Here are some suggestions for turning around the failing PBR contract: 1. Conduct a thorough review of all cases to accurately RAG rate customers based on barriers and likelihood of achieving an outcome. Reallocate caseloads based on advisor skills and specialisms. 2. Develop a realistic flightpath forecast taking into account conversion rates, barriers and local opportunities. Set clear monthly targets for advisors and the organisation. 3. Review staff skills and performance. Provide additional training where needed. Set individual action plans and targets for underperforming advisors. Consider redeploying or making redundancies if necessary. 4. Designate an employer engagement specialist to map local opportunities and proactively engage with employers. Ensure job

1. Payment by Results
Survival Guide
Nicky Robertson-Peek, 3SC
Steve White, VCS Assist

2. Introduction
 Payments By Results
 Work Programme
 The future e.g. Transforming Rehabilitation/WorkChoice/WP2
 Market share shift
 End loaded contracts

3. The Third Sector is traditionally better at providing bespoke
services and individual support that promotes sustainability
with so called “disadvantaged groups”
With the right platforms, processes and planning the Third
Sector will ALWAYS be better than the private sector at
delivering sustainability because they PUT THE CUSTOMER
FIRST!

4. Payment by Results Five Main
Problem Areas
Areas we will cover:
 Finance and Forecasting
 Caseloading and RAG rating/Staff Resource
 Employer Engagement
 Sustainability
 Quality and Compliance

5. Financing and Forecasting
Troubleshooting
Issues:
 Contract Profiles v performance
 Delivery to meet Contract Compliance (not getting thrown out of supply
chain)
 Level of Deficit against profiles
 Delivery to meet organisational financial needs (more than contract
minimums)
 What is realistic to achieve?

6. PBR Cash flow
0 Time
Cash

7. Financing and Forecasting
Issues:
 Current Conversion Rates
 Case loads too high? Too many staff?
 Throwing money at problems and poor performance
 Lack of accurate output forecasting for cash flow
 Unable to return contract due to punitive penalties
 Overgenerous resourcing
 Been put on performance improvement by Prime (Breach)

8. Solutions: Finance and
Forecasting
 Cost/benefit analysis of overall contract value for next 6 months
 Design Flight Path forecasting for each year.
 Regular checks of unclaimed output opportunities
 Cut out resource waste and duplication i.e. premises, staffing, resources
 Exploit double funding opportunities i.e. with other partner courses with
REDs
 Viability of Contracts through overall improved performance in all areas.

9. Solutions: Finance and Forecasting
Flight Path Diagram
 Flightpath 2.xlsx

10. Caseloading and RAG rating
 Most people can‟t RAG rate properly
 Which effects everything from forecasting to assignment to wrong staff
 Ineffective employer engagement

11. Distance from Labour Market
Costs
Revenues
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

12. RED Amber Green
Profile of RAG Rated Clients
RED – extensive
barriers to
overcome to enter
employment, lots of
support needed,
low self confidence,
no employability
skills
Areas:
CV‟s
Employability
Training
Basic Skills Training
AMBER - Need
motivating, some
employability skills,
previous
employment skills,
some interview
skills, recently
gained skills
qualifications
Areas:
Interview Training
CV‟s
GREEN –
Motivated, keen to
work, self-
confident,
employability skills,
ready for interview
Areas:
Arranged
Interviews
Mock Interviews
Maximise
Confidence

13. Exercise 1 : RAG Rate example Clients

14. RED
Amber
Green
Operational RAG Rating
Highly
unlikely to
find
employment
in the life of
the contract
Core caseload
Sliding scale
Likely to find
employment
quickly with
minimal support

15. Employment Advisor Profile:
Team qualities/skills;
• Empathy, compassion personal experience of related barriers
(disability/addiction/homelessness/criminal record/debt)
• Sales/target driven/bonuses
• Graduate – no experience in W2W
(articulate/good communication skills/creative)
–some organisations have made this their model for staffing
• Commercial recruitment background
• Trainer/tutor
• Older – diverse employment history
• Volunteers (how do we use them?/could be any of the above)
• Mentors - (how do we use them?/could be any of the above)
• Who does In-work support calls?
• Administrators (how are they used/ what are their skills?
• Any of the above?)

16. Staff Resource
Issues:
 Division of case loads does not reflect staff skills
 Lack of output targeting set for staff
 Unrealistic panic targeting against staff skills
 Culture shift and team dynamics
 Problems with TUPE staff
 Lack of Accountability of poor performers.
 Lack of effective supervision

17. Solutions: Staff Personal Action
Planning
 100% Buy-in by staff to the contract (collaborative Flight Path)
 Effective Targeting. Do you have team targets or/and individual targets?
 How are those targets communicated (competitions, team boards etc)
 What sanctions are you prepared to impose on poor performance?

18. Solutions: Staff Resource
 Perform team skills analysis and individual staff review
 Examine Case Load and link to identified skills set
 Set clear challenging realistic targets for all team members
 Develop individual staff work plan and support through effective supervision.
 Effect staff buy-in through accountability (wake up call)
 Instigate regular staff performance meetings. (channelling what works)
 Channelling whatever works with team dynamic
 Put in place effective supervision structure with both rewards (incentives) and
consequences for non performance within the team dynamic
 Break up cliques, of poor performers and effect proper inductions of TUPE staff.

19. Employer Engagement
Issues:
 Lack of dedicated member of staff
 Lack of skills in sales and employer engagement
 Wasting resource on unrealistic jobs opportunities
 Lack of communication between advisors and employer
engagement staff
 Lack of understanding of case load potential or limitations
 Organisation working in isolation within local labour market.

20. Solutions: Employer Engagement
 Identify or recruit most suitable member of staff to dedicated post.
 Examine the caseload‟s skills and aspirations for unrealistic
expectations within local labour market
 Partner with other organisations to maximise replicable vacancies
 Working with other organisations fulfil employer vacancies
 Regular team meetings to discuss employer engagement and
interventions re caseload
 Essential investment in Employer Engagement Post or Training.

21. Sustainability
Issues:
 Lack of resource for contract
 Pressure of short term performance targets affecting long term contractual
compliance resulting in job dropout etc through lack of proper job
matching.
 Excessive pressure on staff to perform to meet short term gains.
 Organisation at high financial risk due to poor performance
 Performance slippage after short term bursts of crisis management of
contracts.

22. Solutions: Sustainability
 Embed monitoring systems and tracking to ensure monthly targets are
met.
 Higher success will generate more income to meet resource demands.
 Ongoing analysis of good practice and what works to evolve, up skill
and develop competencies to meet contract targets.
 Effective forecasting to ensure long term goals and targets are met.
 Proper support to staff to ensure development of skills and aid delivery.
 Building up a network of suppliers, employers, complementary
agencies to ensure delivery of outputs.

23. Quality and Compliance
Issues:
 Contracts in breach due failing audits/quality/compliance
 Over or under resourcing of quality systems to meet compliance
 Lack of staff buy-in and commitment to contract quality issues
 Huge risk in terms of illegality through fraud due to lack of internal
audits, and checks.

24. Solutions: Quality and Compliance
 Designate a quality compliance champion within the organisation to
monitor and ensure contract quality and compliance standards are met.
 Ensure that minimum quality standards are met and reduce administrative
burden on organisation.
 Encourage staff peer auditing to reduce quality admin and encourage
good practice and time effectiveness.
 Set minimum file reviews per month to ensure that files are all reviewed
ready for any contract audits.
 Ensure staff buy-in by integrating into staff roles rather than it being seen as
something „extra‟.

25. Exercise 2 : Turning around a failing PBR contract

26. Exercise 2 :
Jobs-R-Us is a London-based charity with 22 staff members and a turn over of
£1.5m. They have a number of W2W contracts and have a successful track
record of delivering employability contracts for GLA, ESF, London Councils etc
to long term unemployed. They also deliver literacy, numeracy and ESOL
classes.
They are tier 2 end-to-end delivery provider on Work Programme and have
approx 800 customers. They initially started well and met all their targets for job
entries but for the last 6 months they have had erratic performance (sometimes
meeting in-month contract targets and then the next month being 60% below
profile). This has resulted in them becoming significantly behind profile and
having a deficit that is accumulating every month. The Prime has put them on
a 3 month Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) and the Board have raised
concerns about cashflow. The staff have been made away that they may
have to make redundancies if this continues and this has seriously impacted on
staff morale.