Chapter 7 Leadership and direction
We found the leadership and direction of social work services in Clackmannanshire to be adequate with strengths just outweighing weakness.
Over the last few years Social Services had experienced important changes in leadership particularly at senior officer level. Elected members we met were knowledgeable about social work services and had a commitment to social work. They held regular meetings with the Head of Social Services.
Elected members were clear about what needed to change in order to continue to improve social work services. The present structure was being reviewed and it was recognised that in key services for children there had been an insufficient overview of service performance. They needed to make progress in addressing this issue.
The vision for social work services was insufficiently developed and there were variations of policy, strategic direction and partnership development between services for older people, services for other adult groups, and services for children.
We found staff to be committed to providing good quality services. Although from our survey of staff we found that less than half of those who responded had a good understanding of the vision for developing social work services.
Vision, values and aims
Social Services sat within the integrated Department of Services to People which included Housing Services, Education and Schools, Community and Cultural services and Sports and Leisure Services. Clackmannanshire Council's overall vision was set out in its Corporate Plan 2008-11 which was still in draft form with vision statements being set out in most other major documentation.
Community planning was seen as integral to how the new single outcome agreement would be progressed although social work services contributions in this area had to-date been peripheral and had been led more by other partners including health and police.
Elected members recognised the importance of social work services in the lives of local people. They saw the importance of developing greater accountability and since the 2007 elections were achieving this through the key portfolios of regeneration (children and families and community care) and inclusion (criminal justice).
In our staff survey 49% of those who responded agreed that there was a clear vision for social work services. Clackmannanshire's result in this respect was comparable with the results from other authorities we had inspected. Elected members we spoke to were disappointed at this result believing that the vision for services was well established. Some senior managers acknowledged that establishing a vision for each service needed to be progressed, with only some services having these. For example older people's services had reflected a clear vision of early intervention and local community supports but this was not the same for learning disabilities or child care services.
We were told by senior officers and elected members that the council's role as a corporate parent was recognised and additional funding for child care services had been approved in the 2008-09 budget. The Chief Social Work Officer ( CSWO) was chair lead officer of the looked after children strategic planning group. However there was no corporate parenting strategy and the decision to allocate lead responsibility for corporate parenting to a unit manager did not reflect the degree of importance required on a corporate basis.
In February 2007 the council set up three Area Management Boards ( AMB) each chaired by a head of service outwith social work in order to develop a corporate approach to child care services. Each board had representatives from NHS Forth Valley Health Board, Central Police Scotland, child care services, housing services and head teachers. The boards were to identify key strategic issues and problems facing young people and to find ways of addressing these.
There was recognition of the importance of care by members of extended families (Kinship Care) and while this had received political and financial support, the policy still required some development.
The council was not self-sufficient in foster care and had to rely on resources provided by independent fostering agencies. This had resulted in some children being placed some distance from their own homes. This was especially challenging because of high numbers of looked after and accommodated children.
Recommendation 14
Clackmannanshire Council should put in place a corporate parenting strategy which sets out corporate responsibilities throughout the council towards looked after children. This strategy should lead to improving outcomes for looked after children and in increasing the number and quality of foster care placements.
Role of elected members
Elected members we met recognised that their role was key in setting strategic policy and political leadership. This change had mostly been driven by the findings from Audit Scotland's report. Other recent inspection reports had added momentum to the pace of this change. The HMIe inspection had highlighted a number of significant service failures and these were being addressed by senior managers and elected members in a considered way. An External Consultant had been appointed to review child care services and appointments more recently made to the post of Child Protection Quality Assurance Officer and Senior Manager Child Care Services.
Elected members demonstrated a lead in certain areas and there were champions of both children and older people by the portfolio holder and shadow member respectively. The portfolio holder for children had recognised the importance of having direct contact with children and had described a positive session with children in residential care, billed as 'meet the boss'. He said that this was an important area of corporate parenting giving him insight into the circumstances of the children looked after and accommodated whilst providing children with a human face to the council's leadership.
The council recognised that service viability in certain areas such as fostering required change and had explored opportunities with other councils but had been unable to reach any long term solution to resourcing such a service.
The Chief Executive and elected members expressed a strong commitment to partnership working recognising the importance of this given the capacity issues related to the size of the authority. Although there was good joint working in care of older people and in the integrated mental health services this was less apparent in child care services and other adult care services. Joint work with NHS Forth Valley and Clackmannanshire CHP had been positive although there was still much to develop in areas such as learning disabilities, drugs and alcohol, and child care services.
Recommendation 15
Clackmannanshire Council should set out its overall values and vision for Social Services. This should set out clear aims, objectives and priorities for social work services and be understood by social work services staff, partner agencies and people who use services. This vision should be reflected in all plans.
Leadership of people
The Audit report acknowledged that since the introduction of new political structures in 2005 elected members had started to demonstrate more active leadership. Following the May 2007 elections a new minority administration was established with a new leader of the council. These elections had brought a change in the political balance. The Chief Executive retired and was replaced by the present Chief Executive, the former Director of Services to People on an 18-month fixed term contract.
In seeking alternative ways to deliver improvements, Clackmannanshire Council initiated a feasibility study of jointly managing back office services with Stirling Council and led a five-council Efficient Government Fund bid to share a range of back office functions. The results of this study had taken longer to produce than expected with the report only being given to the elected members during March 2008. This delay had led to an extended period of uncertainty about future partnership working and also about the council's own service structure. This had been especially evident in child care services which had struggled to maintain its statutory responsibilities during a period of staff shortage. Members were open in acknowledging that their main priority in recent years within Services to People had been the restructuring of housing services.
The new arrangements for portfolio holders' responsibilities had helped to develop a greater contact and understanding by elected members of the demands and challenges faced by social work staff. The two elected members with social work responsibilities met fortnightly with the CSWO and other senior social work managers. Similar meetings took place with shadow portfolio holders. These were minuted and forwarded to the other portfolio holders.
Service managers had responsibility for defined areas of older people, mental health, adult assessment, children and adult day care. These managers had only been meeting as a senior management team since 2006. We were told by the CSWO that since the establishment of this group agenda items had been driven by inspections and budgets issues. Service managers were operationally based and strategic reporting directly to the CSWO. Prior to this the respective services of children and families and community care had operated independently of one another with each head of service answering directly to the Director of Services to People.
Although in 2006 the CSWO was given responsibility for managing all social work services with the creation of the post of Head of Social Services we found that there was still a residual view that services were not joined up. This was most evident in areas of transition where children with disabilities' future care needs as adults were not always seen to be approached on a joint basis. Staff themselves did not feel that there was a strong lead played by service managers and even where main grade staff were located in the same building, there did not appear to be significant interaction or awareness of each others respective responsibilities. The lack of cohesion in terms of staff leadership appeared to apply at different levels and services. The CSWO did not have a high profile with staff within social work services and had taken some positive steps to try to improve this situation. For example the CSWO had visited units, brought together service managers for away days and more recently become more involved in planning for child care services.
The HMIe report had affirmed to elected members the importance of having clear advice from senior managers at Chief Executive and CSWO level. Although senior managers acknowledged their own responsibility in this regard, the council as a whole had not taken steps to investigate the cause of staff turnover in child care services and the importance of fundamental supportive services such as staff supervision to ensure risk management and better outcomes for children. This had now been rectified with appropriate policies being put in place and awareness raising of staff.
Following the publication of the HMIe report, elected members had, along with the Chief Executive and CSWO, met with staff to reassure them that the council would commit itself to achieving the improvements in services necessary to safeguard children's wellbeing. The CSWO had also met with child care staff on other occasions, visited Woodside and attended away days.
The Chief Executive, senior management and elected members all expressed a strong commitment to partnership working with this commitment being mirrored by the partners in the ownership of the HMIe report.
Bringing together the separate strategies for children, adults including those with learning disabilities and carers, along with those already in place for older people remained a significant challenge and had been affected by both capacity and the pressures exerted on a small authority.
Leadership of change and improvement
Prior to 2006 there had been a head of services for adult care and a head of services for child care and criminal justice. Both post holders were answerable to the Director of Services to People whilst the role of CSWO sat with the head of services for adult care. In 2006 the post of head of child care and criminal justice services was deleted and the head of services for adult care became the Head of Social Services, retaining the role of CSWO. This had been an extremely challenging period with significant vacancies and low morale in child care services.
The review of the child care service by an external consultant in the spring of 2006 resulted in structural changes and some plans for improved performance management had been implemented. Although staff numbers and morale had since improved there remained a lack of strategic planning for the direction of child care services with little effective partnership working explicitly within the council. However, there was some evidence of partnership working and strategic development as a result of the implementation of the action plans developed from the HMIe inspection. The planned appointment to a new post of senior manager of child care services was also intended to address some of these issues and to introduce more systematic performance management than had been evident to date.
The Chief Executive, CSWO and elected members believed that the previous structure had created difficulties for the CSWO in trying to fulfil her role. It was recognised that the CSWO needed authority at a senior level in the organisation to avoid being marginalised and to access all the information required to advise elected members.
The CSWO completed annual reports to council. These reports referred to a range of significant national and local developments in social work services and to particular challenges such as staffing shortfalls, especially in child care service. These were reported in a largely factual manner, without highlighting the implications for the council of continuing to fail to meet these challenges or the consequences for services. In particular the reported 25% vacancy rate in child care services in August 2005, whilst a national concern, did not refer to difficulties the council was experiencing in fulfilling its statutory responsibilities. There was a view held by some elected members that the difficulties experienced before 2006 regarding staff retention and staff support were not brought to their attention clearly enough within these reports and that this had contributed to the long standing set of staffing difficulties. We found little evidence to suggest that elected members during this time had made demands on the CSWO to improve on this lack of clarity.
As outlined in the Audit Scotland report there had been a lack of scrutiny and challenge by elected members within a more officer led council. The consequence had been that opportunities for raising the profile of social work services shortfalls, including resource availability had failed to explicitly state the need to consider further resourcing by the council. The introduction of portfolio holder responsibility and a separate scrutiny committee was aimed at an enhanced role for elected members.
The key gaps in senior management capacity since 2006 had been especially evidenced in child care services where staff had said that there was a lack of direction. This had been compounded by the temporary arrangements for the filling of the Chief Executive's post with no corresponding filling of the post of Director of Services to People. The impact at both strategic and operational levels had been significant and had added to existing difficulties in strategic planning.
Since 2007 the new portfolio arrangements had resulted in a more immediate dialogue between elected members and senior managers with major challenges such as the development of learning disability day services, the establishment of the community justice authority, the child protection action plan, fostering resource availability and the partnership arrangements had been raised in regular meetings. Service managers had begun to give briefing sessions to elected members with eleven members' present at the most recent event. All these opportunities had the effect of further raising the profile of social work services.
A review of structure by external consultants was approved by council in March 2008 and was required to be completed before the summer recess. This was a constructive approach by the council although it was in the context of approximately eighteen months of senior management under-capacity. Meanwhile there had been active investment in new posts to try to improve capacity within social work services. These posts included a new senior manager in child care, a fostering and adoption team leader and two new team manager posts, all within child care. Two million had been added to Social Services budget to address the overspend and at the time of the inspection there was evidence of improvements having been made to improve the outcomes for children, young people and their families in Clackmannanshire.
Elected members had also made commitments to progress the building of joint capacity within the council and with other partners.
Elected members considered that the present structure was not necessarily wrong, providing that the post of Director of Services to People was able to focus entirely on strategic matters and to disengage from day-to-day operational activity.
Any new structure for the delivery of social work services will need to take into account the central role of the CSWO, with developed protocols that makes sure the CSWO has sufficient standing within the council and has direct access to the ultimate decision makers as well as being accessible to practitioners.
Recommendation 16
Clackmannanshire Council should ensure sufficient capacity to allow for a thorough strategic overview of service direction and performance by the Chief Social Work Officer to elected members. This should be considered in line with the current external review of structure.