OK.
Well kia ora and welcome everyone
to the 1 Hour Introduction to RBA, or Results
Based Accountability.
My name is Sharron Shea.
I'm with Shea Pita and Associates,
and I'm working with MBIE in terms of the streamlining
contracts with the NGOs.
Before we get started, I'd just like
to acknowledge the author of RBA,
or Results Based Accountability.
His name is Mr. Mark Friedman, and here
are some website references for you
to access post this training today.
In terms of our objectives, we've
got three objectives today.
Firstly, we want to understand how RBA can benefit you,
clients, and also communities.
Secondly, we want to learn about key RBA concepts,
and I'll be talking a lot today about 2-3-7,
2-3-7 from ends to means.
You're going to love those-- hearing those words
by the end of the day.
Key concepts associated with RBA,
or results based accountability.
And thirdly, what we want to do today
is just clarify the relationship between RBA
and the Streamlined Contracting with NGOs initiative.
So I often get a lot of questions about what
are the benefits of RBA.
So I just want to run through today with you
seven key benefits.
So the first is-- it's simple and logical.
You don't have to be an expert.
And that's really critical in terms
of the ease of implementation.
And again, if you know the 237 concepts
you're away in terms of RBA.
It is very easy to implement, and one of the key concepts
here is having a common language.
And I'm going to talk a little bit
today about how a common language can actually
enable us to have really rich conversations about outcomes,
so we can talk to each other, not past each other.
A third benefit is tracking achievements,
a really important thing moving forward
in terms of outcomes based contracting.
So RBA enables us to evaluate the success
and track and identify the achievements.
It also enables us to identify contributions
made to the community and government results
and outcomes, which is a key thing for us moving forward.
The fourth benefit is it is inclusive.
It's an inclusive framework.
And what we mean by that is we are
able to engage with multiple partners
in terms of outcomes based contracting and achievement.
And in particular, it's really great for collective impact
that has multiple stakeholders working together
to improve outcomes.
The fifth is that it's useful, and it's useful tool.
It's great for planning.
It's great for capability building, change management,
and most importantly, performance improvements.
So we'll talk a little bit about that in our time today as well.
Also, you can number six benefit,
you can see where your efforts are making a difference
on the ground in terms of client outcomes,
but also how you contribute to the big picture in terms
of population outcomes.
And last but not least, RBA enables
you to use data, use data to drive decision making.
And that's really critical moving forward as well.
We've all heard of the scenario "The Black Hole Reporting"
where providers contribute their data to funders,
but their data is never seen again.
It's gone into the black hole.
RBA enables us to overcome that process
or to overcome that issue and move forward collaboratively
together.
OK.
So what we're going to do is learn about some key RBA
concepts today, 2-3-7, 2-3-7 from ends to means.
So there are two key types of accountability and language
discipline when we talk about RBA.
So firstly, two key types of accountability, what are they?
Well, they are population accountability and also
performance accountability.
So population accountability is really simple everyone.
It is about multiple stakeholders
sharing the accountability for achieving results or outcomes
for a whole population.
And also what we do is we measure results and outcomes
through using indicators.
And indicators are simply pieces of data
which enable us to measure whether or not
results or outcomes are occurring
for a whole population.
A key concept about population accountability
is that it's about multiple stakeholders
sharing the accountability for achieving results for outcomes
for whole populations.
And I want to talk about that a little bit later on.
Contrast that with performance accountability.
So performance accountability is about client outcomes.
It's about client outcomes.
And whenever we talk about performance accountability,
we talk about performance measures.
OK?
We talk about performance measures.
And I'm going to move on to that in a minute.
But before I do, I just wanted to say
that performance accountability is about,
for example, a provider, agency, or system holding
the accountability for delivering outcomes
to its clients.
And that differs from population accountability,
because that is about multiple stakeholders
sharing the accountability for delivering results or outcomes
to whole populations.
And again, we'll touch on that, because that
is a critical difference, later in the 1 hour intro.
So whenever we talk about performance accountability,
we talk about performance measures.
And there are three types of performance measures everyone.
How much did we do?
How well did we do it?
But most importantly, is anyone any better off?
And the word "anyone" actually represents your clients.
It represents your clients, and that's
the most critical performance measure
in terms of measuring the success of a service program
or initiative.
And seven questions everyone.
Seven questions which take us from ends to means, OK?
So if we think about the ends as either a population result
or outcome or a client outcome, what we need to do
is work together to identify the means, e.g. how
we're going to get there.
So there are seven questions in RBA
which take us from ends to means.
And what we also do through applying
those seven questions is we look at baselines
and we look at turning the curve.
And baselines is really simple.
It's simply the baseline data associated
with either and indicated or a measure,
and it includes historical data as well as forecast data.
And the term turning the curve is a really easy way for us
to identify, in terms of that baseline data,
do we want the curve to turn up or do we want the curve
to turn down in terms of our success linked
to population results or outcomes or client outcomes?
And at the end of the day, the ultimate objective
is to make life better for our families, our whanau,
our children tamariki, and our communities.
So let's have a little bit more conversation about RBA,
and in particular, the two parts of RBA,
two types of accountability, population and performance.
So population accountability as we see it
is about the well-being of whole populations.
And it is about communities, cities, districts,
or countries.
So for example, it is about the well-being
of all rangatahi or youth in Te Tai Tokerau which is Northland.
It is about the well-being of all adults in Tauranga.
It is about the well-being, for example,
of all families in Auckland.
A key issue associated with population accountability
is that it is about multiple stakeholders
sharing accountability for achieving well-being, results
or outcomes for whole populations.
And I want to talk about that a little bit more
when we move forward.
The other type of accountability,
as we talked about earlier, is performance accountability.
And performance accountability is about the well-being
of clients.
It is about the well-being of clients.
And for example, what does the well-being
of clients of teams, providers, programs, agencies, and service
systems.
A service system for example is the health system
or the education system.
So it is about the well-being of clients,
clients of services, collectives, agencies,
or systems.
As distinct from population accountability,
performance accountability is about a provider, a program,
an agency, or a system holding the accountability
for achieving outcomes for its clients.
But remember, when we talked about population
accountability, that is about multiple stakeholders
sharing the accountability for achieving results or outcomes
for a whole population.
So we're going to talk about that more as we move through,
because those are two key concepts associated
with RBA, population accountability and performance
accountability.
So one of the great things about RBA
is that we create a language discipline.
So what we mean by that is that we actually
start to have a common language about outcomes.
So you and I already have a common language.
We know that there are two types of accountability, population
and performance.
Population is about the well-being
of whole populations.
Performance is about the well-being of clients.
But let's have a little bit more of a deeper dive
into definitions associated with those two
types of accountability, so again, we
can have rich conversations and talk to each other,
not past each other about outcomes.
So when we talk about population accountability everyone,
we do talk about population results or outcomes.
And a population result or outcome
is simply a condition of well-being
for children, adults, families, or communities.
So I'll give you some examples here.
All Tamariki in Hamilton are born healthy, safe roads,
nurturing whanau/families and also a prosperous economy.
So as you can see, population outcomes
are high-level aspirational statements of well-being
for our population.
Now in it's own right, they're absolutely fantastic,
but what we also need to do is we
need to have an indicator or a benchmark.
So an indicator or a benchmark is simply
a measure which enables us to quantify
the achievement of the population result or outcome.
So for example, if we look at the population outcome here,
"all Tamariki in Hamilton are born healthy,"
an indicator of success for us might
be the rate of low birth weight babies in Hamilton.
If we're looking at the population
outcome "a prosperous economy," and indicator for us of success
might be the unemployment rate.
It's very simple everyone.
Population accountability, multiple stakeholders,
sharing accountability for achieving population results
or outcomes.
And we use indicators to help us to quantify whether or not
that population result or outcome is occuring.
Performance accountability we touched on earlier.
Let's have another look at this.
Performance accountability is about an agency or a provider
holding the accountability for delivering outcomes
to its clients.
And when we talk about performance accountability
if you'll remember, we also talk about three types
of performance measures.
And a performance measure enables
us to measure whether or not a program or agency or a system
is working.
And we talked about three measures and they are
how much did we do, how well did we do it, but most importantly,
is anyone any better off?
And remembering that the term "anyone" actually
equals your clients.
The term "anyone" actually equals your clients.
So is anyone better off is the same as a client
result or outcome.
So now we're talking about from ends to means everyone.
From ends to means, one of the key concepts
associated with RBA.
So you and I have just talked about population accountability
and performance accountability, but let's look
at the relationship between those two
types of accountabilities.
So if we look at population and performance accountability
together, what we suggest is that population accountability,
e.g. population results or outcomes and indicators,
are actually the end point.
OK?
They're the end point.
And performance accountability, which measures whether or not
a program, agency, or system is working,
actually represents the means.
The means to the ends.
So if you're looking at population and performance
accountability together, we're looking at population results
or outcomes as the ends and performance accountability
as the means to achieving the ends.
But there's also another ends and means conversation in here,
and that is in terms of performance accountability.
So if we just ignore population accountability for the moment,
if we are just looking at performance accountability,
the end would be the client outcome
and the means would be the service delivery.
Now from ends to means, important concept
because what we see-- what we do in RBA is we focus on the end,
and then we work out how we're going to get there.
And if you recall in the 2-3-7, we
have seven questions which take us from ends to means.
The ends are the outcomes, either the population outcomes
or the client outcomes, and the means
are how we work out how we're going to get there.