Achieving for Children

The Customer

Achieving for Children is a not-for-profit social enterprise created in 2014 by Royal Borough of Kingston and the London Borough of Richmond to provide their children’s services. In August 2017, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead became a co-owner of Achieving for Children and they now deliver children’s services across all three boroughs.

Achieving for Children awarded Matrix SCM their Temporary Staffing Managed Service Contract in October 2020 through MSTAR3 framework, with a goal to streamline the existing process, providing visibility, transparency and a better reporting suite.

With a current spend of £2.5m per annum across approx 70 temporary workers, it was important that the new Temporary Staffing contract provided Achieving for Children with control and a more mandated process. It was important Matrix SCM built a strong Social Care supply chain with the skills and depth needed to fill even the most specialist Social Worker roles.

The Challenge

Prior to working with Matrix SCM, Achieving for Children were managing their temporary staffing requirements through two providers, meaning data collection and mandating contracts was difficult. Obtaining and analysing data proved challenging for Achieving for Children and meant Achieving for Children had very little control over the contract.

Achieving for Children Social Worker roles are split between two locations, Kingston & Richmond and Windsor & Maidenhead. Although both locations require a similar requirement, their demand varies and both locations have different needs for their Social Worker requirements.

It was important that Matrix SCM recognised this factor when implementing Achieving for Children and adopted a process that would allow for us to build supply chains that were suitable for each location.

The Solution

Achieving for Children outlined clear goals and outcomes they were looking to achieve with the new contract, we worked in a partnership approach to help Achieving for Children realise the objectives and achieve these.

A key part of the new contract was to provide Achieving for Children a more streamlined process with easy access to temporary staff and a more sophisticated Management Information suite, with visibility and transparency around compliance and transactional fees.

As part of the new solution, we consolidated the two previous systems Achieving for Children were previously using this provided better visibility and has allowed Achieving for Children to gain a better grip on the contract.

Following immersion sessions, Matrix SCM identified the areas where Hiring Managers were concerned about supply. We held a number of supplier forums at both Kingston & Richmond and Windsor and Maidenhead where we introduced the new and existing suppliers to hiring managers, outlined Achieving for Children’s requirements and helped to alleviate the concerns from Hiring Managers. We shared with the supplier’s expectations and agreed on what “good” looked like in terms of quality of agency workers. The forums allowed our supply chain to understand the difference in the two locations requirements and needs.

• 100% fulfilment rate
• 31 Social Worker placements
• 107 suppliers in Social Care category
• 20 average number of candidates submitted per order

Key Successes Throughout Implementation

As outlined above, Achieving for Children had clear goals and outcomes during the implementation process. Achieving for Children set a mandate, made decisions and followed the process throughout, making the implementation run smoothly and effectively.

“Achieving for Children have been one of the nicest and most focused clients that we have worked with.”
- David Terry, Implementations Director