Project summaries
Joint provision often comes about because a service provider, wanting to provide its service locally, seeks a point of delivery and finds another organisation with existing accommodation that is willing to assist. This is a host/guest model of joint provision, with the organisation with accommodation being the host, and the incoming service provider the guest.
For joint provision to make sense, it has to be attractive to both the host and the guest.
Where a local service provider has some spare resources, it is frequently financially advantageous to allow another service provider their use (i.e. for it to become a host).
Joint provision is generally an attractive option for community centres and the like.
The remit of joint provision is usually to provide a service at a more local level than would otherwise be financially possible.
In most cases, the joint provision necessarily has to have low overall costs because of the small catchment population.
Jointly provided local services are usually (but not always) cheaper than the equivalent standalone provision, because joint provision entails a more efficient use of resources.
Mobile provision can be cost-effective if the priority is to deliver a minimal level of service, but it is not if the intention is for a service to operate for more than a few hours a week.
Currently, local, joint provision is usually a supplement to existing central provision. The main alternative is not to have the local service at all, depending on whether the additional costs are worth the benefits to the local population and manageable to the service provider.
Local, joint provision can, however, potentially also substitute for existing central provision, if implemented on large scale. In such cases, the main alternative is to keep all of the service centralised and the basic financial issue is the comparative costs.
Capital costs are usually less of an issue for long-term viability of joint provision in that they typically depend on the availability or otherwise of a pot of external money.
Libraries: shop libraries and one-day-a-week libraries can potentially be provided as supplements to existing central library provision without undue problems. Furthermore, there are no obvious financial reasons to stop library services from providing more local services at the expense of less central provision.
Medical services: outreach medical services need to be low cost, because they use existing staff and only require availability of a room. However, because they are likely to reduce the amount of professional time available for the current centralised service, GP outreach services are only likely to be practical on a small scale, where the population justifies them.
Council centres and advice services: where joint provision can be provided at low overall cost, it has attractions as a supplement to the existing centralised service.
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