local authorities

Services shared: costs spared? An analysis of the financial and non-financial benefits of local authority shared services

Report that focuses on the key themes that emerged from the research, specifically the nature and scale of the benefits delivered in practice by shared service arrangements. It also outlines an evaluation tool that has been developed to help identify financial and non-financial share service benefits and to monitor delivery progress.

Families and personalisation project 'Better Lives': key learning outcomes summary for families, local authorities and support providers

Summary of a programme run in three locations - Suffolk, Calderdale and Wolverhampton. Each site recruited families who, primarily, were dissatisfied with how things were at the time, who had a vision for things being different and/or were worried about the future. Although each locality had done some information sharing with families, most participants were unaware of or deeply sceptical about personalisation.

Meals and messages: a focus on food services for older people living in the community in Scotland

Report that outlines the main findings from a study by ODS Consultants commissioned by Consumer Focus Scotland and Community Food and Health Scotland. The study included a survey of all Scottish local authorities, three community organisation commissioned case studies, and focus group activity and telephone interviews with older people using food services.

Performance differences across local authorities

Paper that comes in two parts. First Lesley Sutton shares her experience in looking at (some) data on local authority spend and performance in a few sectors. This is undertaken on the basis of published data, and the annex describes the key data sets that are available and touches upon the significant gaps. Her work does point to a major variation in performance but also emphasises that this is a data and policy minefield; great care should be taken before drawing any conclusions as to relative efficiencies, etc.

Targeting children's centre services on the most needy families

This research aims to provide local authority early years and children’s services leaders, and children’s centre managers, with evidence of how children’s centre services are targeting the most disadvantaged families. In particular, how they are defining, identifying and prioritising families in greatest need of support, and the practical implications of targeting for local authorities, for children’s centres and for policy.