View publication - Chartered Institute of Housing

PART ONE: LEARNING TODAY
These challenges include the following:
• Increasing volume and complexity of service user needs, which are now compounded
by the impact of welfare reforms.
• The need to stay ahead of diverse and sophisticated models of intervention to
support clients with mental health, substance misuse and other complex needs.
• The personalisation agenda. This is not only about enabling clients to purchase
services that are tailored to their individual needs, but involves a much more
fundamental readjustment to thinking about service delivery. This will bring about coproduction
and the involvement of service-users as active partners in the design of
services.
• Fierce competition for service contracts, with more and more private sector providers
entering the market.
• Public spending cuts driving local authority commissioners to tip the balance ever
more towards price when awarding contracts and to demand further price reductions
mid-contract. This represents a never-ending need to do more with fewer resources.
• Managing greater financial risks associated with changes to the ways in which
services are commissioned and paid for: for example, ‘payment by results’ contracts.
• A high level of job insecurity, organisational upheaval and service reconfigurations as
a result of the frequency of re-tendering of service contracts by local authorities.
• The ability to recruit and motivate good staff, which is severely compromised by the
steep downwards trend in wages and terms and conditions for front-line staff.
What LPoC has achieved
In a sector where traditionally interest and investment in leadership and management
skills has been comparatively weak, LPoC has plugged a huge gap. It has played a major
role in equipping participants with the understanding and skills needed to address the
challenges faced by the sector over the past few years.
Initially, most of those taking up the LPoC programme were senior managers, including
CEOs of smaller charities. Over the past few years more organisations have been
sponsoring their middle and junior managers to undertake the programme. This is a very
healthy trend as it has enabled participating organisations to nurture effective leadership
behaviours from early on in an employee’s management career.
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