When should you engage external, critical thinking in responding to a tender and when can you manage it in-house?  We think you should answer two key questions to determine this:

• How complex or novel does our approach need to be?; and
• How competitive will the tender be?

​Where funders are looking for the most efficient and cost-effective way to deliver well-established services, you need a sharp focus on your operating model and being able to scale and/or replicate that with fidelity and at lowest cost. You will have a clear understanding of the costs to deliver and a target margin. In short, you need to deliver maximum services.

Strategic tender support is not likely to be a good investment in this case.

Where tenders are looking for novel approaches (for example, a collective or ‘alliancing’ approach to governance), or where there is added complexity (for example, where a sizeable proportion of the funding can be distributed flexibly) you really do need to think more deeply, strategically and innovatively about how you will respond. The traditional approach won’t maximise your chances in this case

In February, Dale presented at the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA) conference on how a whole social sector can come together to take leadership of data and develop a collaborative data project to share useful data across multiple stakeholders. Collaborative data projects enable a sector to see the 'whole impact' of the sector and measure outcomes in consistent ways.  See the presentation pack below.

​For Latitude Network, 2022 has been a year of growth, new challenges, and the rewards of seeing efforts come to fruition. We’re glad you’ve been with us on the journey, as partners, supporters or simply interested friends. Here are some of the highlights from our year.

1. Building multi-provider operating models across sectors can be done as long as there is a single and shared operating system and a commitment to collecting and analysing data on activities and impact.
2. Aligning data collection across agencies within a sector is a powerful way to improve service quality and target innovation, both for providers individually as well as for entire sectors, and for the clients using these services.
3. Legacy data systems do not have to get in the way of cheap, efficient and effective data-collection and analysis tools. Don’t let your clunky old system stop you from investing in small, positive improvements to what you do.

To the network of people with whom we work - those who are dedicated to improving social systems and social outcomes - we are deeply grateful to be collaborating with you on this important but difficult work. We look forward to connecting with more people in this movement for high performance and outcomes focus in 2023.

Read about four important projects we undertook this year - 

​Toward Home Alliance (THA) is a network of six housing services along with the South Australian Housing Authority, working together across South Australia to address homelessness in a single service system. In 2022, we conducted a detailed review of the Alliance’s operations and governance structure. As a trusted advisor for THA, we’ve worked with them for a number of years, and this next step allowed them to develop a new cross-agency operations manual. 

This truly is a ‘systems change’ project as it allows a single entity (the Alliance) to manage every part of the homelessness service system. The new operations manual was built to enable more than 100 staff working across five agencies plus multiple service partners to work to a common, integrated service model. This allows all agencies to provide more tailored, appropriate support but also to work across the usual silos of the sector.

In 2023, we’ll work with THA on a ‘Continuous Quality Improvement’ process embedded in everyday operations. The aim is to continually update and improve service delivery, guided by the Ops Manual and by the data being collected by all services. 

Hello Sunday Morning (HSM) is a digital platform operating on mobile and desktop, established in 2009 to support people to reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol harm. Their Daybreak app enables and facilitates peer-to-peer support, generating over six million data points that HSM engaged Latitude Network to analyse.

The project helped the team interpret and segment the data and understand the stories it was telling about their clients, how they were using the app, and how to use the data to better support and engage clients. We provided detailed segmentation of the App users, provided insights about who is using the online service, for how long, how intensively, and how long they stay in contact. This allowed HSM to develop strategies to maintain connection with those likely to disengage.

In 2023, we will use ‘machine learning’ tools to develop predictive models for the client to create an ongoing learning loop. This will then provide a range of early-warning data for HSM on factors such as likely client disengagement and drop-out rates and impact data. Using innovative new ways to track and measure data is crucial for services such as Hello Sunday Morning, and we’re excited to see how the service will evolve with increasingly rich and detailed data to support their development. You can read more about this project here.

A CMS or Client Management System (also called a CRM or Client Relationship Management system or Case Management System) are key tools for delivering and improving social services. They are also big business, and can be quite costly to invest in. We know social organisations that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and for larger organisations, millions of dollars on these IT database systems. They are significant investments for cash-strapped social organisations. Yet they don’t always deliver good value.

We advise clients not to rush into buying a CMS, but to first spend time designing your data ecosystem. The key to getting the most out of your IT providers is to develop a detailed, mapped set of metrics and to be clear how you will use this data for better decision making. This forms part of your functional brief to the CMS provider, but it also reduces duplication and the need to re-work your system when you need to make changes down the track.

Here are our top six principles to consider before investing in a new CMS: 

In partnership with the Australian Community Support Organisation (ACSO), Latitude Network is delivering a masterclass at the upcoming International Criminal Justice Conference in Melbourne. Drawing on a decade of experience in social impact projects, Gemma, Russ and Dale will share insights on designing programs that deliver outcomes.

The masterclass will focus on three key cohorts that face increasing rates of imprisonment. For example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to represent 30% of the criminal population, with Australian governments and services having made little to no progress in addressing this gap. In addition, data from the increase in women’s incarceration demonstrates that 27% of women entering prison were in short-term or emergency accommodation in the 30 days prior. Remandees are the third cohort that has grown much faster than the general prison population.

The masterclass will apply Latitude Network's 'Four Pillars' framework to building outcomes-driven interventions. Topics covered include:

• Client segmentation: Learn how to develop a robust client segmentation model, including looking at emerging data analytics techniques such as machine learning to better understand the characteristics of sub-cohorts of people;
• Service outcomes: Decide optimal service outcomes to address needs, draw from validated tools, and address current policy and political drivers specifically for the needs of identified cohorts of service users;
• Program logic: Identify a robust, evidence-based program logic to take your cohort from 'need' to 'outcome'; &
• Data and performance metrics: Match the program logic with data and performance metrics to allow in-program review of performance and progress toward outcomes
  

​This in-depth, robust training for leaders in the social and justice sectors will be 'hands-on' and practical, with groups working together to apply the Latitude Network Four Pillars to their own experiences and challenges. 
 
Participants walk away with initial solutions to some of their immediate challenges, exposure to the latest thinking on outcomes-based programming and service design as well as the opportunity to get feedback on their outcomes-based programs.