Scottish Government

Chapter 7 Leadership and direction

We evaluated leadership and direction in Stirling as weak.

The services had been slow to modernise but had begun to take steps to do so. There were major changes planned which had the potential to undermine this process, particularly in Community Services.

Both services needed to be more pro-active in their approach to change and make better use of their performance management information to identify areas for improvement. The role of the chief social work officer needed to be much more rigorous in scrutinising social work performance and driving up professional social work standards. Elected members needed to be able to exercise closer scrutiny of social work matters.

There were issues about staff morale and staff did not always feel valued for the work they did. They felt that the rationale for changes had not been fully explained to all staff. There had been a sudden announcement of changes to senior management arrangements. This had resulted in unresolved tensions and ambiguities. We were not convinced that Community Services had enough management capacity to make the necessary improvements to their services.

Vision value and aims

Promotion of vision and values

Both services had set out clear vision statements. For Community Services the aim was that of achieving a 'whole life' approach through delivering services that would '… meet the needs of citizens and enable communities to enhance their quality of life.' For Children's Services the goal was that of ensuring that '….all children and young people will be safe, enjoy good health, with access to a wide range of positive experiences and opportunities to enable them to achieve their potential.'

The council had adopted a strong, early commitment to integrating council services in order to achieve these goals. The chief executive (due to retire in May 2009) was confident that this approach had achieved some notable successes although we found that these were not consistently or markedly better than other local authorities with different organisational structures.

Partner agencies and staff had largely adapted to the structures in terms of planning and delivery of services. Some staff and managers considered that social work had lost its professional identity within the council although there was no consensus about why this might be the case. Some considered that this had been caused by the separation of social work functions across two different services. Others considered the lack of dedicated social work support functions as more relevant. Others commented on lack of leadership on social work issues.

Key elected members had only taken up their roles relatively recently following a change in administration. They stressed the steep curve they were on to learn about all the services for which they were responsible and saw their priorities for social work services as those set out in single outcome agreement. This document set out some general aims for social work services but was not specific. Elected members were clear that they wanted to 'make a difference' but we concluded that many were still at an early stage of developing their own ideas about exactly how they could do so.

There were some promising signs that the vision for social work services was becoming clearer as a result of work going on over the previous year (following the MAISOP report) to set out a vision for older people's services and for learning disability services. Staff in Community Services were encouraged and said that this had afforded them a clearer sense of direction. However, many of those we met on fieldwork said that recently announced changes to the services had left them confused about the future direction of travel.

We earlier highlighted that Children's Services also needed to be more explicit about how they intended to achieve their overall vision.

Some staff, managers and key stakeholders we met or who responded to our questionnaire spoke of tensions and disagreements among senior managers responsible for social work services about the way forward for the these services. Some said they had noted a degree of ' resistance' to change from some in key posts.

Leadership of people

Positive leadership culture

Earlier in the report we reported that the findings of our own and of the council's surveys had shown that staff morale was generally low. We noted our concerns that some staff said that they were experiencing bullying behaviour. The services had begun to work jointly with the trade unions to address this. Among the wider group of staff, workload pressures were a common theme. Staff at the frontline in Community Services also highlighted their concerns about having to refuse people services.

Issues of staff morale were added to by developments that occurred during our inspection visit. These included major announcements about the reductions in social work services budgets for the coming financial year. Staff and managers in Community Services were anxious and uncertain about the implications of the intended savings on frontline services and the impact this could have on vulnerable groups. Most staff we spoke to said that they had not expected these announcements. Many, particularly in Community Services, were apprehensive about the future and some thought that things would get much worse.

In their self-evaluation the services reported that senior managers in both services worked hard at being more visible to staff in order to improve lines of communication. From our discussions with staff we found that managers had achieved differing levels of success in doing so. Some were more visible than others and some had been more systematic in their efforts to raise their profile with frontline staff. Frontline fieldwork staff in Community Services valued and appreciated the efforts their director had made to engage with them and were particularly keen to highlight the visibility and leadership demonstrated by one of their service managers. Children's Services, residential care staff said that they valued the visits they had received from the director and head of service. Some fieldwork staff also welcomed the level of support they had received from senior managers when dealing with a serious incident.

Despite these efforts we have noted earlier that under half of those staff who responded to our survey did not think that senior managers communicated with them well. Managers must review what more or what else they can do to improve this negative perception.

Elected members should also consider the extent to which staff's negative perception of them was justified. As noted earlier a significant number of staff who responded to our survey as well as many of those we met told us that they did not feel valued by councillors.

Leadership of change and improvement

Political leadership and capacity

The council elections in May 2007 had introduced 13 new elected members, out of a total of 22. Following a change in administration in March 2008, a new leader of the council and new portfolio holders for Children's Services and for Community Services were appointed. There was a further change in September 2008 when responsibility for the Community Services portfolio transferred to another elected member.

In the period preceding the May 2007 election the council had introduced an executive model of political administration. This comprised an Executive of six elected members from the ruling political group, overseen by two scrutiny committees (governance and audit and service delivery and performance). These two committees held responsibility for monitoring the performance of the Executive, as well as considering Executive decisions called for under standing orders. Portfolio holders had responsibility for presenting reports for their respective areas of responsibility to Executive meetings.

Some elected members and senior managers we met did not consider that these arrangements afforded elected members enough opportunities to scrutinise complex social work matters. We shared their reservations. In the course of an annual Executive cycle, only a small proportion of reports were likely to relate to social work issues. Moreover, these reports tended to be limited to what one senior manager referred to as ' SOS/areas of difficulty'. Some elected members told us that they were concerned that social work reports did not provide them with the full picture and that the lengthy reports they received ' hid bad news'.

Some elected members had played an active role in attempting to bring about change in children's and learning disability services through their involvement in member/officer working groups. We also heard positive comments from stakeholders about the support the leader of the council had offered to implementation of the MAISOP recommendations.

Leadership of change

The services had taken some action in response to inspections and had developed plans to effect the necessary changes (although they had yet to implement many of the actions). They had also responded to budget problems and had been looking for ways to reduce continually rising costs.

We were not convinced, however, that changes would necessarily have happened without this combination of significant external drivers and severe financial difficulties. We found little evidence of a more proactive approach to change - one driven by internal quality assurance measures and performance management information. This first became evident during the MAISOP when it was apparent that Community Services had been performing more poorly than other authorities for some time on a number of key indicators. We did not see enough evidence that this situation had changed and that the services were now using performance information to systematically inform service planning and drive improvement.

The services had been slower than other authorities in shifting the balance of care and modernising their services. Over the previous year they had begun the process but with the announcement of savings proposals in February 2009 appeared to be faced with the challenge of achieving long-term change programmes within short-term timescales.

Savings to be implemented in social care services for children amounted to a 12% reduction in the costs of purchasing external residential and foster care provision. While Children Services needed to take action to bring persistent overspends under control we had some reservations about the capacity of the service to achieve this level of change in a relatively short time.

Of more concern were proposals affecting services for adults. At a minimum, the full year effect of savings and efficiencies to be achieved during 2009-10 amounted to 8% of community care budgets. This consisted of savings of:

• 7% in care home placements
• 11% in home care budgets
• 17% in assessment and care management
• 6% in learning disability services.

We examined a summary of the risk assessments associated with the planned savings. We were not confident that that these assessments were accurate. For example they did not take sufficient account of the projected increase in the population of older people in Stirling (greater than the national average) or fully reflect that the authority's spend per older adult was currently lower than the national average.

Our experience of other local authorities across Scotland has demonstrated that it takes time to properly implement the complex changes needed to modernise and improve services. We concluded that that the scale and timescales for achieving savings proposals could complicate the process of implementing improvements. We also concluded that the proposals could have an adverse impact on services for some vulnerable people. This included those at risk of unplanned admission to hospital and those needing services at point of hospital discharge. The services had made partners in NHS Forth Valley aware in general terms of the savings proposals but had not involved them in detailed discussions.

We were concerned about the speed with which the proposals had been developed and were not confident that elected members had had a sufficient briefing about their implications. For example, as part of the budget setting exercise the council had decided in February 2009 to close two of its care homes only to reverse this decision a short time later. Since then the council had decided to set up a scrutiny group 'to consider and prepare options for a long-term care strategy' for services for older people .

We concluded that, overall, the management of change had important weaknesses. This was particularly evident in the process and management of recent changes in community care services.

There were recent changes in arrangements to lead the services through future developments. During the course of our fieldwork visit, the chief executive announced that the line management responsibilities of the head of community care (who also undertook the role of chief social work officer) were to be transferred temporarily to the director of Community Services. This move was introduced with immediate effect to run from February to September 2009. Shortly after the announcement the council also approved the major organisational changes outlined earlier in the report. These would see the removal of levels of management within council departments including community care services.

Senior managers told us that they had appointed a change manager on a part time basis until June 2009 to assist the director (who had responsibility for managing other service areas within community services) in implementing both the organisational review and the changes needed to achieve the social care savings options. This role had no operational management responsibility. The director also pointed to the support she had from the Joint Improvement Team. As described to us, these arrangements did not sufficiently address the medium and longer-term issue of leadership capacity that would be necessary to deliver the challenging agenda facing social work services.

We were not convinced that the council had managed the changes in senior management responsibilities as well as they might have done. Managers said that the timing had been based on the availability of the change manager. Following MAISOP there had been a step in this direction when the director of Community Services had taken on responsibility for chairing the MAISOP project board. There had also been discussions about the role of the chief social work officer in light of publication of draft guidance about this role in autumn 2008. However, there had been no prior indication to staff or managers that such a major change was imminent. The change did not require a report to council. We saw no other papers or reports setting out the rationale for these changes or the intended benefits. In our view the way that the council had managed this change had led to some uncertainty and a lack of clarity about lines of accountability.

The role of the chief social work officer

The chief social work officer reported directly to the chief executive and submitted regular annual reports to the council. In her role as chief social work officer she met regularly with the head of support and development in Children's Services and the head of support for people in community services. As head of community care she reported to the director of Community Services who had line management responsibility for community care services.

Senior managers involved in these arrangements stated that they had worked well. However, we were not convinced that there had been enough challenge in these working relationships or that professional leadership of social work was sufficiently strong. This was most evident in the content of the annual reports of the chief social work officer. A number of senior managers and elected members commented that these reports were particularly important because of the lack of opportunity to present reports to the elected members that set out policy developments and improvements in service. The chief social work officer submitted these annual reports to full council for consideration. We read a number of these reports and concluded that they missed opportunities to highlight some potential areas for improvement which could be taken forward by the respective services.

We found that the role of chief social work officer did not have a high profile among staff. We found little awareness of the importance (or for some the existence) of the annual report.

For the future, it will be important for the role of the chief social work officer to be more effective in scrutinising social work performance and driving up professional social work standards.