Chapter 7: Leadership
We found strategic leadership in Aberdeenshire to be good, having important strengths with some areas for improvement.
There was evidence of good political, strategic and professional leadership and the social work service had a positive profile within the Council. Throughout the service we observed a strong sense of the values promoted by the Scottish Social Services Council. 21 We found that staff generally felt both valued and supported and there was organisational stability.
We found areas, such as strategic planning and performance management where the service needed to sharpen its focus but we also found that managers were generally aware of these and were taking action to address them. The effectiveness of the role played by social work in partnership arrangements was mixed, with progress more evident in children's services.
Vision, values and aims
The Council's strategic plan had a clear strategic vision, "Working together for the best quality of life for everyone in Aberdeenshire" and a clear set of values and principles to underpin the vision, including partnership, participation, accountability and inclusion.
The strategic plan was part of a well defined community planning framework, involving a corporate management plan, service plans, area plans and community fora. The director of housing and social work was the lead officer for community well-being, one of five themes within the strategic plan.
We found evidence that the corporate vision and values of the Council were consistent with those of the social work service and of its management and staff. They were also contained within the service's various strategy and planning documents. However, there was no explicit vision statement for the social work service. In the staff survey 49% of staff agreed that there is a clear vision for social work in the authority. In the inspection self evaluation, senior managers recognised the value of introducing a vision statement for the social work service, which could be clearly communicated with the staff group. We would encourage them to do so.
Figure 4: There is a clear vision for social work in this authority
We saw evidence that the service's own plans and strategies were consistent and linked to the Council's corporate strategic and community plan. However, while we found considerable commitment and activity within the service to strategic planning, we identified areas where the approach to policy and strategy was not as SMART or as co-ordinated as it could be, as outlined in the previous chapter. Partly as a consequence of a peer review undertaken for the Council, senior managers had recognised that there is a need for a more co-ordinated and consistent approach to its action plans, which they referred to as a "golden thread" running through its plans.
Elected members represent the Council on the key joint planning structures, such as the Community Health Partnership ( CHP) and the Criminal Justice Partnership. The chief executive was a member of the 21st Century Social Work Review Group. We found a strong commitment within the Council towards the social work service and a recognition that the service was keen to contribute to the Council's corporate priorities. From our meetings with key elected members, we were impressed by both their commitment to the social work service and their understanding of the social work agenda.
We found generally positive joint working relationships at all levels. Within the Council, housing and social work being the responsibility of one director was seen as beneficial, albeit that integration of the two services and staff groups was limited. We saw evidence of an increasingly positive relationship developing between the social work and education services, which was reflected in examples of good joint working. Some senior managers within external partner agencies commented that they found that the Council's style somewhat cautious and slow moving at times. We found that there was not always a shared vision with NHS Grampian about how services should be developed. However, we also found enthusiasm from all parties for the opportunities that the establishment of the Aberdeenshire CHP will provide.
Leadership of people
We found strengths in this area and a commitment to pursuing continuous improvement. Although in our staff survey only 40% of people agreed that senior managers communicate well with staff, fieldwork interviews and focus groups painted a more positive picture.
Despite the large size of the authority we found that the members of the senior management team were known to some extent by most staff and that they made efforts to retain a visible presence within the organisation. Senior managers had undertaken a back to the floor exercise to help them better understand the day to day work of front line staff. They had convened meetings with groups of front line staff as part of the preparation for this inspection and we heard from managers and staff that both had enjoyed these and found them beneficial.
During fieldwork, we found that most staff felt valued and supported by the Service and were well led by first line and middle managers. This reflected the findings of the Council's peer review 22 which concluded that:
- The middle managers have the drive and enthusiasm to deliver good quality services. The informal delegation to middle managers makes them feel empowered and trusted to deliver their service plans.
and
- The staff is committed to providing a service. The various relationships between staff and their direct line managers allow trust and confidence to flourish.
We found a range of systems and processes in place to support leadership, including a well established induction process at both a corporate and service level, good supervision and a Kaizen change management process (described earlier) which had demonstrated some success in engaging front line staff in service development.
From our staff survey and our meetings with a range of staff groups, it was clear that most staff felt they received sufficient training to enable them to perform their duties effectively. The social work service's training programme included leadership training for staff at different levels. The service had a range of procedures and guidance documents. High workloads may compromise the ability of some staff to engage fully in both learning activity and local and overall service development.
The organisational culture was to allow staff and managers a significant degree of autonomy in the way in which they develop and deliver services. We saw evidence of a number of benefits to this approach - the development of services which were truly responsive to local needs and the high degree of staff motivation and satisfaction. However we also found that senior managers had sometimes relied on assumptions that actions had been implemented. For example, we found considerable variation and confusion amongst front line staff about their delegated financial authority, whereas senior managers believed there to be clarity about this.
Leadership of change and improvement
Political scrutiny was provided principally through elected members and primarily through the housing and social work committee which meets six times a year. We heard comments which suggested that in the past the social work service did not consistently present performance information to elected members. However, we saw evidence of increased activity in this area, with the Council having approved a new corporate performance management framework in January 2006. The housing and social work committee considered a report in March 2006 which reviewed the performance information presented to it and amended the template to include some specific performance outcomes for service users, for example for young people leaving care.
In addition to the housing and social work committee, political scrutiny was also available via the six local area committees. Although we found that the social work service was less actively engaged with the local committees, we understand that performance information (broken down to a local level) relating to the social work was routinely presented to them. From interviews with elected members and managers, we found that there were positive and generally productive working relationships in place. Senior members were positive about the quality of the information and advice provided by officers, who in turn viewed members as providing good political leadership. Despite no political party having an outright majority, we observed that considerable efforts were made to develop and implement policy based on consensus. Within the social work service, the senior management team was a stable one and there had been relatively little staff turnover at either middle manager or practitioner level.
We saw evidence demonstrating the significant level of change activity which is in place, for example the care home review and the move towards integrated children's services. Managers demonstrated an awareness of the need to support and train staff to manage the change process and this was an important feature of the service's training programme. A number of key staff (for example strategic development officers) had undertaken, or at the time of inspection were undertaking the 'Leading to Deliver' course.
The social work service showed a commitment to continuous improvement and as described in Chapter 6, used a range of methods and activity. Despite the volume of improvement focused activity, managers were aware that there remained services which require to be modernised and improved. Senior managers were keen to ensure that there was a coherence and transparency running throughout its planning processes and activity. We suggest that the service should ensure that its decisions about what improvement activity to undertake are coherent and linked to strategic plans.
Only 33% of respondents to our staff survey agreed that there is effective leadership of change in the social work service. Our experience during fieldwork suggested a more positive conclusion but we would encourage senior managers to follow through on their intention, stated in the service improvement plan, to have greater engagement with staff, particularly around service development and improvement.
The effectiveness of the role played by social work in partnership arrangements was mixed. Children's services showed good improvement and leadership in this area. While we found more limited progress in securing a shared vision with NHS Grampian, we also found a strong desire to make the best of the opportunity of improved partnership working arising from the CHP.