Case studies

On 23 March the Government issued a directive to all councils to temporarily house all rough sleepers during the pandemic to keep them safe. Southend-on-Sea Borough Council placed 89 rough sleepers in hotel and B&B accommodation in just two days and housed a total of 138 across the entire period of lockdown.

Research and engagement is at the heart of our COVID-19 response and our Recovery Citizens Panel is one of the best examples of our approach. Representative of the diversity of our borough, it was formed to rapidly turn around insight to drive our strategic decision-making processes.

In the last year, there has been a major transformation in how partners Ipswich and East Suffolk work together to tackle delayed transfers of care (DTOCs). For example, on 1 February 2018, 10 DTOCs were reported; in the same period in 2017 it was 49. This example of how local areas are working to implement overall system change forms part of our managing transfers of care resource.

Sutton Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) has been proactive in driving and overseeing extensive developments in integration, prevention and tackling the wider determinants of health, and in holding partners to account. This case study forms part of our integrated care systems (ICS) resource.

East Sussex County Council worked over three months, across the council and partners, prototyping a new multidisciplinary outreach operations team. They provided intensive support to residents in temporary accommodation to enable them to live more independently.

There was a battery of instant analysis in the immediate aftermath of the riots in August, and central government peppered the airwaves with policy responses: evictions for people convicted of rioting, more help for so-called problem families, curfews and a strategy to tackle gang culture.

Ipswich and East Suffolk’s Reactive Emergency Assessment Community Team (REACT) is a rapid and multidisciplinary response team created to integrate existing admission avoidance services and stop crisis admissions.

Plymouth Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) takes a system leadership role, setting the ambition, shaping local priorities and signing off key strategic documents, including commissioning strategies. This case study forms part of our integrated care systems (ICS) resource.

Family Safeguarding Teams are multi-agency teams that work with child protection and child in need cases. The Family Safeguarding project allows adult specialists and social workers to focus on direct, relationship-based therapeutic work.

This review of lessons learned summarises the particular points to consider when looking at governance and performance management of commercial activity within councils.