Extending the Cost Calculator to include cost calculations for education: implementation in Coventry City Council
This study is undertaken as a 3 year Knowledge Transfer Partnership with funding from Economic and Social Research Council and Coventry City Council Education Department.
The Cost Calculator for Children's Services (CCfCS) was developed as part of the CCFR research project: Costs and Consequences of Different Types of Childcare Provision.
It is a computer application and costing methodology
designed to assist local authorities and other agencies to monitor the true costs of services to children and to link these to outcomes.
This project aims to develop and extend the CCfCS to calculate the true costs of providing services for social care and education.
The Cost Calculator will be implemented in Coventry City Council and cost benefit analyses carried out that support the evaluation of services and their impact on outcomes.
Version 7.5 of the Cost Calculator now includes a trial education module developed in Coventry. This can be used to cost activities such as social worker time, education officer time, staff on-costs, strategic and management overheads, plus capital cost of building and land.
The education module is designed to work with management information systems used in education such as Capita One (EMS) and can be used to generate reports about the costs incurred for individual children or for groups of children over a time period of the user’s choice, for example, a selected school year, financial year or calendar year.
Users can calculate the costs of:
- Processes relating to the universal experience of children in the education system, including finding, ongoing and leaving education provision
- Processes relating to the experience of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN), including Statutory Assessment for SEN, Disputes and Tribunals, and the SEN Review
- The Children's Multi-Agency Support Panel, for children with complex care, education or health needs requiring support from more than one agency
These activities have been programmed into the Cost Calculator.
The Cost Calculator and the underlying costing methodology developed by CCFR has recently been used in a number of projects within the authority, including establishing the true unit costs of a spectrum of Short Break services across the local authority, Primary Care Trust and voluntary sector to inform the authority's future development of Short Breaks under the Aiming High for Disabled Children agenda; and analysing the financial arrangements for a major residential contract using 'What If' analysis.
Coventry will continue the work by establishing reporting requirements across education, social care, commissioning and finance, with a view to develop customised reports suitable for their needs. In addition, a training programme is planned in order to ensure the continued use of the Cost Calculator in Coventry beyond the partnership.
Introduction and development of the cost calculator through the KTP partnership will provide Coventry with the tools to calculate how money is spent on individuals and groups of children over specific time periods, producing a clearer understanding on whether services are providing value for money and a basis for making comparisons and deciding where changes could be made.
Managers of children’s services, along with commissioning, policy and or planning managers in Coventry will benefit from being able to use the Cost Calculator as a planning tool. They will be able to use this information to plan service provision more efficiently both in terms of financial costs and improved outcomes for the children.
Professor Harriet Ward
Lisa Holmes
Si Chun Lam (Research Associate based at Coventry)
Coventry Launch: Delegate Pack (pdf)
Coventry Launch: Presentation (ppt)
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