Single Outcome Agreement

Information on individual local authorities' Single Outcomes Agreements can be seen on the local authority page here.

Information on othe aspects of Single Outcome Agreements can be found below.

• Single Outcome Agreement - development
• Single Outcome Agreement - Guidance
• Information flow and the single outcome agreement
• Introducing the Single Outcome Agreement
• Outcomes, indicators and housing support

Single Outcome Agreement – development

A menu of indicators has been produced. This menu can be used by local authorities to help them develop their individual frameworks for their single outcome agreement report. Details are available on the Improvement Service’s website here.

Single Outcome Agreement - Guidance

Guidance, format and indicators for Scottish local government has been produced to provide information and assistance to Scottish Local Government on the development and submission of their Single Outcome Agreements (SOA) to Scottish Government.

The package provides an outline of the Single Outcome Agreement and its component parts and explains the links between the SOA and the Scottish Government National Performance Framework.

The package can be viewed on the Improvement Service’s website here.

Information flow and the single outcome agreement

The Scottish Government has produced a flow chart which explains how information feeds in to the Single Outcome Agreement and overall government strategy. The chart can be seen here.

Introducing the Single Outcome Agreement

A Concordat has been entered into between the Government and COSLA

Under this Concordat local authorities will be required to develop and report on a Single Outcome Agreement (SOA). These SOAs will incorporate the set of national outcomes and indicators recently announced as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. In a letter to local authority Supporting People Lead Officers at the beginning of January, the Government clarified what this means:

' Under the new arrangement each local authority will be expected to submit a single report on the year just finished and plans for the year to come, starting in 2008/09, setting out progress and achievements towards the national outcomes. With the exception of statutory requirements and any agreed transitional arrangements in moving to an outcomes based approach, local authorities will not be asked to submit any other monitoring returns or plans to the Scottish Government, without the prior agreement of COSLA.'

What this means for housing support is that local authorities will no longer be required to report to the Government on the amount it has spent on housing support and what that has purchased in terms of service levels and profile of service users. In future there will be no Supporting People grant and therefore no reporting requirements associated with grant conditions. This does not mean, however, that local authorities will cease to require information from service providers about the service they deliver and who they deliver it to.
The concordat can be viewed at www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/923/0054147.pdf.

What might single outcome agreements look like?

In the light of ring fence removal much attention is now focused on the single outcome agreements and the extent to which they may or may not reflect housing support. The reason this is so important is that this will be the main mechanism by which local authorities will report to the Government and thereby be held accountable. Not surprisingly, therefore, housing support providers are keen to see where their services fit in.

Whilst each local authority will negotiate its own single outcome agreement with the Government there will be a framework for them to work within. It is disappointing to many delivering and commissioning housing support that within the complete set of 15 outcomes and 45 indicators there is no indicator devoted to housing support. Work is currently underway by the Government in conjunction with COSLA to identify those outcomes and indicators relevant to local authorities.

Community Planning Partnership indicators

In addition to these outcomes and indicators the Unit understands that work is underway to consider indicators currently used by Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) across the country. Indeed, the Concordat does hint that in the future there could be single outcome agreements with CPPs. It is not clear when these additional indicators will be decided on. After the framework of outcomes and indicators has been agreed upon for local authorities the work can be undertaken by each local authority to develop individual single outcome agreements.

Timescale for developing SOAs

The work needed to develop individual single outcome agreements by local authorities may not start until April 2008. It is at this stage that local authorities may decide to discuss priorities and targets with providers as part of the SOA development process. One of the challenges for local authorities will be to decide what information to record from April 2008 before the SOAs have been agreed. In terms of housing support, work is well underway to evaluate the pilot of the Housing Support Outcome Framework. Over the next few months it will become clearer how well this framework provides information which local authorities can use for their annual SOA report.

Outcomes, indicators and housing support

Making links between housing support and the new set of outcomes and indicators

Unfortunately no outcome or indicator deals simply with being safe at home, or having sustainable accommodation or preventing crisis. The Government is, however, taking steps to identify those outcomes and indicators which have a link with housing support.

The initial list looks like this:

In the Unit's view there is one further outcome and two further indicators which have links with housing support:

Another way of looking at the outcomes and indicators is to consider the extent to which they reflect the needs of different groups of people. Housing support is something which a broad range of people have benefited from so far and these are reflected in the 18 clients groups the Supporting People programme has monitored in the past. The Scottish Government’s outcomes are broad enough to reflect all clients groups that are serviced by the Supporting People programme. The extent to which the new indicators reflect these groups has been considered by the Unit:
6 can be easily linked to Scottish Government indicators. These groups are:

• Older people
• People having mental health problems
• People who use drugs
• People who use alcohol
• People at risk of offending, re-offending and leaving prison
• People who are homeless or sleeping rough

12 cannot be easily linked to Scottish Government indicators. These groups are:

• People vulnerable due to young age
• People with physical disability/illness
• People with a learning disability
• Women fleeing domestic violence
• Refugees
• People with HIV/ AIDS
• People with sensory impairment
• People with dementia
• People with an acquired brain injury
• Gypsies/ Travellers
• People experiencing psychological trauma
• Other vulnerable groups

The lack of any outcome or indicator dealing with housing support in a general way means we have to wait to see the draft outcome agreements to understand the extent to which support for these last groups has been adequately covered under the new arrangements. However the Single Outcome Agreements are expected to go beyond the national indicators and address other local priorities.

If you have views on how housing support links with the new outcomes and indicators the Unit would be interested to hear from you. Do you think the service you provide is reflected in any of those mentioned above? Let us know what you think by emailing moira.weir@ccpscotland.org

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