What is planning?

Planning – or ‘outcome planning’ in the delivery cycle – is the process of agreeing:

• Where you are starting from – your baseline or current performance with the ‘story’ behind this
  
• Where you want to get to – this may be a vision, a set of LAA outcomes or individual performance indicators
  
• Whether what you’re doing will get you there – is ‘more of the same’ likely to be enough?
  
• If not, what needs to be different? Appraising options and agreeing action – a plausible set of interventions that are likely to work – if implemented well
  
• And how this will be delivered in practice – with a plan for interventions, resources, timescales, leads etc.  

Why is planning useful to my work?

Planning is often ignored. People often rush from analysis to delivery, delivering what they've always done and getting what they've always got.

We want a focus on outcomes; but agreeing outcomes and targets will not lead to change in places - and for citizens and users - unless we are clear how they will be achieved.

So in your work of supporting delivery, you can use outcome planning to be confident that the right actions have been put in place and they are likely to deliver the outcomes.

Remember:

An outcome without a plan is just a dream

What is my role in helping partners to do it well?

If you understand Outcome Planning then you can:

• Explain it to partners and advise them how to use it
• Make it more likely their outcomes will be delivered in practice
• Support them during the process – with option appraisal, securing resources etc
• Challenge them to think ‘outside the box’ – as a critical friend
• Negotiate around evidence – not hunches or ‘pet projects’  

Core tasks

This section contains FAQs – and answers – as well as links to tools, templates and guidance about when and how you might want to use these. You can work through these or dip into the bits that interest you.

1. What do we mean by planning?
2. What are the core tools, techniques and templates I need to know about?
3. How do I do options appraisal?
4. How do I do outcome planning?
5. Who needs to be involved in delivery planning?
6. How do I know if the outcome plan is good enough?
7. Is planning different at different spatial levels?
8. What gaps or pitfalls do I need to be aware of?
9. Moving from planning to delivery – what needs to be done?

Okay, how do I go about...

• Assessing a delivery plan?
• Effective risk management?
  

Summary

LAA Delivery Planning – This is a five stage outcome planning process that has been developed specifically for the delivery of LAA outcomes. Introducing localities to a straightforward process like this is a key contribution that GOs can make. You could work with LAA lead officers on it and also by facilitating a workshop on the approach.

You can also download an LAA Delivery Planning template which you can use as a basis to use with localities – and you can work with them to adapt or customise it to their needs.    

Turning the Curve is an approach that uses trajectory analysis to assess the likely outcomes using current interventions and option appraisal to work out what different will be needed to ‘turn the curve’ e. g ensure that outcomes are reached. It is used in the UK by:

• CLG – for neighbourhood regeneration, floor target action planning toolkit, LSP performance management framework
  
• Cabinet Office
  
• DCSF, Every Child Matters is written around it
  
• IDeA (who call it Outcome Based Accountability)
  
• And many Local Authorities across the UK
  Turning the curve methods have been used a lot for outcome planning in Children and Young People’s services.

Systems Thinking can be a useful approach to work out where to intervene in complex systems, for example, an LAA will include priority outcomes and NIs – in areas of employment, crime, attainment, health etc – and also cross-cutting outcomes – on climate change, community cohesion etc. It has been used nationally to tackle multiple deprivation and it has been used locally to explore the links between LAA outcomes.

Summary

Options appraisal makes us ask ourselves:

are we doing the right things?         are we doing enough of the right things?         are we doing enough of the right things - for long enough - with the right people?

What should a good outcome plan include?

Its current position against the outcome         The challenge this represents         Options to meet this challenge and how they have been appraised         A plausible set of actions to deliver the outcomes         With a clear description of each action, with lead staff/agency, costs and resources, timescales and milestones.

The GO Challenge role – questions about outcome planning