A small booklet developed for our sponsorship of the adults and children's national social care conference in Harrogate 2013. The first part of the book talks about our unique approaches, the second gives some examples of our work in social care.

1. www.redquadrant.com

2. 01
We have
not been
successful...
but do buy
our services!

3. Since we founded
RedQuadrant in 2009,
we haven’t done much
marketing.
Word of mouth has been
the way most people have
learnt about us and our work.
Telling people how
wonderful we are and how
successful we’ve been is not
our style, because...
●● The successes of the projects
we’ve been involved in are not our
successes. Real sustainable impact
has been achieved by our clients,
not us. It’s their success.
●● We work in the public sector, and we
know the pain involved in many of
the savings projects; cutting budgets
costs jobs.
But, we want to tell our story and
explain what we do, because we think
we’ve got something to contribute.
So here are some small postcards
as a start of our marketing.
We hope it interests you – and you’ll
stop by for a chat.
02

4. It’s not what
we do, it’s
how we do it
03
www.redquadrant.com

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RedQuadrant does three things:
g
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bui ability
cap
You can imagine the kind of work
we do under consulting and learning
and development.
Our unique ‘consultant interims’
perhaps require more of an explanation.
The idea is very simple: top people
doing a transformation job at a day
rate. You don’t get a single contractor
who plays the game of becoming
indispensable; instead you get the
assured expertise and drive of a person
who has a consulting firm behind
them, a firm that knows that you want
to be left with the tools to deliver for
yourself without continued external
involvement. Being a temporary part
of the organisation gives our consultant
interims a particular type of credibility
and authority to make better and more
sustainable changes.
04

6. We are recognised
experts, and can
be very easily
procured
www.redquadrant.com
/frameworks
05

7. m
We’re on two national frameworks,
showing our depth and credibility
in social care. We think we’re in the
top three organisations who are experts
in local government.
We are the consultancy for ‘whole
council’ change, and a consultancy
with real expertise and specialism –
including, and especially, in social care!
All you have to do to legally procure
us through these quick and easy
frameworks is to fill in one A4 sheet.
We’re ‘pre-qualified’, OJEU compliant,
and have proven our solid track record.
ESPO
Community research and engagement
Education and learning
Housing and housing support
Leisure, culture and heritage
Marketing, comms, and public relations
Planning, valuation, and infrastructure
Social care (adults)
Social care (children)
NEPRO
Education and learning
Health and wellbeing (finalisation pending)
Leisure, culture, and heritage
Marketing, media, and communications
Organisational advice and support
Planning and development control
Social care (children)
Training
More information at www.redquadrant.com/frameworks
06

8. Our story – a new
type of consultancy
that tries to make
itself redundant
www.redquadrant.com
07

9. y
m
We used to meet after work to talk
about how to improve the world.
Then we found the courage to do
something about it.
We care about public services. We know
that ‘salami-slicing’ and ‘slash and burn’
techniques that some organisations
are resorting to can do serious harm.
We know that there are other ways
to reduce budgets and support citizens
and communities effectively.
In 2008, as the recession began in
earnest, we recognised public services
needed to be reinvented – and so
did consulting.
Public services need consulting that is
more effective, sustainable and better
value for money. That’s what we set out
to do. In 2009 we left our comfortable,
permanent jobs, and went for it.
RedQuadrant was launched with different:
●● beliefs: good consulting enables
the client to drive the change...
and makes the consultant redundant
●● approaches: an agile/prototyping
approach that engages and
is sustainable
Does it work? We think so. More
importantly – our clients think so! We’ve
grown in a sustainable way – a little over
47% per year on average over these
last three years. 96% of our clients have
asked us back.
08

10. Our beliefs –
the foundation
of RedQuadrant
09

11. We’ve been consultants for some time, and we’ve
realised some important things:
1. Good consulting is about having
3. Consultants should be in business
This even means that we let clients pick
the people they want to work with.
Sustainability means passing on
the skills for analysis and continual
improvement.
the right people for the job.
It’s experience, expertise, and caring
enough that matter – not the brand,
the website or the ‘solution’.
2. It’s not just about having good ideas
– it’s about ensuring the organisation
we’re working with can deliver the change.
This means our clients have to share
responsibility for the work.
to do themselves out of a job – and that
includes us. The work is not just fixing
or adapting the organisation.
The only way to do this is to work with
the client, learning and doing together,
throughout a project.
We call it our ‘campaign against
consultancy’.
10

12. The way
we approach
our work is
important to us
11

13. RedQuadrant is a lean, networked
consulting organisation. Our consultants
are all independent. They come
together – like an experienced crew
making a film – to meet the needs
of our clients. They know their jobs,
know their own reputations are on
the line. They also know that they’ll get
more support than if they were working
with one of the top consulting ‘brands’.
This means that we have an agile
approach to projects – we find changes
we can make and test them, ideally
in fast steps that we can test and try
again several times. We believe that
‘you cannot understand a system until
you try to change it’ (Kurt Lewin).
We always work alongside you – we
don’t take the task away from you,
and we don’t just write a report.
It means we get practical and pragmatic,
and choose the right tools and
approaches to do the job. It means
that we mix coaching, mentoring,
training, and even running parts of
the organisation to make the change
happen – we call this approach
‘consultant interims’.
It also means that the client pays less,
and gets more experience, than with
big firms.
12

14. Some typical
work we
do in adult
social care
13

15. Assessment of financial
and operational stability
for adult social care services
Cheshire East
The council was faced with large cuts
in adult social care expenditure and
a rapidly increasing elderly population.
We reviewed all activity at a high level
of importance, and focused on:
●● the care pathways for older people
including links to hospital and
intermediate care provision, use and
effectiveness of re-enablement,
use and purpose of nursing homes,
and approach to home care;
●● learning disability services including
transition arrangements,
care pathways, use of reablement
and risk-sharing; and
●● mental health provision, including
process for agreeing and reviewing
care packages
We developed a strategy for improved
financial certainty in the adult social
care budget, and recommended
potential short, medium and long term
savings. We worked with the council
to ensure that they would have the
skills and tools to conduct similar
exercises in the future.
14

16. Large scale change:
social care and health
transformation
London Borough
of Hillingdon
We supported the redesign and
implementation of adult social care
pathways, including the transition to
locality-based working. The purpose of
this was to design a model with a greater
focus on effective screening of need,
preventative services, and joint working
with health partners.
After pathway mapping and reviewing
the existing working methods, we quickly
implemented changes. These included:
●● the redesign and prototyping of
the screening processes to develop
a more efficient flow of work and
the integration of the re-enablement
service;
15

17. ●● a restructure of the group, assigning
workers to locality-based teams
to enable more embedded working
relationships with health partners in
geographic service boundaries; and
●● allocation system of social care
workers based on a robust analysis
of demand, allowing a more
effective deployment of people
and a more coherent experience
for service users.
After this, a broader implementation
through prototyping one third of
the service was started which focused
not just on changes in working practices
and processes, but also, critically,
making changes to the culture
of the organisation.
It has enabled the service to move away
from the revolving door syndrome,
reducing pressure on delivery of service.
Information and dvice now deals
with 35% more cases and does this
effectively without the need to move
further into the system. There has
also been a significant increase in
assessments and reviews completed
within statutory timeframes.
16

18. Independent review of adult services and fees
Cheshire East
The council faced pressure from
providers around the level of fees paid.
We assessed payments to providers
of residential, nursing, and homecare
services as well as direct payments.
We calculated costs through a bottomup’ approach based on local factors,
and benchmarked charges. We ran
workshops with local providers to refine
and challenge our findings and to discuss
how providers could help the council
to deliver more cost-effective services.
17
The council maintained fees at their
current levels for most services,
and planned to change their purchasing
arrangements in the medium term.
We also worked with the council
to develop a process to assess fees
currently paid to providers and
to review requests for uplifts.
We implemented this with key
providers and identified savings
opportunities.

19. London Borough of Southwark
1
Workforce transformation
Based on new care pathways and
Southwark’s ‘front door’ customer
contact model, we identified and
scoped a workforce transformation
programme to move to an enabling
approach. This planned for significant
efficiencies, aligning the workforce
to new core processes. We engaged
with employees at all levels, including
the senior management team.
2
Pre-emptive customer-centric
intervention
We planned and initiated the LGA-funded
project, using customer insight and
community engagement to identify
older people who are ‘positive deviants’
who are able to remain far more
independent than others, and what
attributes supported this. We made
recommendations about how the council
could improve access to services and
enabling outcomes by helping more older
people to develop the same attributes.
For more information on the ‘Positive
Deviance’ approach.
18

20. Some typical
work we do
in children’s
social care
19

21. Large scale change:
children’s and
education services
London Borough
of Hillingdon
‘We engaged RedQuadrant to support
an extensive transformation programme
across education and children’s services.
They have provided support both in
a programme management capacity
and an expert input capacity.
Both roles have provided significant
value to the organisation in acting as
a key strategic partner, reviewing all
aspects of the service, challenging
current working practices and helping
to shape the new delivery model.
They have consistently engaged staff
in both the design and delivery
of change, which has had a notable
impact on the success we have seen
to date. Staff have felt empowered
to take the lead in embedding new
working practices and have also gained
a greater nderstanding of change
methodologies.
We have realised several very clear
benefits. Our coordinated access point
has seen a reduction in the number
of contacts, our streamlined single
assessment has reduced the time taken
20

22. to complete assessments, and our
overall process redesign has reduced
the bureaucracy burden on front line
workers. In addition to this, we have
built a much stronger local offer,
bringing together partners and
the voluntary sector to deliver services
for families. Overall, the changes we
have implemented with the support
of RedQuadrant have significantly
improved the outcomes for children
and their families.’
Merlin Joseph, Director of Children
and Young People’s Services
21
Process review of
children’s services
A large county council
An unannounced inspection by
Ofsted in April 2013 led to a rating of
‘inadequate’. The council commissioned
us to carry out a fundamental review
of child protection business processes
and system functionality.

23. We showed how the council could
empower the workforce to be more
effective:
●● reduce unnecessary or inefficient
recording of data;
●● enable efficient, quick, and clear
access to case records; and
●● a single, documented universal
business process
We gathered data and engaged with
over 150 stakeholders to create an
extensive list of more than five hundred
opportunities and issues based on the
current system.
We worked with senior employees
to create ‘to be’ process maps and
recommendations across all customerfacing teams. These were prioritised
and presented through team-level
implementation plans. The council
now has a clear direction of travel for
the next year.
‘Great to be able to explain to people
from outside who understand and can
escalate’ – social worker
To learn more, ask for our client references
22

24. Some
examples
of our unique
approaches
23

25. Rapid improvement
events
Special educational needs
in Lambeth
These are change interventions that
only take about two weeks, after
some prep workshops. We work in an
intensive manner with the team and
start making practical changes right
away. We do this work in services like
special educational needs and adoption
and fostering.
The service met their performance
targets ‘by hook or by crook’, but
needed to reduce appeals and
expensive tribunal decisions. Our
rapid improvement event focused
on improving parent satisfaction
and considering all the stakeholders
who needed to be actively involved
in the statement process. Changes
were around engagement of parents,
feedback to partners, and approaches
to reduce the 71% of non-value adding
work due to outdated information
technology.
24

26. Lambeth’s Head of Quality
and Improvement:
‘RedQuadrant provided the majority
of our core lean rapid improvement
events, and in the process have trained
over 60 staff in basic lean approaches.
Their practical approach has
identified benefits and wider learning
opportunities. They take their principle
of doing themselves out of a job
seriously and our chief executive
commented that they have provided
the right approach for Lambeth’
25
Positive Deviance
Councils, partners, and communities
face many complex or ‘intractable’
problems, as well as budget cuts.
Traditional ‘top down’ approaches to
change are now being supported and
replaced by work within and with the
system itself. One of the approaches we
recommend is Positive Deviance, which
focuses on the people in the system
who achieve great results, despite
issues, and this helps everybody else
learnfrom them.
We work with some of the top positive
deviance experts in the world, including
the Danish prison service.

27. Projects include:
NHS Adult Care Services,
Peterborough PCT
We led a positive deviance initiative
with a group of NHS social workers.
Our goal was to change attitudes and
behaviours in the team and to improve
safeguarding. Our consultant facilitated
positive deviance workshops to help
the team on the ground gather data
and build a case for change.
The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation
The foundation naturally sees science
and technology as the main way for
them to fight HIV and malaria, and
improve food production and nutrition.
Our consultant facilitated and coached
senior leaders to buy-in to the positive
deviance concept, thus recognising it
as a credible and effective way to make
progress on these global issues.
Southwark
Our project on pre-emptive, customercentric intervention in adult social care
identified a number of ‘positive
deviants’ who were able to remain
far more independent than their peers.
We identified their characteristics and
how the council could help clients develop
these. Finally, we recommended ways
in which the council could improve
access to services to create more
enabling outcomes.
26

28. Managing Partners
Dennis Vergne
07980 541990
dennis.vergne@redquadrant.com
Ben Taylor
07931 317230
ben.taylor@redquadrant.com
Directors and subject matter leads
Social care and health
Board adviser on social care and health
Frank Curran
07515 875381
frank.curran@redquadrant.com
Guy Van Dichele
07703 498223
guy.vandichele@redquadrant.com
Children’s services
Coach, learning and development
Emma Franklin
07761 934214
emma.franklin@redquadrant.com
Lorna Smalley
07881 780383
lorna.smalley@redquadrant.com