Abstract

Payment by Results (PbR) is increasingly popular. £15B-worth of schemes in the UK
public sector had a PbR element (National Audit Office 2015) and Payment by
Results is widely used in the United States and Australia (Webster 2015). Despite
this, there is no framework for target achievement in PbR to guide principals, agents
and other stakeholders. In my experience at a local level, this omission means that
Payment by Results does not automatically lead to success.
The research project explored how to develop a practical framework, rooted in
business and management literature, for the effective implementation of PbR
programmes in the public sector. The three research objectives of a better
understanding of the National Troubled Families Initiative’s geographic and socioeconomic
context and target cohort and how success can be achieved both in the
programme and in Payment by Results provision contributed to this.
The key Payment by Results literature was reviewed with the theoretical framework
of Stakeholder Theory and Agency Theory. The case study methodology then
reviewed the National Troubled Families Initiative – an eight-year Payment by
Results programme launched in England as a response to the 2011 English
disturbances - to identify the gaps in the PbR literature and successful provision from
the UK and US was then presented as a benchmark of good practice.
In order to provide empirical content and support to the framework, I used a
pragmatic research philosophy, which was further along the continuum of
interpretivism than positivism. Mixed methods mainly influenced by qualitative data
analysis led to the ethical qualitative analysis of Phase One secondary quantitative
data from the Department of Communities and Local Government – the ‘Troubled
Families’ principal – and one agent from the North-East of England to identify key
themes and relationships. These were then explored further by ethically gathering
primary qualitative data from key stakeholders from another Northeast city, a
Southeast county and a Northwest consortium of authorities. This data was then
analysed using thematic narrative analysis and thematic analysis.
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The research findings expanded upon the guidelines for principals considering
commissioning Payment by Results provision (National Audit Office 2015) and the
six elements of an effective outcome (Webster 2016). They provided a new, sevenstage
practical framework for achieving targets in Payment by Results provision.
This incorporated best practice guidelines for stakeholder analysis, principal
identification, agent identification and the establishment of an Expert Body and
incorporated a practical process for successful strategy and operations
implementation, delivery, data collection and analysis, and findings and action. The
framework can be applied to all types of PbR provision across the public sector. This
is something, which renders the research project extremely commercially attractive.
The PbR framework will better use scant resources, reduce wastage, generate
efficiencies, create additional jobs, return work from the private to the public sector
and provide the public sector with a model, which they can market and sell to other
providers. It therefore creates a win-win situation for key stakeholders including the
principal, the agent, the service users and the taxpayer. Recommendations were
also provided to achieve the requisite performance in Phase Two of the National
Troubled Families Initiative in Local Authority One and across England.