Scottish Government

Chapter 7 Leadership and direction

We evaluated leadership and direction as good, with important strengths with some areas for improvement.

The council had a clear vision for the service that had been widely disseminated to staff. We found a staff group committed to delivering effective services but not all staff we met understood and owned the vision.

There were explicit links between the council's service plans and its strategic plans both in terms of vision and priorities. The social work agenda was clearly evident in the single outcome agreement 2008-09 and we found good congruence between planned local and national outcomes.

Elected members, the Chief Executive, the Director of Social Work and managers at all levels demonstrated clear and effective leadership. This was confirmed by our meetings with various staff groups within the organisation and with key partners. Staff were encouraged to put forward ideas for change and development of services. We found good examples of corporate and joint working at different levels of the organisation and with a number of key partners especially in the areas of services to children.

We found examples of good joint working between Scottish Borders council and NHS Borders particularly for people with learning disabilities and the rapid response team. However high level working relationships with the newly reformed CHCP were in a period of transition and progress on taking forward joint working arrangements with health partners had been a lengthy process.

The council had an ambitious business transformation programme with three major social work service reviews underway. Service managers were working hard to deliver these. Some staff were becoming frustrated about the length of time that aspects of these reviews were taking. It was too early for us to conclude whether these reviews would deliver all the improved cost effective services to customers that were desired.

Vision, values and aims

Promotion of vision and values

The vision for social work services was clear and aspirational. It said:

'Social work services are working with the community to ensure everyone feels included. We will take a community leadership role in protecting children and vulnerable people, and in promoting wellbeing, social inclusion and social justice. In partnership with all relevant agencies, we will maximise all opportunities to actively address disadvantage.'

The value base for services had been taken directly from the SSSC Codes of Practice. Evidence from observed practice and focus groups of people who use services and their carers indicated a consistent commitment from staff to deliver services that enhanced user autonomy, choice and self direction.

A strategic statement for 2007-10 (fourth draft) repeated the vision and set out four strategic outcomes that social work services were seeking to achieve for their clients, carers, employees and the wider Borders community:

• Improving health
• Staying safe
• Inclusion and diversity
• Achievement and ambition.

The statement included sections on key challenges and values for social work services. A 'strategic staircase' set out strategic goals and the steps that needed to be taken to meet them. The five local area committees had been consulted in putting the statement together and it had been widely published.

The Chief Executive said his vision for the council was for modern, democratic and sustainable services which promoted gender equality and justice and were both socially and environmentally aware. At the heart of that he wanted social work services to be fully integrated into every department in the council.

There was a mixed response from staff who responded to our survey as to whether there was a clear vision for social work. Managers and home care staff were the most positive and fieldwork staff the least positive. Evidence from our fieldwork confirmed that ownership of the vision amongst all staff was uneven.

Cross cutting approach within the council

There were clear links between the vision and priorities set out in the single outcome agreement and the corporate/departmental plans.

The Scottish Borders Council's corporate plan 2006-09 'Our Scottish Borders; Your community' set out an ambitious vision for the council.

The Council will be an excellent, forward looking an innovative organisation, well regarded locally and nationally, working closely with partners and local communities, to deliver high quality, customer focused services.

It identified six themes which reflected the outcomes identified in the community plan:

• Strong, inclusive and safe communities
• A robust and dynamic economy
• A protected and enhanced natural environment
• Improved health and well being
• Learning for everyone
• A well connected Borders.

The service area business plans for social work services made explicit links between proposed actions and activities for social work services and the six key themes in the corporate plan.

The Director of Social Work contributed to the development of corporate priorities through his membership of the corporate management team and the business transformation board. Along with other council directors he had contributed directly to developing the council's single outcome agreement which had been submitted to Scottish Government as a community planning document.

The Director cited the development of the migrant workers group, a subgroup of the community planning structure, as an example of how social work had led on developing corporate priorities. The Chief Executive cited other examples of initiatives that had started with social work and then been owned corporately such as the poverty and low pay initiatives. The Director was now the council champion for equality and diversity.

We heard of a number of examples of good practical joint working from our meetings with senior officers within the council and from key partners. One example was the operation of the critical services oversight group ( CSOG).

Scottish Borders Council had a corporate parenting strategy and councillors and senior managers spoke highly of the Director's contribution.

Leadership of people

Leadership culture

We heard many positive comments from elected members, the Chief Executive and Council Leader about the leadership shown by the Director of Social Work and his management team. We were told the Director had 'pulled round a demoralised department' and that he had given the department a good strategic lead.

We heard about a number of examples where the Director of Social Work had taken an effective lead in managing and supporting his staff. These ranged from championing the retention of training budgets, advocating an open IT system for staff, taking a lead in co-ordinating support to families affected by severe flooding. He was involved in practical as well as strategic ways.

The Director regularly published an annual report on the work of the Social Work Services Department. This year he had also presented his first annual report to council. This described the statutory work undertaken on the council's behalf and provided an overview of regulation and inspection, workforce issues and significant policy themes current over the last 12 months. The director personally acknowledged letters of appreciation. He had taken a lead in the 'Changing Lives' agenda as Chair of the Practice Governance Change Programme. He had a tradition of sending a Christmas epistle to staff celebrating success and reminding them of key achievements, important events and recent staff appointments.

The senior management team met weekly, and group managers attended every other week. We heard positive reports about these meetings where 'performance was discussed, linkages made and we sort out where we want to go'.

In the main stakeholders who responded to our survey had positive views on leadership and management both in the social work department and the council.

Involvement of staff

The department published a staff newspaper 'Care together' four times a year. There was a monthly forum for frontline staff chaired by the director, and a local practitioner's forum.

Once every year the Director held an open space event in two locations to enable staff to learn more about the wider work of the department and to comment and make suggestions for improvements. These events were planned through the supporting frontline staff group.

Once every three months the heads of service and senior managers met with staff delivering children's services to share information about policy and legislative developments and to report on reviews to ensure the widest possible communication. It was regarded as a 'cascading process'. As a result of staff feedback practice issues were now firmly on the agenda.

Social work staff were also represented on the employee council.

Despite the efforts made by the Director to make staff feel involved and to keep them informed, some social workers in some offices we visited felt that headquarters remained distant and that senior managers did not fully appreciate them or some of the stresses they experienced on the front line.

Leadership of change and improvement

Political leadership and capacity

We interviewed a number of elected members, including the portfolio holder for social work.

We heard many reports about good and effective relationships between elected members and officers. The elected member for social work discussed current issues with the director on a weekly basis and had regular meetings with the three heads of service. He also visited services and met staff and people who used services.

Scottish Borders Council had supported leadership development for officers and members. The Chief Executive had introduced pre-election training, an eight week course entitled 'Aspiring to elected office'. There was a further training programme for newly elected members. Attendance for some of this training was not mandatory but it was generally well attended. Along with six other authorities the council were piloting a Scottish Government initiative being taken forward by the improvement service in COSLA to develop personal training plans and 360 degree appraisal for members.

A champion system for children, learning disability and older people had been put in place although we judged that these roles required greater definition and had greater potential than had yet been capitalised upon.

Elected members we met were variously involved in or aware of the ongoing service reviews. They were supportive of the need to modernise services. All the councillors we spoke to had an understanding and ownership of the corporate parenting agenda.

Political decision making

The council had a cabinet and scrutiny model of governance with a portfolio holder or executive member responsible for social work.

Both the Chief Executive and senior elected members were positive in their views about the system and believed it held the executive to account in an effective way.

The executive committee met on a fortnightly basis and made all the key decisions. A performance monitoring panel concentrated on performance monitoring and performance improvement. The latter received detailed information. A scrutiny committee had the power to suspend any decision made by the executive or call it in. We were told this had only happened about six times since the committee had been set up and a decision about social work services had never been called in. There was an audit committee. The Audit Scotland report in 2007 said there was a need to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the scrutiny committees and refocus challenge at an appropriate strategic level. We were not clear whether or how this had been addressed.

The five local area committees traditionally focused on handling planning applications although they had also been used as sounding boards to discuss service reviews. They did not receive local performance information and at the time of our inspection their future was uncertain.

Leadership of change

The council had set up an ambitious business transformation programme to change its way of working. It was managed by a project board comprising the corporate management team together with the council leader, two deputy leaders, the executive member for performance improvement and the Chief Executive of NHS Borders.

The board was responsible for overseeing all corporate changes including the three service reviews being carried out within social work of transforming children's services, transforming older people's services and a support services review. These were all major pieces of work with agreed timescales, designed to improve services but also to deliver efficiency savings.

We were told a dementia strategy had been subject to extensive consultation but was unable to be concluded because of difficulties over agreeing resourcing with health colleagues.

Managers told us key aspects of the service reviews were on target to be completed by the end of 2008 and implementation would start next year. We considered that if staff were to be kept on board with the change process it would be important for managers to stay with this timetable and to remain as responsive as possible to staff views.

The length of time some of the reviews had taken to complete had also impacted adversely on potential sources of funding for the newly configured services, for instance market conditions had changed considerably since the 'Transforming Children's Services Review' had started and the value of school sites had dropped off. This meant additional management challenges for those who were implementing the review. Despite some dedicated resources to assist the review process the day to day operational pressures on them had continued. To their credit they remained committed.

Elected members were cautiously optimistic about the council achieving the proposed changes but emphasized the need for timescales to be adhered to. We had no doubt that the modernisation agenda had been adopted by the department in an enthusiastic and positive manner. It was too early for us to conclude that the implementation of the proposed changes would deliver better outcomes for people who use services.

A report to council by the Chief Executive in April 2008 advised members of a further review about to be undertaken of the current arrangements for monitoring and reporting performance within the council. The report set out the limitations of the council's current performance management framework - 'the current monitoring approach measures process rather than impact, outputs and outcomes for people and communities in Scottish Borders Council'. The intention was to redesign the performance management framework as a performance improvement framework. The Chief Executive believed that performance management was improving.

There were regular meetings between the respective corporate management teams of the NHS and the council. A member of the executive sat on the NHS Borders board. We found general agreement that the new streamlined CHCP needed to be more action orientated and able to take decisions. We were told it would be expected to deliver on specific areas of the single outcome agreement. The possibility was recognised this might create some tensions for NHS Borders who would also still be accountable to Scottish Government for heat targets. A joint post of director of public health was being taken forward and the vision was for a joint department funded by aligned budgets. We considered the lack of a joint financial strategic framework with the Health Boards posed a significant risk to the success of the proposed arrangements for transforming older people services. We concluded that, notwithstanding co-terminus boundaries between the council and NHS Borders and the good relationships that existed between the two organisations, progress on joint working with health was not fast enough.

The Chief Executive and Director were taking a pro-active approach to exploring future service provision in partnership with other local authorities. The Director of Social Work had been in discussion with counterparts in Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian to explore the potential for sharing social work services. CMG Logica had been retained to model how three priority service areas might be developed.

There were mixed views from staff who responded to our survey about the effective leadership of change in Scottish Borders Council.

Recommendation 9 Given the ambitious and challenging improvement agenda social work services should consider prioritising the implementation of service plans.

The role of the chief social work officer

Following the vulnerable adult investigation in 2004, the council abolished the lifelong care department and returned to a social work department with a director of social work. As a qualified social worker the director of social work held the responsibilities of the role of chief social work officer ( CSWO).

In 2007 the scheme of delegation was amended by the council to refresh the CSWO role. Heads of service for children and social care and health (adults) were identified as deputy CSWOs to ensure the discharge of statutory duties was effectively covered.