Budget-holding lead professionals

Joint Funding Guidance

New guidance on joint funding arrangements was published on 24 May 2007, written in conjunction with a wide range of experts and practitioners. Better Outcomes for Children's Services Through Joint Funding — a Best Practice Guide (published by the DfES and DoH) explains the key steps and contains:

illustrations of the benefits of joint funding
examples and case studies
options available and preparation tips
key elements of a robust joint funding agreement
financial tips in running pooled budgets.

Integrated Commissioning for Children's Services

This is our new practical guide to the development of simple commissioning frameworks and clear structures for children's services authorities. (Published Feb 2007; by Judith Smyth)

Download some sample pages from this book. (845kb PDF)

Order the complete book.

OPM is supporting and challenging 16 BHLP pilot authorities to work with children, families and young people with additional needs who need targeted support.

As part of our contract with the DfES, we are supporting a learning community through workshops and investigative reports in which we explore the latest thinking about personalised budgets for children in need. The work is relevant to those who are implementing the lead professional process and who understand that lead professionals — acting as brokers working with children, families and young people — commission services at an individual level and that information gained from this process can be used to transform children’s services and contribute to improvement for children and young people.

BHLP Reports

On our downloadable papers page, there are some useful reports that we produced for the DfES and you can download them as PDFs. They cover many areas, such as: general briefings on what BHLPs are and how the BHLP role can transform services; how to build BHLP into the mainstream of provision; how to realise efficiency gains; the different process models worked up during the BHLP pilot programme; guidance on financial management for developing local arrangements; and the issues raised by pooled budgets.

If you are interested in this area please do not hesitate to contact Judith Smyth

BHLP Presentations

National Evaluation of BHLPs – Why? Who? How? What? Where? Comprehensive, 56-page screen presentation from the April 2008, Reading conference, by Jude Belsham, DCSF, and Jan Walker, Newcastle University.

Children's Trust Commissioning A 14-page screen presentation covering the issues, by Benedict Arora, Head of Commissioning (Children and Families) at the DCSF

Management Learning Programmes

We run a number of management learning programmes and workshops for those interested in the role of lead professionals, integrated working processes, local area agreements, multi-agency teams and integrated commissioning. These programmes have been designed for managers and directors in social services, children's services and local education authorities. See our programmes page or contact us for details.

For further information about the work described here, please contact Judith Smyth, t: 020 7239 7800, email Judith