Alliancing drives new ways to collaborate in Glasgow

The City of Glasgow has turned its whole method of commissioning homelessness services on its head. They have abolished individual contracts and are embracing an alliancing methodology that focuses on results for end users, handing decision making responsibility over to a group of services and people with lived experience.

Does this sound like a dream?

Here’s what I learned visiting the lovely (rainy) city of Glasgow this week…

Keeping in mind that UK government structures and roles and responsibilities are different to Australia’s - UK homelessness response funding is essentially drip fed from central government to local government. On the most part, councils then commission agencies to deliver services - most done according to specific buckets of money.

From what I have heard so far, this way of working leaves many responses subject to one year funding cycles. The short-term nature of this makes it difficult to attract and recruit suitable staff and reinforces silos.

In 2019, Glasgow put in place a way of working that would bust this system.

Following deep engagement between services, government and people with lived experience of homelessness, the Council handed over management of £25m worth of contracts to an alliance partnership.

Glasgow Alliance to End Homelessness brings together a group of organisations that jointly bid for this ‘mega-contract’ share responsibility and work collaboratively, without individual agendas or hierarchy, to plan, make the decisions and run the processes that aims to end homelessness.

In this alliance the council is one of a group of equal partners, without any more decision-making power than any other member.

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While in Glasgow this week I had the opportunity to meet with Kara Conner, Operations Manager for the Glasgow Alliance to End Homelessness, as well as partner in the Alliance and initiators of the process Maggie Brunjes, Chief Executive and Ginny Cooper, Improvement Lead at Homelessness Network Scotland,

Before I left Australia, I also had a chance to speak via Zoom with Linda Hutchinson, the Alliancing expert who drove this process.

With my head spinning, thinking about all the rules and regulations, all the processes and forms that would not be filled out, my first question was - how on earth could anyone convince a council to hand over responsibility for a £25m homelessness spend to a group of not-for profits and give up all their decision-making rights?

Maggie Brunjes, who played a significant role in getting this moving, explained it like this -

"With any progress that Scotland has achieved, it's often assumed that charities are doing it - because that's how it is in other parts of the world.

"One of the important stories to tell of Scotland is that it's not the case here. People who work in local government want what we want, even if they have different pressure and challenges. The Glasgow city council was a big part of the alliance.

"They knew they had to spend money differently. We were increasing the money spent on homelessness and not seeing corresponding results.

"Where Glasgow got to by 2016 was a realisation that what people wanted was a home.

"What the council was seeing was an opportunity to help implement an agreed way forward.

"We started chatting about it and they started coming onboard. From commissioners and policy leads to chief officer level. If they had thought it too risky it wouldn't have happened."

In a separate conversation, Kara Connor told me that a significant factor in getting the alliance moving was the pre-work that the Homelessness Network Scotland initiated with a large number of stakeholders, including people with a lived experience of homelessness, to gauge the situation and sentiment for change.

In a series of workshops, a wide group of stakeholders, senior management and staff from key organisations, council staff, people with lived experience came together to agree on the principles for a future alliance, what they would want to achieve and behaviour codes.

"We did that work over five sessions, " Maggie explained, "and when the alliance was awarded there really was not scope to challenge it".

The alliancing work is one that also comes with an interesting back story. Run by Linda Hutchinson, a former paediatrician (!) who came across the methodology while on a holiday to Australia (!!) where her brother was using the process to work with the oil industry (!!!).

Linda said: "When I worked for the health service, I saw how money moves around the system and creates silos."

"I became increasingly aware that the way we finance things influence behaviours.

"My brother worked in oil industry in Melbourne and had set up alliance contracting.

“In that, you have a pot of money and instead of asking everyone to do individual jobs, you give that pot of money to a group of people and let them work out how they will use it.

"I realised that is what you need in the health services.

“It doesn't take away competition but it takes away closed conversations."

The alliancing methodology is best limited to a smaller group - Linda says around eight partners maximum and rests on a few key agreed ways of working.

· Collective responsibility

· Decision making that is driven by what is best for people

· Unanimous decision making by all parties (big and small orgs, government and non-g government have the same voice).

· No fault no blame.

Covid did slow down the progression of the Glasgow Alliance and Kara said that they are still working out some of the finance modelling, but they are making progress with new services coming into play as old contracts end.

One question around the model is how services that were not successful in being part of the group that successfully bid for the joint venture can participate in service delivery. It’s something that Kara says the group is aware of and decisions will be made by the alliance to allocate work to those best suited to deliver it.

A full case study, outlining the alliancing approach can be found here.

Glasgow Alliance to End Homelessness: https://www.glasgowalliance.org/the-alliance/

Homeless Network Scotland: https://homelessnetwork.scot/