CHAPTER 1
Summary, evaluation and recommendations
Summary
Shetland Islands Council social care services delivered good outcomes for many people who use their services. People were generally very positive about their experience of using social care services. This was particularly true for older people and people with learning disabilities.
The workforce was committed and motivated with many staff enjoying their jobs. After a period when the social work service lacked effective leadership, the appointment of the interim executive director had made a significant difference and we found strategic leadership was good.
Staff were effectively undertaking the key social work processes of assessment and case management. Many services were of a high quality. There was a commitment to service improvement and a performance management culture was developing.
We also identified a number of key areas for improvement:
- some gaps in particular services, particularly specialist services;
- the pace of change was slow;
- there were increasing demands on services which needed to be addressed systematically;
- service development needed to be more strategic;
- financial planning was weak;
- awareness of policy and procedures among front line staff required attention; In particular regarding adult protection procedures; and
- commissioning required consideration and development.
Areas for evaluation
1. Outcomes for people who use social work services | Good |
2. Impact on people who use social work services and other stakeholders | Good |
3. Impact on staff | Good |
4. Impact on the community | Good |
5. Delivery of key processes | Adequate |
6. Policy and service development, planning and performance management | Adequate |
7. Management and support of staff | Good |
8. Resources and capacity building | Adequate |
9. Leadership and direction | Good |
10. Capacity for improvement | Good |
Recommendations
1. Outcomes for people who use social work services
Recommendation 1
Shetland Islands Council social care services should systematically gather information on outcomes for people who use services.
2. Impact on people who use social work services and other stakeholders
No recommendations
3. Impact on staff
Recommendation 2
Social care services should review its administrative structure and should ensure that administrative staff are included in the employee review and development programme.
4. Impact on the community
Recommendation 3
Social care services should review the method and format of information made available to the general public and ensure maximum accessibility.
5. Delivery of key processes
Recommendation 4
Social care services should put in place a more detailed eligibility and priority framework.
Recommendation 5
Social care services should ensure that carers' assessments are offered on a consistent basis.
Recommendation 6
Social care services should, with a degree of urgency work in partnership with others to agree, finalise and implement the adult protection procedures. This should include a standard format for risk assessment.
6. Policy and service development, planning and performance management
Recommendation 7
Social care services should ensure the function of policy review and development is given sufficient priority within the remits of the operational managers.
Recommendation 8
Social care services should more actively seek the involvement of people who use services and their carers at an individual and collective level.
Recommendation 9
Social care services should review their transition arrangements for young people moving on to adulthood and ensure they have robust planning systems in place.
7. Management and support of staff
Recommendation 10
Social care services should prepare a comprehensive workforce planning strategy to cover short, medium and long term requirements. This should include the consideration of having the right staff in the right place.
Recommendation 11
Social care services should take urgent action to address the safer recruitment issues identified in the internal audit report.
Recommendation 12
Social care services should develop a comprehensive training strategy and in doing so, should give consideration to getting best value from its training budget.
Recommendation 13
The service should review how it monitors and reports on sickness absence.
8. Resources and capacity building
Recommendation 14
The council should ensure that service plans are clearly linked to available resources as identified in detailed financial plans. Furthermore social care services should ensure that it provides full service planning information (including longer term trends) to corporate finance to enable corporate finance to provide the necessary financial management and planning support required.
Recommendation 15
The council should work towards reconciling the level of service provision with the sustainable funding available to support that level in the medium to longer term.
Recommendation 16
The quality of financial reporting to members should be improved through enhanced level of analysis and explanation of budget performance. Furthermore, the financial training programme for budget responsible officers ( BROs) should be completed as soon as possible to enable them to manage their budgets more effectively.
Recommendation 17
The social care risk register should be reviewed to ensure all risks relevant to the service are identified and recorded. It should be monitored regularly to ensure risks are being managed appropriately and are in line with the council's risk management policy which should also be reviewed.
Recommendation 18
Social care services should develop a commissioning strategy.
9. Leadership and direction
Recommendation 19
Social care services should develop and disseminate a vision for future social work services with clear values and aims setting out how this fits with the council's corporate vision, wider service plans and specific social work objectives.
10. Capacity for improvement
No recommendations.