Case studies for commissioners

NOAH Enterprise is a charity supporting people struggling against homelessness and exclusion, with services across Bedfordshire working to find and help people with nowhere else to turn. Founded in the late 1980s by a nun, Sister Eileen O’Mahoney, the charity initially operated out of a block of condemned flats but has since grown significantly in scale and impact. NOAH now includes an outreach service to help people off the street, work experience and skills training to get people into employment, and social enterprise shops to raise money for the cause. Its welfare centre also offers warm meals, medical and dental care, accommodation support, clothing and laundry facilities, immigration advice and much more. In the last year, NOAH has supported 1,038 people at the welfare centre and 466 people on the streets, as well as helping 284 people into accommodation and 20 people into employment. How does NOAH work with government departments? NOAH’s primary work with central government departments is with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) for which it delivers street outreach services under the Government’s Rough Sleeping Initiative. Winning this contract has allowed NOAH to expand this element of its work into central Bedfordshire and central Luton. NOAH has also worked on contracts with the Home Office to provide EUSS advice and, outside of central government commissioned services, is also working on a pioneering hospital discharge project with Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. How did NOAH succeed in winning the contract? Paul Prosser, Head of Welfare Services at NOAH, believes that core to the charity winning this DLUHC contract was its proven track record of transforming lives. The way NOAH operates means that they can “build trust, get to know people and work with them to create bespoke solutions”. Being an independent provider also has its advantages, as people are more likely to seek support from organisations they have a personal relationship with than bodies like the local council who they may have had a negative experience with. NOAH’s broader holistic support offer was another contributing factor in its DLUHC bid success, as people helped through the street outreach programme can also access the wider services provided by its Welfare Centre. Whilst the centre is not statutorily funded, the ability to co-locate services around a central hub adds value to the contract. When the service was put out to tender, NOAH’s application included a supporting letter from the local authority highlighting the charity’s expertise. What were the benefits to DLUHC of working with you? NOAH brings additional value to the contract through its commitment to impact and its proximity to the frontline. The charity’s years of being embedded in the local area mean that the community really believes in its work, meaning that the charity can work with volunteers who are passionate about delivering on its mission whilst also keeping down costs. Paul believes that commissioners now have a “greater risk appetite for embedding lived experience”, a core tenet of many VCSEs, which can be lacking in local authorities and private sector providers, who are driven by minimising costs and maximising shareholder value. What were the main challenges in applying for government contracts? Although NOAH’s experience applying for the DLUHC contract was a positive one, Paul states that when applying for government contracts there can generally be difficulties in understanding what is being prioritised. He highlighted the tension between showing innovation as a provider without scaring the commissioner, stating that “it can be a little unclear as to how much innovation to try compared to how much risk the funder is trying to take”. Other challenges include “trying to clarify why we are the most appropriate provider”, as well as complicated portals adding delay and difficulty to the application process, with VCSEs sometimes having to pay external fundraising consultants for support. Based on a conversation with Paul Prosser, Head of Welfare Services at NOAH Enterprises noahenterprise.org

The Nelson Trust is a charity set up to support people with complex needs ranging from trauma and addiction to experiences with the criminal justice system. It has provided residential addiction rehabilitation support since 1985 - but in the mid-2000s it emerged that women in treatment centres weren’t having as good outcomes as men, leading the charity to look into their specific needs and establish a new trauma-informed gender responsive service with an all-female staff team. At the same time, a review into the female prison estate by Baroness Corston[1] found that women should be rehabilitated in the community as they tended to be serving short sentences for non-violent crimes. This enabled the Nelson Trust to win funding that led to it now running seven women’s centres across the South West and Wales. How does the Nelson Trust work with central government departments? On opening the first women’s centre, most of the Trust’s income was derived through grants, but in recent years the charity has moved into public sector tendering. The main central government department the Nelson Trust works with is the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and, through them, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. The charity has also received money from the Home Office. What kind of work does the charity do with central government? In 2022, the Nelson Trust led a partnership bid with nine other organisations to work on a prison leavers pilot for a contract created by the MoJ, based at Eastwood Park in South Gloucestershire. There were no specific delivery terms, other than improving outcomes for prison leavers so the charity could use its creativity and years of experience to create an innovative way of meeting the contract. It saw that services to support women both in prison and on release were fragmented; for example, – women from Wales serving time at Eastwood Park receive NHS England care but aren’t entitled to some ‘through the gate’ services (such as ‘reconnect’ which supports prison leavers access health care services) that they would be if they lived in England, as justice is centrally funded but health is devolved across the Home Nations. It also noticed a lack of integration meant women often had to share trauma-inducing stories repeatedly to different organisations, and so wanted to join up the system. As Christina Line, Chief Operating Officer at the Nelson Trust, states: “One woman told us she’d been asked if she was pregnant nine times through her induction into the prison. We wanted to co-ordinate a package of support so that a woman has one lead keyworker, has to tell her story once, has one assessment, we all work from one case management system and we broker in the other support services as she needs them.” The Nelson Trust led the work in partnership with other organisations including housing providers, organisations supporting women to re-unite and maintain ties with their children, a substance misuse specialist, and a domestic violence support provider. Prison officers also worked to bring women into the centre and aid systemic work within the prison for internal processes to be trauma-informed. Central to the whole project was one case management system, which all organisations could log into, preventing women having to tell their stories over and over again. This new system was funded as a pilot programme for 15 months and is currently being externally evaluated. Initial data from the project is showing that, as a result of this intervention, the rates of women going back into prison have significantly reduced. What were the benefits to the MoJ of delivering this contract? Christina Line believes that a core benefit of working with the Nelson Trust is the savings that such an approach to criminal justice and the wider system brings to the public purse. It costs the government around £1,500[2] to rehabilitate a woman through the Nelson Trust, but the cost of sending someone to prison is around £46,696 a year.[3] The way the charity is set up means that “we don’t close the door on women, and our support will continue long after the MoJ have finished paying”. The holistic help provided - from supporting people out of addiction and disadvantage to support finding work - also means that they are reducing costs in other ways, such as welfare benefits or ambulance and police call-outs. Christina says the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector (VCSE) is markedly different from larger profit-driven service providers in its dedication to “get on with the job”, explaining that “people work because they want to make an impact”. What are the main challenges in applying for government contracts? One of the main challenges identified by the Nelson Trust is the lack of capacity faced by many VCSEs, with some not having a dedicated business development team. This often means a lack of resources holds organisations back, even though they may be capable of effectively delivering contracts. There can also be challenges in the complexity of certain contracts, where “the level of detail required isn’t always commensurate with the financial contract”. Christina pointed out that contracts for women’s prison services worth around £100,000 can require the same level of detail as men’s prison services worth millions. Unless contracts are simpler, Christina believes that the whole contracting process can “tip the scales in favour of larger organisations”. Based on a conversation with Christina Line, Chief Operating Officer at the Nelson Trust nelsontrust.com [1] https://www.nicco.org.uk/directory-of-research/the-corston-report [2] What the Nelson Trust are paid on their contract annually [3] https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/prison_the_facts_2023.pdf