The Cost Calculator for Children

1
The Cost Calculator for Childrens Services
Better Decision Making in Commissioning and
Education Services

• Jean Soper, Loughborough University and
• Si Chun Lam, Coventry City Council

2
Cost Calculator for Childrens Services (CCfCS)

• Computer application in Microsoft Access,
  produces reports in Excel
• Helps monitor the true costs of services to
  looked after children so as to improve strategic
  planning and commissioning
• Based on detailed research in 6 local authorities
• Piloted in an ICS-pilot authority
• Ongoing development programme to include
  education, other services all children in need

3
The Cost Calculator

• calculates costs from the bottom up
• combines fee/ allowance costs with the costs of
  social work support for placements
• calculates individual costs based on the actual
  care history of each child
• includes variations by local authority, placement
  type and childs needs
• presents results for any child, group of children
  or type of placement by any time period
• analyses costs by outcomes

4
Research results Index of variation in cost by
needs
No additional needs 100

• Children in different needs groups follow
  different cost pathways
• Different cost pathways reflect variations in
  both costs and frequency of processes
• A very few lt3 exceptional children (not shown in
  this table) can completely skew profile

Needs group Index
EBD 152
Offending 163
UASC 164
Disability (CWD) 226
CWDEBD 278
EBDOffend 291
5
Research results Linking costs and outcomes

• Child with no additional support needs
• Placement stability, better contact, better
  educational outcomes, eligible for additional
  support virtuous circle
• Child with high support needs
• Frequent placement changes, little contact,
  exclusions changes of school, not eligible for
  or refuses additional support vicious circle
• Least positive outcomes for children with EBD
  offending behaviour

6
Key messages from research

• For some children postponing service provision
  only reduces short-term costs more costly
  placements and services may be required in the
  long-term
• Children placed with parents or relatives often
  require intensive support it is a false economy
  to consider these placements as relatively cost
  free
• Better cost estimates lead to better informed
  decision making in devising packages of care /
  joint commissioning
• A systems approach should calculate costs for
  looked after children within the context of
  providing services to all children in need
• A systems approach should also demonstrate how
  costs are spread across agencies

7
CCfCS research based

• Research findings form the basis of the model
• unit costs for each process
• cost calculation methodology
• CCfCS implementation version
• You can import your own data
• data import mechanism
• You can customise your unit costs
• unit costs database

8
Social care processes

• 1. Decide child needs to be looked after
  (including activity for finding initial
  placement)
• 2. Care planning
• 3. Maintaining the placement
• 4. Leaving care/ return home
• 5. Find a subsequent placement
• 6. Review
• 7. Legal processes
• 8. Transition to leaving care services

9
Partnership to develop unit costs for Special
Educational Needs

• Coventry KTP
• Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)
• Childrens Social Care
• Special Educational Needs (SEN)
• Bottom-up approach to costing

10
The Coventry picture

• Understanding costs and outcomes
• Developing in-house provision
• Better information better decisions
• Engagement with stakeholders
• Management (service and strategic managers)
• Social care teams (social workers,
  administrators)
• SEN team (education officer, caseworkers)
• Data team (information analysts)

11
Education processes 1

• Core Services
• Universal Education
• Home Tuition
• Exclusions/Managed Moves
• School Action/School Action Plus

Core
SEN
LAC
12
Education processes 2

• Special Educational Needs
• Statutory Assessment
• SEN Panel
• Statementing (Assessment Process)
• Handling Disputes (Tribunal)
• SEN Annual Review

Core
SEN
LAC
13
Education processes 3

• Looked After Children
• Personal Education Plans
• Placement Finding
• Within local authority boundaries
• Out of local authority boundaries
• Continuing Care / Childrens Support Panel

Core
SEN
LAC
14
What is a Unit Cost?
Unit cost of activity
Number of hours taken for activity
Hourly cost of postholder who carries out
activity

x

• Recording the time taken to complete specific
  activities
• Gathering data in the least intrusive way

15
Statutory Assessment - SEN Panel
Educational Psychologist
Head of Education Welfare Service
Parent Partnership Officer
Head of SEN
SEN Education Officer
Activities SEN Panel Meeting
?
?
?
?
?
Who goes?
30 mins
30 mins
30 mins
30 mins
30 mins
How long?
SEN Office
Where held?
1 hour
1 hour
1 hour
N/A
N/A
Travel
Sample data only.
16
Calculating unit costs

• Derive per hour salary for post-holders
• Finding average salaries
• Adding on-costs and overheads
• Finding unit costs for activities
• Multiplying salary with activity data
• Using Unit Costs Database

17
Derive unit cost from salaries
Education Officer
per year
40,000.00
Annual Salary
42.0
Weeks per year
37.0
Hours per week
per hour
25.74
Basic Salary
per hour
6.72
Salary oncosts
per hour
4.53
Management overheads
per hour
1.38
Capital overheads
per hour
38.36
Unit costs
18
Unit Costs for the SEN Panel
Educational Psychologist
Head of Education Welfare Service
Parent Partnership Officer
Head of SEN
SEN Education Officer
Activities SEN Panel Meeting
?
?
?
?
?
Who goes?
30 mins
30 mins
30 mins
30 mins
30 mins
19.18
How long?
SEN Office
Where held?
1 hour
1 hour
1 hour
N/A
N/A
Travel
Sample data only.
19
Findings and dissemination

• Unit costs for SEN in Coventry
• Combined with data for Cost Calculator
• Complexity/variations accounted for
• Will be available to all users of the Cost
  Calculator

20
Unit Costs of Statutory Assessment
Post-holder SEN Education Officer Head of SEN SEN Case Worker SEN Administrator Educational Psychologist Head of Education Welfare Parent Partnership Officer
Standard Case 200 50 50 25 200 50 25

• Cost of Standard Case 600
• Add complexities
• Child with complex needs such as emotional
  behavioural difficulties 535
• Dispute entering tribunal 865
• Total Cost of Complex Case 2000