EPA Project Proposal

This proposal outlines Phase 2 of the SWANN SPoR (Spot, Prevent, Observe, Respond) project at Shropshire Council, a programme designed to establish a new early-intervention service pathway to prevent escalation of need and reduce demand on statutory adult social care.

Phase 1 of the SWANN programme launched in October 2024 with three commissioned providers: ICE Creates / Live Well Shropshire, British Red Cross and Community Resource. However, Phase 1 has not performed as intended. Professional referrer uptake has been near-zero from two of the three providers, a significant backlog of outstanding referrals has accumulated due to a CRM feedback loop failure, and there is no data infrastructure capable of demonstrating demand deflection. These are not delivery failures alone; they are system design failures that Phase 2 must address structurally.

Phase 2 has been initiated to design and implement the digital and data infrastructure required to make the SWANN pathway functional, measurable and scalable. The six Phase 2 development priorities are: (A) electronic referral form on Dynamics 365, (B) provider access to CRM, (C) monitoring dashboard, (D) public self-referral launch, (E) data capture improvements and (F) Liquid Logic assessment note. This project is being delivered in a context of significant financial constraint: Shropshire Council declared a financial emergency in September 2025 and borrowed 121 million pounds in exceptional government support. Every investment must demonstrate its contribution to demand deflection and cost avoidance.

The proposal is structured around the five-case model and covers: strategic case, economic case (including a cost-avoidance analysis), commercial case, financial case and management case. It includes a project plan, risk register, RACI matrix, implementation timeline and appendices covering leadership evidence and an employer statement.

Strategic Context

SWANN (Social Wellbeing and Neighbourhood Network) is a commissioned early-intervention programme sitting within Shropshire Council's Adult Social Care directorate. It was established in response to the evidence that timely community-based support reduces escalation to statutory services. The three commissioned providers operate across Shropshire: ICE Creates through its Live Well Shropshire programme, British Red Cross and Community Resource.

Shropshire Council is operating in a position of severe financial distress. The financial emergency declared in September 2025 has resulted in a Major Change Programme, increased MHCLG oversight, an LGA peer review and an improvement board. In this context, the council's commissioning strategy has been explicitly refocused on early intervention and prevention. SWANN is directly aligned to this strategic direction. However, without Phase 2, SWANN cannot demonstrate that alignment with evidence.

The Three Problems Phase 2 Must Solve

Phase 2 Development Priorities

Explicit Out of Scope

• Operational delivery of Phase 1 referrals (this is Customer Services' and providers' responsibility)
• Provider contract management and formal performance management proceedings
• Implementation and mobilisation of commissioned services
• Liquid Logic integration delivery (subject to a separate senior governance decision)

Project Approach

Phase 2 is being delivered using a sprint-based framework, adopted on the advice of Steve Humphrey (PMO Lead) and selected in preference to waterfall delivery for the following reasons: the EPA submission window was five weeks, making a full waterfall plan impossible before the project had produced any outputs; the first governance documents (RAID log, ToR) were needed in week one, not at the end of a planning phase; and the requirements workshop in week three produced immediately actionable outputs that a waterfall approach would have deferred.

The sprint framework does not mean an absence of documentation. The Plan on a Page (POAP) operates as the standing governance record. It has grown from a one-page overview to a five-page document tracking all six workstreams, weekly sprint goals, risks and team responsibilities. It is updated weekly and shared with the full project team via SharePoint.

Timeline Summary

Risk Register Summary (RAID Log)

RACI Matrix (Key Responsibilities)

Phase 2 is built on a simple causal logic. The three problems identified in Section 2 each have a direct structural solution. This section sets out how each solution produces the intended outcome.

Causal Chain 1: Referral Volume

Professional referrers cannot use the telephone-only pathway. This is not a training issue or a motivation issue. It is a workflow compatibility issue. A health visitor cannot interrupt a home visit to make a phone call to a service that may put them on hold. An electronic referral form, accessible from any device, with automated routing and receipt confirmation, removes this barrier entirely. The outcome is measurable: referral volume from professional sources will rise within 90 days of the form going live.

Causal Chain 2: Referral Quality and Provider Accountability

Providers currently receive referrals via email and respond with three bullet points. This is incompatible with complex referral journeys involving care home residents, individuals with complex mental health presentations and cases requiring follow-up coordination. Provider access to CRM enables structured outcome recording, end-to-end referral tracking, and a real feedback loop between the council and providers. Chelsea Pallen (co-ordinator) has already introduced a quality gate for complex referrals. Provider CRM access embeds this quality function in the system rather than relying on individual gatekeeping.

Causal Chain 3: Evidence and Contract Renewal

SWANN cannot be renewed without evidence of demand deflection. Evidence requires data. Data requires infrastructure. The monitoring dashboard, improved data capture fields, and CRM-based referral tracking together create an evidence base that did not exist in Phase 1. This is not a reporting exercise. It is the mechanism by which the council can demonstrate to MHCLG, to its improvement board and to its own elected members that this investment is working.

Success Outcome Statement

Phase 2 is successful when: at least one professional referral pathway is fully digital; providers can update referral status directly in CRM; dashboard development is underway, with requirements agreed and build initiated; and the council can produce a monthly summary of demand deflection activity with confidence in the underlying data.

Sprint Framework

Sprint-based delivery is well-evidenced in contexts where requirements are partly unknown at the start of a project and where early delivery of outputs generates confidence and momentum. This project has both characteristics: the full requirements for the electronic referral form were not known until after the 2 June workshop, and producing the RAID log and POAP in week one created visible governance immediately in a project that had previously had none.

The limitation of sprint delivery without documentation is acknowledged: what gets done but not written down is lost. The POAP mitigates this. Every sprint decision, risk update and team action is recorded in the POAP and the RAID log. These are the project's institutional memory.

Requirements Workshop Approach

The 2 June requirements workshop used structured facilitation to elicit user stories, agree the referral form field list and set acceptance criteria for the electronic form and provider portal. This is a standard business analysis technique (aligned with BABOK v3 requirements elicitation practice). The outputs were immediately actionable: Kate Hobbs used the agreed field list to begin the Dynamics 365 portal build within the same sprint.

The 10 June second workshop extended this by applying Co-pilot assisted thematic analysis to the signposting list, applying the failure demand principle to the mandatory field discussion, and agreeing acceptance criteria for the provider portal. This workshop provides post-submission evidence of ongoing structured requirements leadership.

Stakeholder Engagement Method

A power/interest matrix was used to differentiate stakeholder engagement strategies. Lisa Middleton (high power, high interest) was managed closely: the POAP was shared with her before wider circulation, her endorsement was obtained before the governance package was sent, and all major documents were sent to her in advance of any period of unavailability. Jim Ford (medium power, high concern) was converted from a potential blocker to a core team member by treating his Phase 1 concern as legitimate and designing a response to it. Lesley Richards' direct feedback on her role description was acted on immediately, adjusting "dashboard lead" to "main contact person."

Financial Analysis Method

The cost-avoidance analysis uses a proxy-and-literature method, drawing on ADASS unit costs (2024/25), PSSRU Unit Costs of Health and Social Care (2023) and NHS England social prescribing evidence reviews. Every figure is explicitly labelled as a proxy or assumption. The purpose of the analysis is not to present verified financial modelling but to demonstrate the methodology for capturing value once Phase 2's infrastructure makes tracking possible. The five outstanding questions for Lisa Middleton (data owner) are documented. A meeting to obtain real figures is scheduled for 23 June.

Cost Avoidance Unit Costs

Illustrative Cost-Avoidance Calculation

Internal Budget

No additional budget is requested. All Phase 2 development activities are being absorbed within existing ICT and commissioning resource. The council's CRM team (Kate Hobbs, Katie Done) are using existing Dynamics 365 licences and development capacity. The Power BI dashboard will be built within existing ICT reporting capacity. This project has a zero additional spend position.

Five Outstanding Financial Questions (Lisa Middleton)

1. What is the actual annual volume of SWANN referrals completed since October 2024?
2. What proportion of SWANN referrals were made by professional referrers versus self-referrals?
3. What is the approximate conversion rate from initial referral to sustained engagement?
4. What is the average number of contacts per referral (to establish service intensity)?
5. Are there any cases where a referrer has reported that the SWANN referral prevented a statutory assessment or care package from being initiated?

Meeting with Lisa Middleton to address these questions: scheduled 23 June 2026. Answers will allow the proxy assumptions to be replaced with actual Shropshire data.

Governance Model

Phase 2 is governed through a weekly project team meeting (SWANN Phase 2 Wednesday series), the POAP as the standing governance document and the RAID log as the formal risk and decision record. Lisa Middleton chairs the project team meeting and holds effective accountability for commissioning decisions within Phase 2. Steve Humphrey (PMO) is the primary escalation route for resourcing and governance above project level.

The single unresolved governance gap is the absence of a named strategic owner above commissioning level. This is documented as RAID risk R_003, owned by Steve Humphrey. Lisa Middleton holds effective accountability for operational decisions, but there is no confirmed escalation route for decisions above commissioning level. A meeting to resolve this is scheduled for 23 June 2026.

Resourcing

Post-EPA Continuity Risk

The most significant implementation risk that cannot be resolved before the EPA is R_005: post-EPA continuity. David Agyei's project management resource is confirmed to 18 June. What happens to Phase 2 governance after that date is not yet confirmed. This is owned by Steve Humphrey. The POAP and RAID log are designed to be transferable: any successor project manager can pick them up without institutional knowledge from David Agyei.

Leadership Moments: Specific Evidence

David Agyei is a Senior Business Analyst within the PMO at Shropshire Council. I have been his line manager throughout this apprenticeship programme and have directly overseen his work on the SWANN SPoR Phase 2 project.

I can confirm that the project described in this proposal is real, current and consequential. SWANN is a live commissioned programme within Adult Social Care. Phase 1 has had significant operational challenges, and Phase 2 is a genuine organisational need, not a project constructed for assessment purposes.

David has demonstrated genuine project leadership throughout Phase 2. He established governance arrangements that did not previously exist: the RAID log, Terms of Reference, POAP and success outcome statement were all produced by David within the first two sprints. He has managed a multi-agency stakeholder group with appropriate professional judgment, and he has handled real operational tensions (the Phase 1 backlog issue, the CRM team capacity constraints, the absence of a strategic owner) with maturity and transparency.

His approach to the financial analysis is appropriate. He recognised early that he did not have the data to produce verified financial modelling, sought the data he needed from the commissioner, labelled all proxy assumptions clearly and produced an analysis that demonstrates the methodology while being honest about what is not yet known. This is the right way to handle this situation.

I am satisfied that the evidence presented in this proposal reflects David's genuine work and genuine competence. I commend it to the assessment panel.

Signed: Steve Humphrey, PMO Lead, Shropshire Council | Date: 4 June 2026