Searching for prevention that works (and saves money!)
I’m looking for examples of public sector prevention activities that improve outcomes and save money. What are the best interventions or projects you know?
Prevention work is a golden thread that links different parts of my working life. I worked in crime prevention at Westminster City Council in the days of broken windows theory. At HENRY I worked with practitioners and communities on obesity prevention, with a focus on 0–5 year olds. At Odanadi we working on the prevention of human trafficking. I’ve worked with a range of local authorities who have strived to prevent the escalation of needs in SEND, children’s services and adult social care. (It’s maybe a golden rope, rather than a golden thread.)
There is loads of evidence that prevention is vital and improves outcomes for individuals and communities. The more challenging question is does it save money? In the long run, I believe it does but what about in the short and medium term?
There are two main challenges I’m coming across when I’m supporting organisations with prevention activity.
1. 💸 Lack of investment in prevention 💸
The public sector, and local authorities in particular, just don’t have the money to invest. It is increasingly hard to make a business case if there aren’t immediate (or at least midterm) cashable savings for the organisation investing in assistive technology or a parenting programme.
This is true across the system — from big macroeconomic challenges such as a lack of investment in the green economy to smaller interventions such as my Dad scrabbling around for funding for a family contact centre in Gloucester where he is a trustee.
2. 🐙 The intervention octopus — how we measure impact 🐙
A second big challenge is that understanding the impact of prevention work is hard. Often the impacts are long term and we don’t track these well but there is also the intervention octopus problem.
Was it the tax on cigarettes, the adverts on cigarette packets, the ban on smoking in pubs or the smoking cessation programme that made the difference in smoking rates? It was probably a bit of everything (many tentacles.) So how do you know what works, so you can repeat it?
When I worked in crime prevention we did loads of great work in the community and rates of anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime fell. But it was also a time when crime was going down nationally and we were yet to hit austerity. So would crime in Westminster have gone down at the same rate without us?
💡 Fighting for prevention💡
How do we shift the narrative to one where the power of prevention is harnessed and used to ensure positive outcomes now and for generations to come? Two small things I’m doing:
🔎 1. Finding and talking about the evidence that shows the impact of effective prevention activity (so please do share!)
📉 2. Creating effective ways of planning, implementing and tracking the impact of prevention activity (without creating an industry out of it!)
