Sure Start

Here, we describe the information systems strategy that was developed for the Sure Start Stoke-on-Trent North local programme. We would like to make it clear that this section is not a case study and as such it does not give a detailed description of the strategy or it's implementation.

We would like to point out that the information systems strategy that was designed for the Sure Start Stoke-on-Trent North local programme could be used as a good starting point for organisations looking to hold and manage a wide variety of different types of information.

It is important to note that each individual part of the strategy can be used as a standalone system catering for the specific requirement for which it was designed. In this particular instance the benefits that the individual parts deliver is greatly increased by linking them together.

Background

The Stoke-on-Trent North local programme was set up as a result of the government's introduction of the national Sure Start programme. Sure Start plays an important role in the government's commitment to reducing child poverty across the nation. The local programme delivers services to the children and parents, carers and guardians living in the area through project teams. The project teams are made up of professionals and volunteers drawn from the local health agencies, Stoke-on-Trent City Council's Social Services department (as was) and voluntary sector organisations such as Home Start.

Project teams receive funding from the Sure Start Stoke-on-Trent North local programme.

Operating environment

The project teams deliver services to the community either by home visits to individual families or through groups based at a number of Sure Start local programme centres where families attend to make use of the wide variety of services available.

The impressive range of services delivered are as diverse as baby massage classes, stay and play groups for children, anti-bullying groups, access to the toy library, psychology services, occupational therapy for children, dietary advice, speech and language services, debt advice and many many more.

A local programme support team, operating from a central headquarters within the area, assists project teams by providing resources and information.

Information requirements

The local programme's Delivery Plan included the requirement to build an information system that would include:

• the collection of comprehensive data that allows the tracking of parents and children over a long period of time
  
• a system that allows the monitoring and measurement of the success of Sure Start

Pete Dempsey was brought in to turn these requirements into a working information system.

Designing the information systems strategy

It was readily apparent that there were two different information requirements here and that two different types of information system would need to be put in place. However, since they are closely linked it would be very useful to be able to take information from one system and, where appropriate, make use of it in the other.

A client or customer database combined with, or connected to, a contact management system would provide the programme with the information needed to meet their first requirement and a system that could assess the programme's performance in delivering services and the effectiveness of those services would meet the second.

Customer database

The customer database would need to be capable of:

• holding basic information about children, parents, carers and guardians
• linking to a contact management system

Contact management system

The contact management system would need to be capable of:

• recording contact with families by project teams via home visits or attendance at groups
• assisting project teams to manage the delivery of their services
• enabling project teams to initiate and manage referrals
• indicating which service providers are involved with families
• providing local programme management with information about the delivery of services by project teams
• linking to a customer database

Accessing the systems

Both local programme management and project teams would need to access the customer database and contact management system. The project teams were based at a number of different remote sites and were drawn from such different agencies as the National Health Service, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and Home Start and Citizens Advice Bureau.

The only feasible approach to enable project teams to access the systems was to implement a system that was capable of being accessed via the Internet.

At the time, there were not many customer database or contact management systems, short of very large Enterprise Resource Planning systems, that met the programme's requirements and were capable of being accessed via the Internet. Most of the systems that were available at the time were restricted by being either single user systems or networked systems that were accessed via a Local Area Network.

The structure for delivery of services by project teams and the need for those project teams to access the systems from remote sites effectively demanded that an Internet based solution be found.

Performance monitoring system

A search was undertaken to find a system that would be capable of monitoring and measuring the success of the Sure Start Stoke-on-Trent North local programme. It wasn't long before the only realistic contender emerged in the form of System K and Impact K written by Hanlon Computer Systems.

System K is the market leader in project monitoring software within the regeneration community.

Impact K is an additional module that produces an impact analysis. The impact of a programme can be monitored by analysing the changes in outcomes and linking projects, outputs and funding to them.

As the programme was delivering services through project teams the System K/Impact K solution seemed a good starting point. The system was evaluated to determine whether it would be a suitable solution to the programme's requirement of "monitoring and measurement of the success of Sure Start". It was decided that it was and the system was duly purchased.

Additional system features

Carduus Consulting Limited has been instrumental in the design of a number of additional features that have been incorporated into the software such as the Value For Money functionality. Additional developments have included a facility to integrate with the customer database and contact management system and a separate system that enables project proposals to be submitted online.

Project proposal online submission system

Historically, the programme had issued project proposal documents to projects seeking funding. Once these were submitted and validated the relevant information was manually input to System K prior to grant offer agreements being issued. This process generated a great deal of information making the manual input of data a very time consuming task.

Carduus Consulting Limited designed a separate project proposal submission system to overcome this problem.

The system enables projects to complete a proposal and submit it online. The software is downloaded from a website that explains the rationale behind the software design, provides guidance on the use of the software and definitions of terminology used such as "contact", "outputs", "outcomes" etc.

Projects use the software to build a proposal with all the information that the programme requires, including estimated costs. The proposal is saved either locally on the pc or saved via the Internet on a server. When the proposal is completed the project submits it online for review.

Local programme management then review the proposal and can either accept or reject it. In practice, a dialogue between the programme management and the project takes place before the grant offer agreement is issued.

An export facility within the software creates a file ready for transmission to System K. This removes the need for any manual input of data.

Information collected by the project proposal online submission system

The system collects the following project information:

• organisational information
• personnel information
• project's aims and objectives
• funding requested
• estimated expenditure costs
• milestones
• outputs as derived from the generic output category framework

The generic output category framework was designed by Carduus Consulting Limited to ensure uniformity of outputs delivered by projects at a generic level. The framework was based upon the Sure Start objectives.

More information

The above sections give a broad view of the systems strategy developed for the Sure Start local programme in Stoke-on-Trent North. If you would like a more detailed explanation please feel free to contact us for further information.