CRN East Midlands Budget Planning: 2024/25

Contents

Background

Ordinarily, the Clinical Research Network (CRN) East Midlands would set an Annual Plan for the year ahead, around December of the preceding financial year. This would include planning for partner organisations, central/hosted roles and functions, and strategic initiatives. For 2024-25, however, this financial year will fall across two contractual periods.  The CRN contract will provide funding for the 6 month period 1 April 2024 - 30 September 2024, with funding in the second 6 months (1 October 2024 - 31 March 2025) provided under the Regional Research Delivery Network (RRDN) contract. As such, it is acknowledged that this is an unusual year, which will bring some different financial planning and reporting expectations, some of which are currently not fully known at the time of writing (December 2023).

Introduction

The NIHR CRN Coordinating Centre (CC) has provided written confirmation in relation to LCRN funding allocations for the period April to September 2024. It is confirmed that LCRNs will receive the same funding as in 2023-24, prorated for six months, with an uplift to account for the NHS pay awards and a further increase of £100k per LCRN for Clinical Support Services. For the East Midlands region, the 2024-25 CRN budget for the period 1 April 24 - 30 September 2024 will be £13,236,507.

This page further outlines the breakdown of the 6 months of CRN funding, specifically including the income for CRN East Midlands partner organisations. Following recent communication we are also pleased to confirm that it is the DHSC intention to provide partners with a guaranteed minimum level of funding in 2024-25, and has agreed that the funding provided by the LCRNs in the first six months of the financial year will be replicated in the second six months of the year, through RRDNs. This is very welcome and positive news, which will aid planning for partners. Please refer to the separate guidance document regarding partner budget planning, which outlines expectations and requirements. As part of that planning process will remain the key relationship between the CRN and Partners, with joint working typically through the designated Senior Team Links, along with wider management and clinical leadership.

Budget Planning

During November 2023, the CRN Partnership Group and Finance Engagement Events took place, where the overall budget approach was discussed; this was done following advice from the NIHR CRNCC. It was outlined that funding needs to be allocated based upon regional need, factoring in future need. It was also confirmed that in 2024-25 there will be no ongoing multi-year partner commitment (as in 2022-23 and 2023-24), and no roll-over budget expectation.

The CRN is committed to retaining a level of stability, but also allowing for growth to be available across all sectors/settings, and a need to rebalance for some partners.  It was advised that a pure activity based funding approach would not be appropriate, but a reference to activity will be important, alongside network intelligence and reflecting on CRN investment to date (historic investment). With this in mind, it was confirmed that there would be no intention to vary individual partner budgets by more than 10%, to ensure that a level of stability can be maintained. 

In relation to the overall CRN budget, a number of existing commitments and provisions are in place, in addition to the partner infrastructure budgets. The details on this web page, however, specifically relate to core/infrastructure partner funding.  The approach taken is through the application of a funding model, supplemented with local intelligence. Specifically, this includes the following:

a. In order to ascertain the level of current CRN investment at each partner organisation, a percentage allocation was derived for each partner, with reference to 2023-24 CRN infrastructure budgets, as at Q2.

b. Activity is next considered as an output from the investment; weighted participant recruitment into portfolio studies is the proxy for activity, referencing financial year recruitment data from 1 April 2022 to 15 December 2023, as prior to this the data was heavily influenced by Covid-19 research. The weighting ratios for recruitment are in line with the national approach to study complexity.

c. A percentage recruitment calculation is then obtained, to assess the proportion of weighted activity assigned to each organisation.

d. The proportions of CRN infrastructure and activity are then compared for each organisation. With reference to this comparison, fair value for money relates to similar % levels across both factors; good value where % activity exceeds % income and less favourable where income % exceeds activity. These levels of difference are then grouped and bandings applied, which provide a starting point for partner budget planning.

Table 1: bandings across factor differences with proposed budget impacts

e. This data is very helpful, however as with most data it cannot be applied in isolation. Network intelligence, an understanding of the different organisations, working across boundaries, the local and regional pipeline and plans are all key factors, which are also considered. Over the course of the year, CRN Senior Team Links (STLs) work closely with organisations, and thus local intelligence is also fed into the planning as part of what is already an ongoing discussion with partners. Following this discussion, a % uplift/reduction is confirmed.

f. For stability, the 2023-24 partner infrastructure budgets are then used to derive a baseline budget; this will not include any strategic funding, such as under-served or clinical support. An adjustment for the 6 month period is made, referencing again the Q2 figures (as in a, above).

g. A 3% inflationary uplift is then applied across all partner budgets. Although the total allocation provided to the LCRNs is uplifted by 6%, this is in part to cover the uplift from 2023-24, which has already been covered by the CRN East Midlands and thus pulls through into the baseline.

h. The relevant % uplift/reduction is then applied to the Q2 baseline budget

As in previous years, a separate regional budget for Primary care has been defined. This was derived using the same principles as the rest of the budget, with primary care treated as an “organisation” for budget planning purposes.  

The Network has had an effective working relationship with regional NHS partners for many years, with ongoing funding and research activity.  As the work of the CRN expands across social care and other sectors, the approach taken to supporting these newer partners does not yet fit into this funding model. These organisations will be considered separately, outside of this approach, with separate individual discussion required to confirm budgets. 

Table 2 details the application of the budget approach and provides the indicative CRN partner infrastructure budgets for 2024-25.

Table 2: Partner organisation budgets for 2024/25

* Includes investments across emerging health and care partners, such as social care, hospices etc. 

Elizabeth Moss

CRN East Midlands Chief Operating Officer

May 2024