Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF): year 1 - process evaluation - interim report

1. CSPP views on the Scottish Government's support role

Introduction

This section explores the Scottish Government's support role in the administration of the WFWF, alongside CSPPs' initial CSPP views of the funding and their experience of developing their WFWF initial plans. The Scottish Government's role as funder was initially focussed on setting the aims and objectives of the funding, outlining the criteria, and putting in place processes and guidance to support CSPPs to begin designing their WFWF activities.

The Scottish Government provided CSPPs with a template for detailing their initial WFWF plans (see Annex 5). The initial plan template asked for information on their existing approach to holistic whole family support, planned activity for WFWF, anticipated outcomes for the first year, and intended monitoring activities. These plans were the first documentation of how CSPPs intended to spend their WFWF allocation for 2022-23. The initial plan template also contained detail on the allocation methodology for the WFWF, the aims of the funding (see policy background above), and the criteria for spending the funding.

CSPPs were awarded funding based on a formula which weighted allocations based on population of 0–17 -year-olds, rurality, children in low-income families, and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).^[10] CSPP funding levels can be grouped into three categories:

• 8 CSPPs each received £0.5m or less
• 13 CSPPs each received between £0.5m - £1m
• 9 CSPPs each received more than £1m

The lowest level of funding received by a CSPP was £0.132m and the highest was £4.7m. Across the six evaluation case studies, the lowest level of funding was £0.832m and the highest was £4.7m, with a mean of £1.933m.^[11]

The Scottish Government also identified WFWF leads to provide support to CSPPs throughout the funding period. Each CSPP was allocated a lead to be their direct point of contact.

As the WFWF moves through Year 1, strategic leads and managers felt that the Scottish Government has been responsive to the needs of CSPPs, looking to refine support and communications to better meet their needs. For example, adapting annual reporting requirements and guidance in accordance with feedback from CSPPs about their needs and preferences. As CSPPs are at different stages in their development of holistic whole family support, iterative responses to change across the lifetime of the funding period are a likely and necessary aspect of this programme within the children's services system.

Initial views on the WFWF

Element 1

The WFWF was welcomed and appreciated by CSPPs. CSPP strategic leads and managers shared the Scottish Government's vision for the funding and agreed with its aims and objectives (see policy background in previous section). The funding was described as an innovative opportunity for them to develop new ways of working to support the whole family and they valued the emphasis on early intervention and prevention. Leads and managers also praised the broad scope of the funding, in that CSPPs could focus on scaling up existing provision and build local capacity or choose to develop entirely new services:

"It's a really exciting opportunity for us to be actually given this type of money specifically for this and to focus on prevention and the whole family…[to] invest and support families that we have not really been able to do in this kind of way, at a very early stage..."

Strategic Lead

Strategic leads and managers would have welcomed more information about the practicalities of the funding's operation at the beginning of their involvement with the WFWF including the timeline of Year 1 funding and future funding availability to allow for more strategic planning. Requests were made for additional detail on criteria for spending the funding, and how the allocation of funding across CSPPs was decided (particularly for Element 2 collaborative support). It was felt this would have supported strategic leads and managers to develop their initial plans more quickly and confidently (see Developing the initial plan section below):

"Going back to almost the earliest points when we were talking about the WFWF, the question was why the Scottish Government took these very distinct approaches to different elements of the budget allocation [i.e. Element 1 and 2], and I don't know if they've articulated that particularly well…Our sense was 'just give us some money and we'll do the right thing' as opposed to [the Scottish Government's chosen approach of] being very prescriptive about [having different elements of funding]."

Strategic Lead

Element 2

Strategic leads and managers in our two case study areas involved with Element 1 and 2 welcomed being involved with both elements. Although they now understand Element 2 as playing a complementary role to Element 1, strategic leads were initially unsure how the two elements would work together. At the time of fieldwork, strategic leads and managers felt that Element 2 offered an opportunity to consolidate the work started in Element 1, and to develop their data and evidencing systems to build a strong evidence base of what worked and what could be improved in their holistic whole family support offering:

"[To] get some support around data analysis and to understand our systems. That has been an opportunity through Element 2 that will actually support some of that Element 1 work."

Strategic Lead

Element 2 CSPPs would have welcomed more clarity on the difference between the two elements of the funding from the outset. They were unclear on the distinctive criteria and aims of the two elements when they began completing their Element 2 expressions of interest forms:

"The different elements and what they meant probably wasn't clear at first."

Strategic Lead

However, these CSPPs found that the expressions of interest process and ongoing conversations with their Scottish Government WFWF lead provided clarity on the distinctions between the elements. Ultimately, strategic leads and managers felt the two elements would work well together going forward.

CSPPs who applied for Element 2, but were unsuccessful, requested more detailed feedback on the rationale for the decision.^[12] Strategic leads felt this would be helpful in supporting their design and delivery of Element 1 funding activities.

Developing the initial plan

Most CSPP strategic leads led on, or were heavily involved in, developing the initial plan. Commonly, plans were developed in collaboration with CSPP partners, either through existing working groups or ad hoc meetings to discuss the content of the plans and edits before reaching a final agreement. See the next section for how decisions on WFWF activity to fund were agreed.

The initial plan template was well received by CSPPs. Those who had been involved in drafting initial plans felt it was effective in supporting them to document their plans without placing a significant or unreasonable burden on them. This was primarily because CSPPs often already had a clear vision for how they wanted to deliver holistic whole family support in the area. For those CSPPs, it was just a question of fitting their existing plans into the WFWF template.

The relatively short timescales for developing the initial plans – CSPPs were given between July and October 2022 – was perceived by some CSPPs to limit their initial plans. A CSPP felt that there was limited time to discuss their plans with third sector partners before submitting the initial plan, and that they had to rush their decision-making processes (e.g., analysis of data) to meet the timescales.

Other CSPPs, however, valued the need for urgency and felt it gave them the opportunity to speed up their decision-making process around where to focus their holistic whole family support.

CSPPs felt they would have benefited from greater clarity on the milestones for the funding terms, including the specific deadlines for funding receipt and spend. This information would have given them a better sense for how to plan and design their approach to WFWF activities, especially across financial years.

Ongoing support from the Scottish Government

The Scottish Government's communication with WFWF leads and support provided to CSPPs was perceived as helpful to the delivery of WFWF activities. CSPP strategic leads and managers appreciated having a direct, named link within the Scottish Government, and praised the WFWF leads for their timely responses and commitment to finding answers to their questions.

Element 2 CSPPs initially had a different contact for each of Element 1 and 2. They felt that having the same contact may bring about efficiencies to their ways of working. As a result, Scottish Government allocated a single point of contact for CSPPs with both Element 1 and 2 funding as of autumn 2022.

CSPPs also valued the monthly newsletter and learning events (via the national Learning into Action network), which gave them an opportunity to learn about how other CSPPs were approaching holistic whole family support:

"They do a newsletter which just came out last week and they talked at an event in Glasgow … they are raising awareness at all key national groups. You also have your link person so any issues or questions or concerns you can phone or email your link person."

Strategic Lead

To further support CSPPs, strategic leads and managers suggested it would be helpful to work with the Scottish Government to have more opportunities to understand other CSPP activity in relation to delivery of holistic whole family support. This included best practice and learning from overcoming common challenges and pitfalls in delivering holistic whole family support and achieving transformational change.

Collecting data to evidence the performance of their WFWF activity was also mentioned by several CSPPs as an area where they would welcome more support from the Scottish Government. For some CSPPs, this was around how to make sense of existing data collection, where they had large amounts of data collected but were not able to utilise it to inform the design and delivery of support in their area. Others would have liked guidance on how to attribute outcomes to specific WFWF activities and how best to evidence the outcomes that are less tangible, such as greater collaboration between family support services:

"Some kind of partnership governance around this because it is such a partnership approach and agreeing to how we measure, really, how this is working. So, I suppose it's difficult to say in
Year 1."

Manager

CSPPs were already considering the sustainability of their WFWF-funded support beyond the funding period which is currently set to end in 2026. The current statutory Children's Services Planning cycle runs from 2020-2023 and the next planning cycle runs from April 2023-2026. CSPPs would welcome the Scottish Government working with them to ensure the funding has a legacy. There was appetite among CSPPs for their WFWF activity to become business as usual but would welcome support from the Scottish Government to embed their activity beyond the lifetime of the funding.