Scottish Government

A MAP OF INDEPENDENT ADVOCACY ACROSS SCOTLAND

TAYSIDE ADVOCACY

NHS TAYSIDE

There are three local authorities within Tayside NHS Board area:
Dundee City Council;
Angus Council;
Perth & Kinross Council.

Advocacy Planning Process

The Tayside Advocacy Development Group, which oversees the planning and implementation of advocacy in Tayside, is made up of representatives from each of the three local authorities, the Chair of Tayside Advocacy Forum; a worker from Tayside Health Council; and the lead commissioner from Tayside Health Board, who chairs the group. Also in attendance are representatives from the acute and primary care trusts, and a representative from the Board's financial department.

Whilst this group has overarching responsibility for co-ordinating advocacy in the region (e.g. recently the Chair convened a focussed session aimed at establishing a training strategy on advocacy for all statutory sector staff in Tayside), much of the day to day commissioning and monitoring of advocacy services is undertaken by officers from the three local authorities, within joint planning structures, who feedback regularly to the wider group.

Advocacy Organisations in Tayside

Project details

• Independent
• Self advocacy Capacity Building Project
• Adults with learning disabilities
• Dundee

Project details

• Not independent (managed by Age Concern Scotland) but working towards independence
• Professional advocacy
• Vulnerable older people
• Dundee

Project details

• Independent
• Professional, volunteer and citizen advocacy. Also support for self-advocacy groups
• People (over 16) with learning disabilities; mental health problems; dementia or acquired brain injury, and frail older people
• Angus (also Angus residents being treated in Dundee Hospitals who are within the above client groups)
• Evaluated by Scottish Health Feedback, and the Consultation & involvement Trust Scotland, 1999. ACE Project evaluated in 2002 by independent consultants seconded from Advocacy 2000

Project details

• Independent
• Professional, and volunteer advocacy
• People with learning disabilities; dementia; mental health problems and frail older people
• Dundee city
• Independent evaluation was carried out in 1999 by Scottish Health Feedback and The Consultation & Involvement Trust Scotland

Project details

• Independent
• Professional, volunteer, collective and support for self-advocacy groups for people with learning disabilities
• People with learning disabilities; mental health problems; dementia; and frail older people
• Perth & Kinross
• Evaluated in 1999 by Scottish Health Feedback and Consultation & Involvement Trust Scotland

Project details

• Independent advocacy (part of national organisation)
• Citizen advocacy
• Children and adults with a learning disability, including those with profound and multiple disabilities
• Dundee Independent evaluation carried out in 2000 using CAIT tool

Project details

• Not independent (managed by Perth & Kinross Association of Voluntary Services, for Pri
• Independent
• Professional and volunteer
• Adult Carers
• Perth City, and Perth & Kinross

Total Statutory Funding for Tayside Advocacy in 2003/4

Note: The amounts for client groups cited above indicate specific provision, however generic advocacy provision tends to prioritise people with mental health problems, learning disabilities, acquired brain injuries, dementia, and other community care service users, so in real terms the amounts spent on these groups will be higher than indicated for the separate groups listed above.

Similarly the figures cited for each of the three types of advocacy refer to funding that is specifically allocated for these purposes, however, some advocacy providers (notably AIA, DIAS, and Independent Advocacy Perth and Kinross) provide a combination of advocacy types which the figures above do not account for, because the proportion of their budgets spent on each is not monitored. Therefore the figure cited for 'individual' advocacy is disproportionately higher compared with 'citizen' and 'collective' than in real terms would be the case.

Gaps in Independent Advocacy

• Children and young people
• People with physical disabilities and acute health needs, including the terminally ill
• People from Black and ethnic minority communities
• Homeless people and those with addictions, and other 'hidden' groups
• Collective advocacy for mental health service users
• People in hospitals (e.g. Carseview and Murray Royal) and care homes
• Advocacy for carers in Dundee and Angus

Priorities for Development

• Increased resources in advocacy for people with mental health problems, both collective and individual advocacy
• Establish children's advocacy services
• Provide additional funds for existing agencies to provide advocacy for people with physical disabilities/health needs.
• Consistency of 3-year funding contracts
• More systematic approach to regular consultation with users
• Develop and implement awareness raising strategy for statutory staff
• Support and resource existing advocacy agencies to provide culturally sensitive services to people from Black and minority ethnic communities
• Housing and Education Departments to be included in ongoing advocacy planning process

Conclusions

The quality of planning and commissioning at local level is improving through joint working in Tayside.

Particular achievements have included: a strategic approach to agreeing from the outset what the remit of the planning group should be; consistently open lines of communication and reporting; clear, thorough, standardised documentation of the planning process and its outcomes; and innovative approaches to ensuring that independent advocacy is supported to make a positive impact on statutory services (e.g. Tayside has been one of the few areas to develop a jointly agreed protocol between advocacy providers and statutory agencies; and it has also been one of the first to start negotiations on developing and implementing an advocacy training strategy for health and social work staff). Tayside Advocacy Development Group is to be congratulated for leading the way in terms of the advocacy planning process.

Having said this, there has not been enough consultation with service users, which is perhaps not surprising given the dearth of collective advocacy and other user groups on the ground, which might have been able to input into the planning process.

The most serious problem in Tayside, however, remains the paucity of funding for independent advocacy provision. With only 0.02% of total health and relevant local authority spending in Tayside being allocated to independent advocacy (representing 0.63 per head of population), Tayside emerges as one of the lowest investors in independent advocacy in Scotland. Again, a shift in priorities is needed to reflect the increased priority given to advocacy and Patient Focus Public Involvement in recent policy.