Option Appraisal for the Outsourcing of Services in Adult Social Care
About Lancashire County Council
Lancashire County Council is the local authority for the county of Lancashire, England. Their core responsibility is to provide everyone in the county with a good quality of life, including its most vulnerable residents. They do this by ensuring that the community is well supported. As they provide so many services in a number of disciplines, the council must continuously reflect on the effectiveness of their services, which requires in-depth insight and intelligence from sector experts.
Client challenges
LaingBuisson, in partnership with Cordis Bright and Public Policy Projects, was approached by the council as it launched its Service Challenge, a council-wide project to look at where it could reduce its spending. The council asked us to consider its in-house provision in adult social services and we were asked to assist them in assessing whether it should:
- No longer be a provider itself of some or all of its in-house adult social care services
- Provide these services via another organisation or provider
- Continue to provide the services, but find yet more efficiencies in addition to those already underway or identified in the latest budget proposals
How LaingBuisson helped
While no pre-judgement was made as to which of these options were most likely to apply, the project included the following elements:
- Appraisal and analysis of all data held by the council relating to these services to judge the true cost of these services to the council, what efficiencies could be achieved and the impact of each of the options under consideration.
- Benchmarking of the data provided by the council against proprietary LaingBuisson data to provide a comparison of its service provision across the county (i.e. between council-owned and independent sector homes) and between the provision in Lancashire and similar local authority areas.
- Conversations with key stakeholders across a cross-section of the council’s departments and with key members, to gain a deeper understanding of the data and also to gather soft intelligence on how any decision might be viewed politically.
- A workshop with members and officers towards the end of the assignment to discuss the key findings of the research and the council’s response.
The outcome of the workshop was that the Council decided it would receive the report from LaingBuisson but proceed no further.
How we can help you
LaingBuisson has a team of over 40 consultants, and a large network of opinion leaders, with a broad range of expertise. We provide knowledgeable, fact-based insight and both design and implement strategies that will make your business more successful. LaingBuisson provides the expertise you need to make informed decisions.
