The case studies under this theme demonstrate successful approaches to building sustainable services and achieving value for money.
CIPFA’s Financial Resilience Index has shown that councils are spending around 80% of their net revenue expenditure (NRE) on social care services for adults and children. As explored in Managing rising demand for adult and children’s social care (2024), a significant proportion of expenditure accompanied by rising levels of need across the country is creating an unsustainable financial and operational position for councils. In this environment, local authorities must be innovative to make the public pound stretch further to improve outcomes for people who draw on care and support.
Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council: enhancing adult social care with artificial intelligence
Solihull MBC’s case study describes their experience of using AI to improve efficiency in adult social care. Too much time was being spent on administrative tasks at the expense of direct interaction with people who draw on care and support. After a 12-week trial of Magic Notes, Solihull observed a significant reduction in time spent on written administration and improvements in the quality of conversations.
Buckinghamshire Council: setting clear budgets for care packages
Buckinghamshire Council’s case study describes how the council addressed the need to clearly monitor care package budgets throughout the year and understand why costs change. By categorising areas of spend, calculating full-time equivalents (FTEs) and average unit costs, adding inflation and growth and incorporating savings, Buckinghamshire clarified their budget process. Improved financial data has resulted in greater ownership of budgets and more effective responses to changes in expenditure.
Read the Buckinghamshire Council case study
Leicester City Council: co-producing revisions to charging policy
Leicester City Council’s case study showcases the co-production of information and guidance and the implementation of changes to the council’s charging policy for non-residential care services. The council expanded its existing co-production approach to include operational finance and the approach made changes to the policy more transparent to service users. By listening to the concerns of people who draw on care and support, improvements were made to communication relating to financial matters and disability related expenditure (DRE).
Buckinghamshire Council: weekly monitoring of care packages
Buckinghamshire Council’s case study demonstrates how technology can be used to support budget analysis and oversight. The council’s use of Power Query cut the time and work to compare changes in budgetary information from over a day to one to two hours. This development freed capacity, enabling more frequent analysis and a better grip on changes in care packages, outliers and errors.
Read the Buckinghamshire case study
Cornwall Council: right care, right support, right funding stream
The cost to Cornwall Council of supporting working age adults was an outlier among comparator councils. The council carried out a review of high-cost placements through several lenses, including reassessment of need, housing funding stream, responsible commissioner funding stream, optimising support and strength-based, personalised ways of working, validating staffing levels and validating a fair cost of care. These actions resulted in efficiencies of almost £20m in three years.
