Background

The Lewisham London Borough Council is in south-east London and serves a population of around 260,000 residents.  The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Lewisham and was one of the first councils to have a directly elected executive mayor (since 2002). The council has 10 key priorities, three of which relate to the Early Intervention Programme: backing young people, greater say for residents and making people’s money go further.

The Challenge

Having already reduced the cost of providing Early Years services, in December 2010, Lewisham discovered that its Children and Young People’s (CYP) settlement from central government would be reduced further still.  This meant a further £4.4m of efficiency savings would still need to be found, representing 20% of the already reduced budget.  This significant budget cut required a rethink as to how services should be shaped and Lewisham decided to set up the Early Intervention Programme to deliver these changes.

The primary goals for the programme were:

• Vulnerable Children and Young People in Lewisham continue to receive the services they need
• Vulnerable Children and Young People in Lewisham avoid escalating to specialist services through earlier targeted intervention
• The CYP directorate saves £4.4m from Early Years provision within 2 years

In addition to delivering these goals, the Early Intervention Programme Board ensured that the decisions made in respect of funding and service changes were in line with statutory duties to ensure the safeguarding of all children.

The challenge was to define a programme that would deliver these radical changes within the short 2 year timescale whilst not jeopardising the provision of current services.

Support from EPPM

Lewisham were already using the Public Sector Programme Management Approach (PSPMA), developed by the Excellence in Programme and Project Management (EPPM) initiative.  Steve Gough, Director for Programme Management and Property, explains “Over the past three  years progress in adopting Programme Management as a discipline in Lewisham has been significant. This development has been supported  in part by  the training to Programme Managers and SRO’s that the EPPM has been able to offer. The key to its success has been in applying Programme Management in a way that makes it relevant to the public sector. We have found participating in shared experiences with similar programmes to  been invaluable, and we will continue to maintain our involvement through our active participation in the Community of Practice."

One element of EPPM was to provide facilitated workshops, led by programme management experts, to help organisations using PSPMA to define an aspect of their programme. 

Andy Murray, from Outperform, was appointed to facilitate a workshop to help define the objectives and governance structures for Lewisham’s Early Intervention Programme. The workshop participants included the programme manager, the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), selected members of the programme board, other key stakeholders and representatives from related programmes.

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