Decision details

The Place Plan is one of the major transformational change programmes that make up the Doncaster Growing Together portfolio. Its purpose is to deliver an accountable care system for Doncaster, integrating health and social care operational delivery and commissioning. Significant progress has been made in defining and scoping the programme, and establishing the governance including a legal Joint Commissioning Agreement and a Provider Collaborative Agreement.
Work is focussed around seven ‘areas of opportunity’ as the starting point for creating and testing new models of care. Two prototype areas (Complex Lives and Intermediate Care) are now mature programmes and have commenced delivery. Other areas are less mature and are at various stages of maturity.
The development of integrated neighbourhood delivery is a major plank of the Place Plan ambitions, however there is significant work to do to define what is to be achieved and the programme to deliver it. Experience from the Vanguard sites indicates that significant resources will be required to support delivery, in particular in leadership, staff engagement and organisational development. This should not be underestimated.
A number of strategic enablers – estates, workforce, communications and engagement, finance and contracting - are at an early stage, with significant work required to define their deliverables and associated work plans.
Substantial staff resources are already aligned to the programme from across the partnership and this has been mapped across the Areas of Opportunity; this has been discussed at Joint Commissioning Management Board (JCMB). The resource gaps are now clear as a result of this exercise and are addressed in the funding proposal.
Existing capacity is also coming into play from across the partnership and BCF to deliver the Place Plan:
- Council Project Management Office (PMO) and Strategy and Performance Unit, including implementation of Pentana
- Commissioning capacity from the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Council, with joint commissioning teams emerging aligned to the life stages
- Communications capacity
- Innovation partner procurement
In terms of resourcing transformation capacity, the non-recurrent Better Care Fund has been largely pointed toward the delivery of the ambitions of the Place Plan, with an overarching commitment of £8.5m for the period 2017/18 to 2019/20. However the detailed spending plans associated with the committed funding are still to be determined – this paper starts to clarify this.
Delivery plans are now being developed for each major area within the Place Plan setting out:
- Deliverables (actual, tangible changes anticipated)
- The route map including major milestones and decision points
- Associated risks and mitigations
- The expected impact (quantified benefits including performance and quality indicators, and financial impact)
Future calls on the non-recurrent BCF are likely to include funding for the double running of services covering the period between current and future business as usual, allowing new services to be ‘switched on’ before old services can be ‘switched off’. Robust business plans will be required, providing adequate assurance that non-recurrent investments do not become long-term additional costs. Pump priming or seed funding may also be required, to enable new approaches to service delivery to be tested.
Attention must now turn to delivery of the Place Plan ambitions and resourcing it appropriately. This paper set out the priority funding proposals and areas subject to further capacity review. As the delivery plan matures and expands, including further areas of opportunity, additional resource requirements will also be identified.
The Accountable Care Partnership (ACP) Leadership Team has agreed a framework for funding the programme, this has been further refined and is detailed in Appendix A. This has identified £401,754 (2018/19 £228,748 and 2019/20 £173,006) funding for the priority areas and £309,656 (2018/19 £160,323 and 2019/20 £149,334) areas subject to further capacity review following agreement of ACPLT strategic priorities.
The £401,754 will be funded from the £3.0m set aside in the non-recurrent BCF for the Doncaster Place Plan. Cabinet approved to delegate detailed spending decisions for the implementation of the Doncaster Place Plan £3m, other Integrated Functions £0.7m and
unallocated balance £0.7m, to the Director of People in consultation with the Chief Finance Officer and relevant Portfolio Holder, on the 27th March 2018. Link to the report below:
https://doncasterintranet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s15855/Better%20Care%20Fund%20-%20Use%20of%20Earmarked%20Reserve%20Cabinet.pdf

To agree to use £401,754 of the non-recurrent Better Care Fund (BCF) to fund priority areas including delivery capacity, Director of Transformation support, HR and Organisational Development and co-production capacity/resources as detailed in Appendix A.

The decision not to provide this funding would mean that the resources/additional capacity required to deliver the programme would not be available.