum is piloting the Mental Health Recovery Star, a sector-wide tool adapted from the Outcomes Star by Triangle Consulting.

The sensitive and intelligent interpretation of outcomes data is emerging as another key challenge - making the most of the learning about successes and failures to improve services by creating a climate in which agencies feel able to be open about what they are achieving. This is now a major focus of the London Housing Foundation Impact through Outcomes programme.

We believe that the outcomes framework that has been developed for the Supporting People programme is effective in terms of balancing the need for information with the need to limit bureaucracy and recognising the different requirements of central government, local government and service providers. Feedback we have heard from providers indicates that the form is reasonably accessible and quick to complete - certainly better than had been feared - and information on outcomes for clients of the full range of Supporting People services is now widely available for the first time.

Author: Joy MacKeith and Sara Burns
Date: 21 June 2007

Updated by Sara Burns, 27 November 2007