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Per child, rather than totals

Per child, rather than totals

Total spending and total number of children change year on year, so it is difficult to make sense of them. Spend per child helps by saying how much support goes to each child, including staff time.

Child in need Assessed as in need of support under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989
Looked after child Looked after by local councils, and usually live with foster carers, or in residential care settings such as children’s homes

 

Spend per child in need in 2016-17 (£, 2017 prices)

 

Spend per looked after child in 2016-17 (£, 2017 prices)

 

If you click on the bubbles, you will find estimates from 2010-11.

More estimates and technical details are available in our report

Data envelopment analysis

Data envelopment analysis

Through this type of analysis, we know which youth offending teams are making the most of their money. We blend the following information:

Costs Spend per young offender
Results Reductions in first time entrants to the justice system
Reductions in reoffending by those already in the system
Reductions in custody sentences

We give a score to each youth offending team, with 100 per cent being most cost efficient.

 

Cost efficiency scores of youth offending teams in 2015

 

We are happy to help youth offending teams to understand their value for money better. Other types of organisations are also welcome to contact us. For example, schools, children’s services, hospitals, and police forces can learn about their value for money through our analyses.

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Costing interventions

Costing interventions

The amount of resources required per case, or ‘unit costs’, matter to everyone, not just accountants, because they tell us a lot about public sector interventions.

Strategists We understand risks and success chances in advance
Managers We know the resources we need in the future
Accountants We can turn our information into useful estimates for colleagues
Team leaders We can improve the intervention day to day
All We understand resource needs accurately

We collect the information required to estimate resources through workshops and interviews with those who run the interventions. We also analyse accountancy records. Our costing software tool makes information collection faster and cheaper.

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Read our report

Jobs

Jobs
  • Unemployment benefit system
  • Skills and training
  • Labour market

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice
  • Anti-social behaviour
  • Pre-court and community orders
  • Young offenders

Education and children’s services

Education and children’s services
  • Investments in schools and children’s programmes
  • Transition from secondary school to further education and employment
  • Children in need, looked-after children, and child protection plans

Qualitative techniques

Qualitative techniques
Synthesis objective and balanced summary of qualitative information
Focus groups highlighting disagreements and finding out about collective options through discussion
Structured interviews experiences, views, and opinions of those using the services provided by organisations

Evaluative techniques

Evaluative techniques
Logic model whether the way organisations, services and programmes are designed should make people’s lives better
Process mapping how the transactions between those who are part of the process result in changes in people’s lives
Impact evaluation the extent to which organisations actually make most people’s lives better, not just those of a few
Cost-benefit analysis whether you get back more than you put in

Evaluations

Evaluations

What you learn from your experience

It is good to step back and think about the things that have and have not worked. However, if the organisations do this by themselves they find it difficult to be objective. We at Aldaba have the skills to do independent evaluations. We think evaluations are not just about asking people whether they are happy with the service they receive from the organisations. Evaluations require a set of techniques that give the organisations reassurance that they can claim some of the improvements they see in the people they work with.