CHAPTER 7
Leadership and direction
We found the leadership and direction of the social work services in East Ayrshire was adequate, with strengths just outweighing weaknesses.
Our assessment of leadership and direction had to balance the strong leadership provided at a corporate level against a lack of leadership at a senior management level within the service over a considerable period. There were also continuing problems with staff morale in some areas.
Over the previous year social work services staff had experienced a number of important changes in both leadership and service organisation and at the time of the inspection a number of staff were in acting up positions. The acting chief social work officer was at fourth tier level. The acting senior management team was committed and had worked hard to maintain effective services and relationships with key partner agencies.
Appointments to two heads of service posts, including the role of chief social work officer ( CSWO), had been made but the staff were not yet in post. Service plans were in draft and due to be finalised alongside the introduction of a new electronic performance management system in 2009.
However, the chief executive had taken a strong lead and conveyed a determination to improvement. Politicians we met were supportive and knowledgeable about social work.
Overall community care services performed more strongly than children and families services. Both services were facing significant challenges in relation to budgets and service re-design. On balance, we evaluated leadership as adequate.
Vision values and aims
East Ayrshire Council had a vision for the local area. It was set out clearly in the community plan that covered 12 years from 2003 to 2015 and partners were committed to achieving 'high quality services which were sustainable, accessible and meet people's needs'.
The community plan identified a number of guiding principles to help the council achieve its goals. These were:
- promoting social justice and social inclusion;
- building sustainability;
- succeeding in joint working and involving people;
- ensuring quality and accessibility; and
- delivering continuous improvement and best value.
The council had adopted the community plan as its corporate plan and members had portfolios based on community planning themes. Social work services had the lead role in co-ordinating and reporting on the eliminating poverty theme of the action plan. Social work activity contributed to the improving health and improving community safety thematic groups. In addition, the executive head of social work had lead responsibility on behalf of the council in relation to liaison with the NHS. The idea of 'one council, one plan' had not initially been greeted with all round enthusiasm and there had been some sceptics, but they told us they were now converted, as they thought it was beginning to pay dividends.
Community planning partners had taken the decision to develop a community planning partnership SOA by June 2008, one year ahead of schedule and ahead of a number of other councils in Scotland. The SOA for 2008-11 linked strategically to the East Ayrshire community plan. We were told the next SOA would be smarter and have more hooks for social work objectives. Senior staff were keen to see community care interests more to the fore in community planning and the single outcome agreement.
At the time of the inspection social work service plans were in draft. It was acknowledged that new corporate service planning arrangements had fallen behind but senior staff were optimistic that things were starting to come together now, not just in social work services, but across the council.
The vision of social work services in East Ayrshire, as stated in their standards and quality report, was to provide vulnerable people with a genuine choice of leading a fulfilling life within their home and community and ensure a positive environment for their care if they were no longer able to be supported at home.
The chief executive said her vision for social work services was for "a strong and vibrant service, which was sustainable and in which people could exercise choice".
Cross cutting approach within the council
The chief executive had been in post since 2004. She had changed the focus of the corporate management team ( CMT) to deal with more corporate and strategic issues. The CMT met every Monday to discuss the major business of the coming week, and fortnightly, on a Wednesday, to agree major policy and operational changes prior to submission to cabinet. The chief executive had also set up an extended management team that met quarterly and involved all heads of service. Its purpose was to improve the communication between CMT and other senior managers and to make sure that all chief officers were involved in delivering the council's vision. The department's executive director was a member of the CMT. Social work items featured regularly on the agenda.
A small number of elected members had a strategic involvement in partnership forums including the CHP, the community safety forum, the community planning partnership and the community health partnership board. The leader of the council chaired the community planning partnership board.
Education and social work services had merged in 2000. Senior staff said the merger had not been easy because the natural partner for many social services was health and not education. The executive director of the department had been in post for two years. He told us that integration would result from the appointment of the two new heads of service in social work services. Examples of initiatives that had been taken to assist integration to date included:
- joint educational and social services budgeting;
- a joint approach to quality management, evidenced by the social work standards and quality report;
- the appointment of a head of resources and head of facilities management, with responsibilities across the department; and
- departmental approaches to health and safety, risk management, business continuity and absence management.
Early expectations around the benefits of a joint department did not seem to have been fulfilled. We noted that in 2007-08 the educational attainment of East Ayrshire's looked after children was considerably lower than the Scottish average. Between 2005 and 2008, the budgeted spend per looked after child was one of the lowest in Scotland.
Elected members and senior staff acknowledged the new committee structure had improved matters and there was now less duplication and more transparency particularly around budgets. There was broad agreement that the new cabinet system was working well and enabled a more joined up approach to service delivery across the council.
The chief executive had led a Scottish Government group on corporate parenting nationally and was promoting this at a local level. A seminar had recently been held for the extended corporate management team and a further seminar on corporate parenting was planned for elected members in the New Year. The CMT had recently agreed an action plan and were intent on actively monitoring progress. We noted the services reported progress on improving the educational attainment of looked after children in the last year and will be interested to see whether this is sustained. There was no designated children's champion among elected members as we were told they all expected to play a role in acting as corporate parents.
Leadership of people
For social work services staff in East Ayrshire, 2007-08 was time of change. They experienced a departmental restructuring in 2007, followed by a further restructuring in 2008, resulting in the deletion of the post of executive head of social work.
In 2007, the social work committee approved a report, which reviewed first and middle management arrangements, aligning them on a partnership basis to strengthen partnership working. A number of area partnership manager posts were created across children and families and community care services. There were difficulties filling these posts.
There were three vacancies in senior management posts for significant periods in 2008. The executive director put interim management arrangements in place. Other acting up arrangements were necessary as a result of this, for example, acting service manager, adult services.
Subsequently, the council re-configured the senior management structure to delete the post of executive head of social work and to appoint two heads of service, one of whom would take on the chief social work officer role, working directly to the executive director of educational & social services. At the time of this inspection, appointments had been made but the staff were not yet in post. Some staff were uncertain about the future of social work services under these new arrangements.
"The latest move towards a two head of service structure raises many questions around the capacity of the service to develop a unified identity for social work."
This comment reflected the views of several staff surveyed. Senior managers recognised that this had been a difficult year for staff but they anticipated entering a more settled period when the two new heads of service came into post. The council will need to ensure that the unified identity of social work is not lost as a result of these new management arrangements.
The executive director made deliberate efforts to make himself more visible to staff throughout this time. He moved his office for a few months from council headquarters to social work headquarters. A number of people we spoke to appreciated this.
The head of community support and development had covered the executive head of social work post since the end of June 2008. She was part of the senior management team for educational and social services. Despite her considerable experience, she did not have a professional social work qualification and was therefore not able to take on the CSWO role.
The CSWO role was undertaken by a suitably qualified service manager at fourth tier level. She had been acting up in this position for eight months. She was clear she had direct access to the chief executive, the executive director and the acting executive head of social work if necessary. We queried whether there were enough opportunities for the acting CSWO to exercise influence at the level this role required. She attended the social work management team meeting every four weeks, chaired by the acting head of social work. She did not attend the department's senior management team meetings. The CSWO felt that the interim arrangements had worked well but that understanding about the professional leadership aspect of her role within the department could be improved.
The senior managers, children, families and criminal justice and community care services, were both in acting up positions.
We confirmed that both new heads of service would be part of the department's senior management team. The new head of children, families and criminal justice was due to start in the New Year. The new head of community care, who was a professionally qualified social worker, had also been recruited and was about to take on the role of CSWO. Protocols attached to the CSWO role were required to re-inforce this role throughout the council. We thought a CSWO newsletter for staff would consolidate the professional leadership functions attached to this role.
We observed a social work management team meeting that had a well prepared agenda and was ably chaired by the acting executive head of social work. Budgetary control, personnel, health and safety/risk management and an update from the directorate were all standing items. Key management issues such as sustainable services, management arrangements and service planning were all agenda items. The acting executive head acknowledged she had moved to more structured social work management team meetings
Elected members said they had confidence in the social services management team. They thought the care-taking arrangements had worked well but they were looking forward to the arrival of the two new heads of service.
Given the changes at senior staff level over the past year, we thought that senior managers and middle managers across social work services had coped well. However, we considered it might take the two new heads of service some time to reinstate leadership at a service level, as we have already noted earlier, some staff did not feel valued.
Leadership culture
The chief executive and CMT provided strong leadership at both a strategic and operational level. Council staff and partners spoke positively about the council's attitude. Key partners acknowledged good experiences of partnership working in child protection and developing SSA and we heard about positive outcomes such as reducing the numbers of delayed discharges and the rapid response service, which had achieved financial benefits for health partners.
The chief executive chaired a chief officers group ( COG). The CPC reported to the COG. The adult protection committee will also report to this group. All significant incident reports and recommendations were quality assured and signed by the COG collectively and each agency took individual accountability as appropriate.
Staff were seen as committed to improving services through evaluating and improving their work. The CPC had undertaken a multi-agency self-evaluation of child protection services and the CPC had improved quality assurance by requesting all services review their own files. The results of the reviews were monitored by a subgroup of the CPC.
A range of measures were currently used to manage, monitor and report on performance but whilst information received was seen as relevant in informing day-to-day operations it was viewed as of limited value in providing a more strategic performance analysis of the service.
A new electronic performance management system had been purchased from CorVu and was in the early stages of development and being linked to the new service plans. We found a strong emphasis being placed on performance and improving the performance culture.
Involvement of staff
Staff we met were positive about working for the council but the results from our survey suggested the picture was more mixed.
There was a staff newsletter with a brief summary of all the reports that went to cabinet so that staff had up-to-date information on major policies/inspections/matters that related to education and social work. At a recent training event that we attended, over 50 personal carers heard about home care service development and were given an opportunity to express any issues or concerns.
The council had a culture of celebrating success, and we heard about long serving achievement awards, excellence awards and certificates being presented to staff.
Leadership of change and improvement
Political leadership and capacity
Elected members were strongly committed to the strategic direction of the community plan and the shared vision with their partners. The leader of the council was the spokesperson for community planning and equalities.
Relations between elected members and officers were good. The leader and other councillors said they had frequent contact with senior social work staff and felt able to approach them. Elected members showed a good understanding of the role played by social work services in the community, the pressures on the service and social work priorities, such as corporate parenting.
Forty-three per cent of those who responded to our survey agreed that social work was highly valued by elected members, while 15% disagreed. East Ayrshire's result was comparable with others (average level of agreement 36%).
Half of the elected members were new. The council had recognised the need for elected member training, particularly since it had opted to move from a functional committee structure to the cabinet model. After the May 2007 election, elected members had received some financial related training and the council had established an elected members training forum. It now monitored the training that its elected members received, and was on course to develop individual learning and development plans for all elected members by December 2008.
Political decision making
As stated earlier, the council had a cabinet committee structure and cabinet met fortnightly. The leader said cabinet worked well. Elected members said reports to cabinet were "very much improved" and they were well briefed and felt able to ask well informed questions on social work issues, which appeared regularly. In the meeting we observed, members were aware of and debated a number of key social work issues such as the role of the CSWO. They also discussed the PIP. They seemed aware of the needs of people with learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorder. Senior officers told us that there were regular opportunities for them to attend and speak at cabinet.
A governance and scrutiny committee, chaired by an opposition councillor, monitored corporate governance, standards of conduct, performance and best value as well as audit and risk. It also met fortnightly. Elected members we spoke to agreed this committee was tasked with wide ranging responsibilities but considered they were fully supported with all the training and information they considered necessary. The committee received a six monthly analysis of out of area placements.
Scrutiny included an option for the committee to 'call in' any cabinet decision for reconsideration. No social work proposal had ever been called in.
We found that elected members wanted to make a difference and understood they had to prioritise service developments to provide better outcomes for people. Elected members and officers had recently met to identify their six key priorities. We heard from a number of sources the cabinet system had led to a far greater sense of collective responsibility well supported by the consensus approach of the council leader.
Leadership of change
The chief executive had taken a pro-active stance on a number of issues relevant to social work services, such as corporate parenting and recruiting more foster carers. She re-affirmed that the CSWO had same day access to her if that was necessary. She intended the new CSWO would prepare an annual performance management report to cabinet and champion social work services across the whole council's operations.
In the past, the department had come in on budget by using non-recurring funding and staff turnover to offset overspend but there were no further reserves to allow this to continue.
As highlighted earlier, social work services faced significant budget pressures particularly for homecare services, adult care support, care of older people and foster care. A senior officer told us "the sustainability plan was the most significant social work paper discussed in the life of this administration".
The sustainability strategy was due to be agreed at cabinet in the New Year. It would set the direction for the future development of services. Some staff voiced their anxieties about the possible impact on homecare services.
The action was necessary and unavoidable given the demographic challenges faced by the authority. It was essential that social work services provided by the council were realistic and affordable. Both new heads of service faced significant challenges in managing their budgets alongside the further re-design of some of their services.
A review of the locality management units in the council was planned for 2009. There were acknowledged problems with the alignment of the community partnership boundaries e.g. the nine learning partnerships, three social work partnership areas, four community forums, five housing teams, and three community development teams.
The CHP committee was newly established and had just met formally for the first time. It had stronger local authority representation than before. It was hoped the new structure would help services be more responsive than before. It was seen as a first step in moving along a path to a community health care partnership. The chief executive said the council was moving to joint management and aligned budgets with NHS partners, as "that was what was needed to take things to the next level".
On the ground, co-location of staff seemed to be making a difference and helping to build trust amongst the professional staff involved, for example staff were now asking for an integrated IT system. The chief executive for NHS Ayrshire & Arran spoke positively about the relationship between health and the council at a strategic level.
Twenty-five per cent of those responding to our survey agreed there was effective leadership of change in social services while 35% disagreed. This level of agreement was significantly lower than in some of the authorities we have surveyed but comparable with others (average level of agreement 33%).