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Cabinet
Wednesday, 30th June, 2004

Report to Directors Group

Date

June 2004

Reporting Area

Social Services

Lead Director

Jane Ashman

SCOPE OF REPORTING AREA: Social Services are provided under Adult and Children and Family Service Heads, with Elderly Persons Homes managed by a third Head of Service. The Adult Services includes the assessment and commissioning of services to meet individual needs identified in care plans and the direct provision of day and residential services for people with a disability, learning difficulty, or mental health problems and older people.

The children and family services include social work involving child protection, looked after children, adoption and fostering, leaving care and providing support services to children in need to live with their families, such as day nurseries, family centres and home support workers.

Social Services is involved in cross service working on social inclusion, community safety, agenda 21, drug action team etc, and with other agencies such as the Police, probation service, Primary Care Trust & NHS trusts.

1. PROGRESS/ISSUE REPORTING

 

Progress Made

Issues to be addressed

Status/

Who ?

By When

Leadership

Updates on February 04 report

Leadbitters have been appointed as the construction partner to take forward the building phase of the Community Resource Centres (formally referred to as Centres of Excellence). Concept drawings have been completed and detailed costing produced. The stakeholder event planned for January 2004 took place and was well received by those who attended.

Council approved the costings for the concept designs including 3 designed for dementia day care centres.

Proceed with plans and keep to timescales and costings, secure planning consents.

Strategic Director /

Head of Housing & Supported Living

On-going

Sept 04
 

Progress Made

Issues to be addressed

Status/

Who ?

By When

Leadership

New Items

People Management

Updates on February 04 report

People Management

New items

Due to the community based nature of the work the management of the implementation of the of the Homecare project and the EPH reprovision project have been aligned.

Green Park Day Centre has now closed, former clients are now being provided for in a variety of different ways depending on their individual needs

A report outlining recommendations for changes to the homecare service has been agreed by the Executive Member

A feedback report on the main themes from the Conference for Social and Housing Services Staff has been distributed to staff. Members of the Senior Management Team have taken responsibility for progressing the ideas and issues raised.

Work has commenced to comply with the new requirements for qualified social workers to register with the General Social Care Council

All members of staff will now be consulted individually on their preference of teams. The speed by which this is carried out will determine the overall time frame for the implementation of the changes

Planning for the next staff conference will begin in June 2004

Head of Housing & Supported Living

Head of Adult Care / Project Manager

Head of Adult Care

Strategic Director /

SMT

All qualified social workers

On-going

On-going

Sept 04

Dec 2004

April 2005
 

Progress Made

Issues to be addressed

Status/

Who ?

By When

Policy and Strategy

Update on February 04 report

Policy and Strategy

New items

The Joint Commissioning

Board for Mental Health and Learning Difficulties have agreed the appointment of a joint operational manager - for people with Learning Difficulties, pending agreement on partnership arrangements and pooled budgets.

The Spring Delivery and Improvement Statement is currently being completed for submission to the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI formally the SSI). This is the main analysis tool that provides an assessment of our progress on last years priorities, presents outturn information on targets, and sets priorities for the coming year. This information will feed into our Annual Review Meeting with CSCI.

Children & Family Services

provided "Safeguarding Children" training for front line managers across the Council. The objective of the sessions being to raise awareness and understanding of child abuse and to clarify the role and responsibilities of managers within this process.

Advertise and recruit

The Annual Review Meeting with CSCI has been set for 13th August 2004. The meeting is a major part of the assessment process of the overall progress of Social Services leading to the star rating judgement that will be published in November 2004.

Managers are expected to cascade information from the training sessions down through their services

Head of Adult Care

Strategic Director /

SMT

Head of Children & family Services

End June 04

June 04

Aug 04
 

Progress Made

Issues to be addressed

Status/

Who ?

By When

Policy and Strategy

New items

Resources

Update on February 04 report

Resources

New Items

The Department of Health's Valuing People Support Team has rated as "excellent" all B&NES strategies for people with learning difficulties that were submitted in 2003.

Excellent progress is being made on the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. Bath and North East Somerset have recently been identified as having the 4th lowest teenage conception

rate in the country.

A three year financial plan for Social Services has been agreed by the Executive

Agreement has been reached with Education and the PCT to pool budgets with Children and Family Services for residential placements of looked after children.

Social & Housing Services have been successful in a bid for Government "Invest to Save" money. A grant of 1.3million over 3 years has been awarded to pilot an `inreach' nursing team to registered nursing homes. This is one of only 12 projects selected nationally from 279 initial submissions.

This will require very close monitoring and initially presents some financial risks, however, in the medium term it should provide better prioritisation of the needs of our most vulnerable children and young people

Planning for this service is currently underway

Group Manager Adult Care

Teenage Pregnancy Co-ordinator

Strategic Director / Service Finance Manager

Head of Children & Family Services

Head of Housing & Supported Living / Care Model Project Manager

July 2004

November 2004
 

Progress Made

Issues to be addressed

Status/

Who ?

By When

Process

Update on February 04 report

Process

New Items

The SSI Inspection of Older People's Services went ahead as planned during the last week of January and the first week of February. The draft report was finally received at the end of May. It is largely positive and judges the Authority to be "serving most people well with promising prospects". An Action Plan is now being drawn up to meet any recommendations made.

CareFirst, a major new client record system, was successfully implemented on the 1st March 2004. This represents a significant change in the recording of client information necessitating an extensive training programme; to date 380 members of staff have received training.

The final report will be presented to a joint meeting of the Executive and Overview & Scrutiny Panel, together with the action plan on 5th July.

It will take time for staff to become accustomed to the new system. It is therefore anticipated that reporting procedures will be effected during the transition period and that this will impact on Performance Indicator figures.

Head of Adult Care / Performance Manager

Head of Adult Care / Project Manager/ Performance Manager

July 2004

On-going