West London Zone, placed-based support for children and young people: scale-up
This project is also known as West London Zone
Aligned SDGs
- West London Zone, placed-based support for children and young people: scale-up
- General overview
- Location
- Involved organisations
- Outcome metrics
- Results
- SyROCCo reports
- Spreadsheet of data
- West London Zone, placed-based support for children and young people: scale-up
- General overview
- Location
- Involved organisations
- Outcome metrics
- Results
- SyROCCo reports
- Spreadsheet of data
General overview
Stage of development: Implementation
Policy sector: Education
Date outcomes contract signed: Oct 2019
Start date of service provision: Aug 2019
Anticipated completion date: Sep 2024
Capital raised (minimum): GBP 1.20m (USD 1.53m)
Max potential outcome payment: GBP 16.24m
Service users: 2k+ individuals
Intervention
The intervention is based around each child's Individual Support Plan, which has four components; informal engagement, formal engagement, developmental support, and Delivery Partner specialist support.
WLZ has a broad range of delivery partners all working towards WLZ outcomes, which means they can enable each child to access the right support at the right time.
Target population
All children who participate in WLZ are ‘at risk’ in multiple areas: Economic Disadvantage (this is prioritised); Emotional wellbeing; English; Maths; School Attendance; and Relationships. 8 out of 10 of all WLZ children are at risk in 3 or more of these areas; 1 in 4 are at risk in 5 or more.
Location
Country
- United Kingdom
Service delivery locations
- Brent Council
- Westminster City Council
- Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Involved organisations
Configuration of contracting parties:
- Direct contract between outcome payer and provider
Outcome metrics
- Metric 1: Children sign up to the West London Zone (WLZ) programme
- Metric 2: Participating children engage with support to a ‘high’ level so that they are more likely to achieve the primary outcome.
- Metric 3: Child achieves at least one outcome on the WLZ rate card to get on track to flourish in adulthood (e.g.) less likely to go on to experience NEET-status and/or crime and/or poor wellbeing by adulthood and more likely to achieve goals for work/college/university.
- Metric 4: Child achieves at least two outcome on the WLZ rate card to get on track to flourish in adulthood (e.g.) less likely to go on to experience NEET-status and/or crime and/or poor wellbeing by adulthood and more likely to achieve goals for work/college/university.
- Metric 5: Child achieves three outcomes on the WLZ rate card to get on track to flourish in adulthood (e.g.) less likely to go on to experience NEET-status and/or crime and/or poor wellbeing by adulthood and more likely to achieve goals for work/college/university.
- Metric 6: Parent consent given to participate
Results
West London Zone started delivering services in August 2019 and will finish in September 2024. Data was last updated in December 2023. These are interim results.
Outcome achievements
Overall target is based on the high case scenario defined in the Life Chances Fund Final Award Offer or Variation Agreements.
The graph above shows interim results for the project’s outcome achievements. Each bar represents a key participant outcome or metrics. Each metric is detailed above the graph (under the ‘Outcome metrics’ section of this page). Users can hover over the bars to access data on the expectations and achievements for that particular metric. Labels at the top of the bar represent the overall expectations for specific metrics, for the entire life of the project. The coloured section of the bar represents the project’s achievements so far.
Each bar takes the unit of analysis of the metric (if the metric is measured in number of individuals, the bar graph is representing individuals achieving that metric. If the metric is measured in weeks, the bar graph is representing weeks).
A note on targets (or expectations): the graph above shows the latest targets for the project. These targets are based on the best-case scenario expectations for every project. These targets may be different from the targets set at the start, as projects adapt to unexpected challenges or changes in circumstances. In addition, these targets could also work as a ‘cap’ for payments. We offer these parameters as a reference on outcome achievement projections. If projects are under implementation, they are not expected to have achieved any of these targets yet.
The service provider's comment on this graph:
'Since the launch of its LCF-supported contracts in 2019, WLZ has signed up four cohorts of children/young people, who each participate in a two-year support programme. Two cohorts have completed the programme and we await outcomes for the final two cohorts (available in late 2023 and 2024).
WLZ works with children who don’t yet require statutory or high needs support, but who have a range of risk factors that could lead to negative outcomes and the need for more serious intervention later. Each child has an average of four risks across social/emotional, academic, attendance, socio/economic disadvantage, and family support domains.
This holistic, personalised approach is not the way services typically operate, but WLZ’s theory of change is that it if can empower children and young people to get ‘back on track’, they will be less likely to less likely to go on to experience negative outcomes such as NEET-status, criminal activity, and/or poor wellbeing, and more likely to achieve positive goals such as attending work/college/university.
WLZ measures seven outcomes in total and, as an outcomes-based service, is paid for a maximum of three per child. This creates a measure called ‘maximum possible outcomes achieved (100% = all children achieving three outcomes). WLZ also measures how many engage with support to a high level (i.e. participating sufficient number of sessions). The graph linked shows results for the most recently completed cohort (2022) against targets agreed with Local Authority commissioners.
Please note, not everyone included in Metric 1 (participation) has completed the programme yet so see the graph linked here for outcomes summary for the most recently completed cohort, 2020-22.'
Note: There is no target for metrics 3, 4 and 5, as children can achieve different combinations of outcomes during the programme. The project can claim for payments for a maximum of three outcomes per child. No achievement has been reported yet, as these achievements would occur at the end of the programme.
Outcome payments
The graph above shows interim outcome payment results. The x-axis displays the years since the start date of the project to the anticipated completion date. The y-axis represents the value of the payments for outcomes realised by participants in the programme. The aim of this graph is to enable users to compare the initial expectations of the project against the actual value of the outcomes that were achieved.
The dotted lines represent the different plans that projects had at different moments- labelled as ‘Plans’ in the key. The data for these dotted lines (or single dotted line) comes from the outcome payment profiles that projects shared with the commissioners and their values represent expectations according to 'best-case scenarios' (if projects achieved as many outcomes as possible). There are different dotted lines as projects can renegotiate their payment plans as they face changes that affect delivery (such as the COVID pandemic) or adjust their expectations during the life of the project. Each dotted line is made of a set of points. Each point represents a quarter. Users can hover over those points and access data on the expectations for that quarter.
The solid line shows the outcome payments that the project already claimed and received- labelled as ‘Actual’ in the key. Squared points on the 'Actual' line indicate that the payment for that quarter was a COVID-19 medium-scenario grant. This was one of the temporary funding options offered to projects during the COVID-19 pandemic (this included activity payments based on projected medium-case performance scenarios). On the top-right corner, the ‘Plans’ and ‘Actual’ lines can be selected and deselected to change which lines appear in the graph.
A note on the representation of different payment profiles (or plans): when Life Chances Fund projects reprofile their payment plans, they use a template provided by the National Lottery Fund. When they complete data for the past quarters, some projects preferred to leave those cells blank, other preferred to repeat the previous expectations and other decided to complete those cells with data from actual payments. To avoid confusions around these different criteria, we start representing a plan from the moment when the plan is valid.
The service provider's comment on this graph:
'This graph shows that WLZ has generally outperformed expectations during the life of its outcomes-based contracts, as the ‘actual’ payments claimed (the dark black line) has been higher than the various projected payment profiles (the dotted lines).
WLZ coordinates strategic funding partnerships involving schools, Local Authorities and local private funders, and secures their input to refine programme design around local priorities – e.g. special educational needs, reducing exclusions, social/emotional and mental health support. These strategic partnerships help to drive our operational partnerships – ensuring integration in local systems, and knowledge of local services – to the benefit of WLZ families. These funders are all minority payers – meaning better sustainability and excellent value for commissioners.
Being paid on outcomes for individual children (rather than for the delivery of ‘programmes’), WLZ and their funders are held accountable for all the children and families they work with. It also encourages transparency, as WLZ shares progress data with local authority commissioners and schools, again at the individual-child level.'
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The following articles are taken from the Systematic Review of Outcomes Contracts Collaboration (SyROCCo) Machine Learning tool.
The tool is a collaboration between the Government Outcomes Lab and machine learning experts from the University of Warwick, that allows you to navigate and explore data extracted from nearly 2000 academic and grey literature publications related to outcomes-based contracting.
Spreadsheet of data
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