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Innovation - Case for Investment in Social Care
Skills for Care (SfC) New Types of Worker programme wanted to help third sector organisations make the leap from using development grants to sustainable funding, in other words for commissioners to buy the services they provided at a price which enabled them to continue to provide the service. 
I ran a 4 month programme in the North East, due to be repeated in other regions, which brought some of the most difficult innovation together with local authority, health and charity service commissioners. Projects included
- Gateshead Crossroads Young Carers service (the local authority referred young carers to the service but their own authority didn't fund this service so it relied on charity grants which had reached the last few months of life - help was needed urgently)
- BECON (Black & Ethnic Minority Community Organisations Network) (needed recognition, support and funding to help set up a community organisations network in Newcastle - various issues had prevented this working in the past)
- Tees Valley Wildlife Trust (had a pilot service to give institutionalised people suffering from mental health problems opportunities to work in nature, and to learn about work, teamwork, timekeeping and responsibility. However it needed to expand both to become financially viable and because the need is so great)
- Skills for People (setting up a new form of advocacy and deciding on a funding model)
We took a decision right at the start to help the most difficult, and so we rejected any projects which already had a clear case for funding.
We took these four through a process of coaching to understand what commissioners would be looking for, what they needed to identify about their service, and how they could demonstrate the benefits they had identified (including measurement and reporting). It proved successful, and the enclosed reports 
"Commissioning Innovation" (PDF 676kb), and "For Innovators seeking Funding" (PDF 576kb), can be downloaded from the Skills for Care web site.
The charities are doing well - the individual projects are properly funded, and much of the learning has been applied in other areas of each charity.
One organisation (Skills for People) has gone a stage further and had a full Social Return on Investment (SROI) report prepared on another area of their work
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benefits approach
benefits frameworks
benefits management
Benefits Realisation
book review
business case
Care Pathway
Clinical Engagement
collaboration
Commissioning innovation
ECP
employee engagement
GP Commissioning
health funding
Innovation
NHS
performance management
Project Management
RoI
Service Transformation
Social Audit
social care
Social Enterprise
SROI
workforce design
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