Partnerships are the golden thread in Manchester

Greater Manchester records some of the highest rates of homelessness in the UK. It is also seeing some real movement in addressing that issue.

My #1 observation in Manchester is that deliberate cross Council relationships can see results.

 

Thanks to Molly Bishop, Strategic Lead for Homelessness at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GCMA) who was so kind with her introductions and in providing me a crash course in Manchester's approach and history in partnerships.

 

Greater Manchester has long experience working together. That joint commitment was evident on the stops I made last week to Manchester, Rochdale, Salford and Wigan Councils, four of the ten that make up the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA).

 

I loved how Molly described it:

 

"It all comes down to relationships. That's the foundation of how we work in Manchester.

 

"Our greatest asset is the relationships that people have and it’s the golden thread that ties things together. "

 

In the homelessness space, GMCA convenes and facilitates work in four focus areas:

-  ending rough sleeping

-  driving affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness

-  preventing homelessness

-  driving health inclusion.

The GMCA's theory of change looks to integrate work at a neighbourhood level in each local government area, while utilising collective outcomes for stronger lobbying and better grant applications.

 

From my quick visits, the emphasis on local area identity and focus was  a particular standout in Greater Manchester, especially in places like Wigan, where a strong focus on working for the local community, rather than an individual service, helped break silos and improve results in homelessness response.

 

The Greater Manchester Model White Paper on unified services outlines six key features that drive this work. Knowing that successful partnerships take work, I found these really useful in thinking about what factors might need to be in place to enable success.

Below is my summary of these points (taken from p.10):

1. Geographic alignment: The neighbourhood level is the building block for local care organisations and the foundational unit for delivery recognised across public service organisations.
2. Leadership and accountability: An emphasis on leading for the people and the place as opposed to purely on an organisational or functional basis.
3. One workforce: There is a look and feel of one public service workforce functioning together, unrestricted by role titles or organisational boundaries working for the place and people.
4. Shared financial resource: There are means in place to pool transformation and reform funds for collective benefit and there is also a single commissioning function which pools budgets.
5. Programs, policy and delivery: All strategic plans and change programmes work towards a common goal of integrated public service delivery, with multiple integrated delivery models coming together as a single neighbourhood delivery model
6. Tackling barriers and delivering devolution: Each locality has a formal mechanism to identify, act on and escalate issues that impact on delivering the most effective services for people or act as a barrier to wider and deeper integration.

More info:

 

Prevention Strategy and Action Plan for Greater Manchester (2021)

https://www.gmhan.net/news-and-events/prevention-strategy-and-action-plan-for-greater-manchester-shared/

 

Combined authorities: https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/devolution/devolution-online-hub/devolution-explained/combined-authorities

Thanks Molly Bishop - Greater Manchester Combined Authority

And because I loved the Manchester street art so much...