What is fundingProject?
The Crime and Drugs Team at Government Office for the South West are using a
new web based funding system to manage its annual spend across the South West.
The system uses the SARA (Scan, Analyse, Respond and Assess)
problem-solving model to assist Crime and Drug Partnerships across the region
direct resources exactly where most needed.
The budget includes a dozen funding streams, and is made up of projects that
cost as little as a few hundred pounds, to ones that are hundreds of thousands
of pounds. Factor in the 60 or so partnerships that oversee the projects, add
the several hundred organisations that run them from a grass roots level
upwards, and suddenly the whole exercise becomes an administrative nightmare.
Managing this effectively was the driver behind www.thefundingproject.com, an
online administrative and problem-solving tool that helps the Crime and Drug
Team and its partners know exactly what is happening across the region.
www.thefundingproject.com uses the SARA problem-solving model to guide users
through the process.
SCAN. Anyone with access can report a problem – this is the first part, or the
Scan phase of the model. Problems sit under strategic objectives, which have
already been identified in the Crime and Drug Strategy
ANALYSE. If a problem warrants further analysis, the problem owner completes an
online analysis form. This identifies in more detail the offender, victim and
location (time and place). Without this knowledge it is difficult to ensure
that the right response is found
RESPOND. Once the analysis is completed and approved the partnership is ready
to invite responses to the problem. What www.thefundingproject.com does is
encourage accurate analysis of the problem and links that into the most
appropriate and therefore cost effective response or solution. A huge benefit
to partnerships of linking response to analysis is that it provides a robust
audit trail when it comes to the final assessment stage.
ASSESS The assessment stage is crucial to the whole SARA model. It offers the
chance to revisit the problem and see what worked, to ask the fundamental
question, did the problem go away? Assessment is often left out. Money has
changed hands by the time the assessment stage is reached - managers are
disinclined to revisit historical activity. www.thefundingproject.com
encourages assessment to make the model complete.
One impressive by products of www.thefundingproject.com is its capacity for
interrogation. There is tremendous demand for information on “what works” or
“best practice”. Any information gathered via www.thefundingproject.com can be
linked in a report. For example, if a user wants to know which other
initiatives are aimed at drug use amongst young people, a report can easily be
compiled. Since the system is live and up to date, the user can also see which
initiatives are progressing well, which have been completed and formally
evaluated, and even those projects that have not worked - the system is a “real
time” knowledge base.
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