Realising the Potential Efficiency Gains from the Budget-Holding Lead Professional

This report is one of a series of reports written by the Office for Public Management Ltd (OPM) for consideration and amendment by the budget-holding lead professional pilot authorities. It will be incorporated as a chapter in the final report about mainstreaming the role of budget-holding lead professional in the winter of 2007.  

The concept of budget holding was introduced to enable a speedier, more effective and personalised response to meeting additional needs. This response will be used to remodel the range of services provided. This paper focuses on the degree to which the role of the budget-holding lead professional currently meets these objectives, and whether it could meet them even more efficiently than at present.

While the use of budget holding is now being extended to other groups, such as looked-after children, this paper focuses on its use in improving outcomes for children with additional needs.

Budget holding is designed to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of services provided to children and young people with additional needs who require two or more services to meet those needs, and to help with service coordination.

Budget holding alone cannot deliver these improvements, but is part of a wider set of integrated practices. This paper focuses on the efficiency of this new integrated practice and its ability to drive wider service change .

Click to read more about the budget-holding lead professional pilots.