Image: Visual minutes by Sarah Gustafson
Background
Partnerships for People and Place (PfPP) has been a £5 million programme funding 13 pilot projects across England. Its aim was to test the hypothesis that better coordination within and between central government and local partners can lead to improved efficiency and outcomes.
Liverpool City Council was successful in its bid for PfPP funding for a project called Croxteth Good Help Hub. Its aim was to break the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage through reshaping locality-based services to focus on achieving a Good Life (which will mean different things to different people and require a more flexible, relational-based response from a multi-agency team).
The project was focused on Croxteth ward in North Liverpool, which following boundary changes now comprises two wards: Croxteth and Croxteth Country Park.
The Heseltine Institute was commissioned to carry out an evaluation of the Good Help Hub. The overall PfPP programme has been evaluated by Ipsos UK, with Grant Thornton.
Croxteth Good Help Hub
The project was led by Cobalt Housing, an anchor organisation within Croxteth. It is the largest registered provider of social housing in the area and has its main offices there.
Following funding approval, Liverpool City Council and Cobalt Housing appointed a project coordinator and worked with local partners to develop a model for a community hub, building on the work of the Our Croxteth partnership and the Good Help training programme. The model recognised that, while many services were already available and operating in the area, for various reasons people were not always able to get the help they needed. The Good Help Hub set out to bridge a gap between universal services (GPs, schools etc.) and specialist or statutory responses such as social care.
The core partners - Cobalt, the Council, the Police and the NHS - agreed to commit staff resources, and in October 2022 the newly formed team embarked on a 12-week study-and-learn programme with the purposes of developing the team, understanding local assets, understanding local needs, and designing the service that the Hub would provide. Within some basic parameters, and with guidance from the coordinator and project steering groups, the team was encouraged to design and deliver whatever they felt was needed.
The Good Help Hub opened on 16 January 2023 for a 12-week pilot period, located within the reception area on the ground floor of Cobalt’s offices. It offered a weekly timetable of services arranged around themed days. It was open to everyone to call in and talk to a team member, who would work with them to understand what a Good Life meant to them and signpost them to services that could help, providing a personal introduction wherever possible.
Evaluation approach
The evaluation has taken a utilisation-focused approach, working closely with the primary intended users of the evaluation. It has evaluated both outcome and process using a Theory of Change framework.
Evaluation findings
Evaluation of Croxteth Good Help Hub: Summary Report [PDF 2.6MB]
Evaluation of Croxteth Good Help Hub: Full Report [PDF 1.5MB]
Back to: Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place