September 2013 - Bron Afon

4.8 This process of drawing together data from different sources of different kinds
to try and present an overall picture is known as triangulation. It reflects the
fact that no one source of data necessarily provides the whole picture.
Statistical data indicates change and performance but so too do stories from
individual tenants and their experiences as well as testing done by people like
mystery shoppers and other trend indicators such as compliments and
complaints.
4.9 In addition, where the Board receives a report on a specific change
programme or new initiative, we will propose a system for measuring the
impact of the change. This has already been done in relation to a number of
changes including, for example, the pilot rent recovery mechanisms on which
the Board will receive a report in October as planned. We have also recently
discussed it in relation to the hardship fund, with a report coming back to the
Board when this has been in operation for three months explaining what
impact it has had.
5. Outcomes
5.1 There is a general approach in public services in Wales to move towards
outcome based planning and monitoring. So called “outcome based
accountability”. It is fair to say, however, that few public services have
cracked this and this is partly because there is quite a high level of confusion
between what I have called “business results” and outcomes.
5.2 In relation to individual outcomes, the Board has seen in the past the reports
that have been generated in respect of outcomes for Aspire and supported
living and these were included in the August Board update. It is worth noting
that the systems we have in place for this individual outcome monitoring have
been widely praised by many of our partners. The entire children’s
safeguarding system in south Wales has been looking for an outcome
monitoring system and are extremely interested in adopting the system we
use. Supporting People in Gwent have also seen it as a model of good
practice. It is a good system but it is not yet effective and in use across the
whole support service within Bron Afon and it is too burdensome for use for all
tenants. I will return to the issue of timescale for rolling this system out for the
whole support service later in this report but the key point is that we have a
system which we know works and we want to roll out as and when resources
permit.
5.3 In terms of group outcomes for the community living in Torfaen we have
spent quite a considerable amount of time exploring the tools that other
organisations are trying to use to record and report on these. They are all
incredibly cumbersome and we recently visited another Housing Association
which we had been recommended to visit because of its approach to
outcomes only to find that they hadn’t cracked this at all. So we are not alone
in struggling with these issues.
5.4 The situation is made more complicated by the requirements of funders and
recipients of the data. We recently had a letter from Kath Palmer, the Deputy
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