The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

Short Reviews of Social Work Services in Scottish Local Authorities

North Lanarkshire Council

Overview

North Lanarkshire is the fourth largest authority in Scotland. Social inclusion (breaking down the barriers that prevent people from taking a full part in society) is a main priority for the Council, which has major social, economic and health problems. This is reflected throughout the service. North Lanarkshire has increased the number of people from all care groups receiving a service so that all services (apart from home care) rank above the Scottish average in terms of the number of people receiving a service. Staffing problems have affected capacity to deliver childcare services and this has impacted adversely upon some areas of performance. It is recognised that this problem is not unique to North Lanarkshire and is reflected across the majority of local authorities.

The Council's achievements include:

• a marked increase in the number of older people receiving more that 20 hours home care a week;
• a similar increase in the number of people accommodated in special needs housing;
• a high level of care groups receiving a service;
• joint childcare reviews with the education service;
• developing electronic sharing of information with NHS partner agencies for older people and introducing Single Shared Assessment for this group, with the prospect of extending it to other care groups (an achievement which puts North Lanarkshire in the forefront of change);
• a strong and sustained commitment to training its staff at all levels; and
• successfully introducing Free Personal Care

The Council needs to take urgent action to:

• make sure that all children and young people who are looked after have care plans;
• increase substantially the rate of children and young people who are looked after who achieve passes in English and Maths standard grade;
• make sure that all children and young people who are looked after are in full-time education;
• agree with the NHS the final part of the capital development plan for learning disabilities; and
• provide information on all time interval standards for children's hearings and improve performance on standard 3 to make sure that 75% of reports are submitted on time.

The authority should also give priority to:

• improving management information on children and young people who are looked after (including their education, any exclusions from school and their ethnic origin);
• developing, with NHS partners, a plan for mental health;
• preparing to introduce the new Mental Health Act, assessing the need to recruit and keep Mental Health Officers and to re-organise services from an institutional to a community base;
• keeping accurate and up-to-date information on the status, education, employment and accommodation of young people receiving throughcare support;
• finishing, with NHS partners, the review of child and adolescent mental health; and
• improving standards of monitoring and evaluating staff absences consistently across teams.

The Council's generous incentive package has had a major effect on its staffing levels and on the levels in neighbouring authorities. It expects that its Social Work Entry Programme will result in a significant number of qualified workers returning to the Council over the next four to five years. It needs to act on the findings of the review of managing absences.

Four of the Council's services have achieved Chartermark status and the Council also achieved two COSLA Quality Gold Awards for supported employment and partnership with carers.

Community Care

Services for older people

A third more older people in North Lanarkshire receive a community care service than in 1999-2000 (12,796 compared with 9,831). The number of older people receiving 20 hours or more of community care increased sharply from four to 185. Between 2001 and 2002, there was also a large increase in the number of people in special needs housing (4,734 to 7,547), and the rate is now relatively high.

To support more people effectively at home, the Council has:

• put in place rapid response teams;
• provided many clients with shopping and practical help (although it will review this service);
• extended a project on intensive home care; and
• provided significantly more, and more varied, short breaks.

Partner agencies have put into practice Single Shared Assessment and sharing of information for older people. The outcomes have been:

• quicker assessments and access to services;
• a broader range of services available;
• improved availability of complex packages of care as well as more joint services; and
• the development of performance indicators (standards to measure progress against) for services and improved financial frameworks.

The Council and partners still have work to do to fully introduce joint resourcing and joint management.

Free Personal Care has been successfully introduced, helped by a great deal of information and publicity, staff training, and involving the carers and providers.

Services for people with learning disabilities

The number of people receiving a service for learning disabilities increased from 497 to 681 between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002.

All clients remaining in the local hospital have an allocated worker. The Council has not yet agreed with the NHS about people with much higher levels of need. The Council and NHS have developed a three-year capital plan, but have not yet sorted out the financial implications of year three. The aim is to transfer all clients out of hospital by 2005.

The 250 people with learning difficulties who live in the community are in different types of accommodation. The Council has strong views on social inclusion, so no-one is living in a nursing home. Most are in single tenancies or in joint tenancies with one other person, as the Council no longer commissions group homes. Also, it is encouraging that 66 people with learning disabilities are now in real jobs and a small number of people with learning disabilities are using Direct Payments.

The Council does not plan to develop a database for people with learning disabilities, due to strong opposition from service users. Single Shared Assessment will be used to identify people with learning difficulties and their needs.

Services for people with physical disabilities

A relatively high rate of people receives a service for a physical disability, and the number is continuing to increase.

For Direct Payments, a 'self directed service' scheme gives people options. There is a set of scheme rules and rates are based on levels of need. A small number of people with learning disabilities are already on Direct Payments. A new post has been created to strengthen links with people lobbying to improve services for people with physical disabilities, and to make sure that service users are the focus in developing and supporting self-directed services.

A joint equipment service between NHS Lanarkshire and North Lanarkshire Social Work makes available standard items within one week and special items within four to seven weeks. Priority goes to people who are being discharged from hospital and those with a terminal illness. A centralised budget and a joint equipment store has speeded up supplies, and the waiting list for equipment has been cut by an impressive 80% in two years. Some adaptations are the responsibility of the housing department and this can cause delay because of funding problems. Delivery staff are being trained to demonstrate simple equipment. Seven staff have been transferred from the Primary Care Trust under a single manager. More non-occupational therapists are able to assess and order equipment.

Another initiative means that a team in a mobile unit can give information and advice. Assessments can also be done on the vehicle by area team staff, and web-based catalogues are available to clients.

People with sensory impairment

The Council works with Deafblind Scotland and Lanarkshire NHS to identify the number of people with sensory impairment and their needs. They have already identified 45 people who are deafblind (35 of them have been newly assessed and six have been re-assessed as needing services they do not already have).

Services for people with mental health difficulties

The number of people receiving a service for mental health problems increased from 680 to 980 between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002. There is a draft protocol on mentally disordered offenders through the PAN Lanarkshire Group.

The plan to introduce the new Mental Health Act has not been finished yet. The Council reorganised the Mental Health Officer service last year and there is now a centrally-run rota (although the Council will need to pay particular attention to recruiting and keeping MHO staff in the future). The Council and health services need to do a lot of work to reorganise services from being based in institutions to being based in the community. There is still some way to go on agreements on the nature of care and how to fund it.

There are resource networks and a range of services based across the area. However, there is no development plan for mental health or a central financial framework. There is a need for a North Lanarkshire way of monitoring how the plan would be put into practice and to tackle the Joint Future agenda for mental health. While there is considerable development, there is not the joint vision that there is in the learning disabilities service.

Tackling substance misuse

The number of people receiving a service for drug and alcohol problems increased substantially between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 (196 to 292).

Relatively few health or social care staff work in addictions services, which is seen as an under-developed service. Two health community addiction teams operate in Lanarkshire - one has a 20-week waiting list and the other has a two-week waiting list. The Council is about to pilot a joint local community approach based on a Local Health Care Co-operative area in Cumbernauld. The Council has used the drugs rehabilitation budget to appoint housing support workers to work with people in tenancies and homeless people, and rehabilitation assistants to allow access to services and to allow social workers to develop care management. Alcohol seems to be a worse problem than drugs.

Last year, 27 people were sent to residential rehabilitation. GPs can refer to residential rehabilitation directly for detox, and 'sometimes social work has to pick up the tab' for rehabilitation - the Council needs to look at this. The development of Single Shared Assessment (SSA) in substance misuse would be beneficial.

Child protection procedures (backed up by a training programme) are in place for families who misuse substances. Protocols cover the needs of sharing information in relation to the Data Protection Act and confidentiality. Resources from the Changing Children's Services Fund and drug rehabilitation sources have been used to support families who misuse drugs. As part of an early intervention strategy, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities' award-winning project RUSHES has been expanded to cover all of the authority, and three social work posts have been created to offer family support for families who suffer substance misuse. A new post of senior childcare officer (addiction) at children and families HQ is responsible for developing services and putting 'Getting our Priorities Right' into practice.

A high percentage of addiction referrals are from criminal justice sources, which tends to drive the agenda.

While there has been good work in relation to families who misuse substances, progress still needs to be made in developing a joint addictions service. North Lanarkshire needs to work with health to reduce the number of people who are sent for residential rehabilitation, which is costly and often not effective as there are no care plans attached to it. This needs to be done as part of the roll-out of SSA.

Joining up community care services with health

Progress in improved joint working is measured through the Joint Performance Information and Assessment Framework (JPIAF), which has been agreed by SWSI, Audit Scotland and NHS Scotland. Recent evaluation of the partnership's progress in the 5 areas of joint management, joint governance, human resources, joint resourcing and single shared assessment suggest that the joint arrangements are well progressed and overall, satisfactory. The local partners were recommended to:

• progress agreement about locality joint management arrangements, e.g. by aligning specific services for older people at a local level;
• progress locality joint governance and accountability arrangements, which will be developed involving Local Care Partnerships and in response to the Health White Paper's recommendations on Community Health Partnerships;
• develop joint service and clinical governance arrangements as appropriate for joint services;
• develop further financial management arrangements (both strategic and operational) and financial protocols (both strategic and operational); and
• include housing services in all aspects of the implementation of single shared assessment.

On the ground, joint services are gradually developing (for example, intensive home care service and rapid response teams). There is a strong emphasis on delegated decision-making and on outcomes rather than on processes or structures. For example, nurses can access up to four sessions of home care each day (although access to similar levels of health services are not yet available). However, there is enough room for more integrated services across all care groups.

The Council and partner agencies are at the forefront of developing methods of sharing information. Systems are already in place to share relevant information for older people between agencies electronically and to get the clients' consent. The Council says that both service users and professionals welcome this, and the initiative is to be extended to learning disability and mental health.

Work with carers

There have been significant increases for carers in recent years. The Council has identified 700 carers, but very few of them have taken up the opportunity for assessment. Carers' representatives produced a carers' strategy for North Lanarkshire in partnership with statutory agencies, and carers actively take part in strategic decision-making. A carers' resource worker is employed by the Princess Royal Trust, but based in each social work area team. Representatives from carers' organisations say that carers and their families are generally satisfied with these arrangements.

Children and Young People

Looked after children

The number of children and young people who are looked after dropped between 1999 and 2002 from 612 to 552. This reflected:

• increased accuracy in the client index system and more effective use of information;
• more preventative work with families on a voluntary basis (intensive home care is used to improve home conditions and get involved with families at an earlier stage); and
• more accurate assessments by the children's hearings system to identify whether compulsory intervention is needed.

There is a relatively low rate of children in residential accommodation, but the number in residential schools increased from 24 in 2000 to 30 in 2002 before dropping to 13 in 2003. The overall reduction is said to be due to:

• a Joint Consultative Group scrutinising requests for placements in residential school and secure accommodation;
• reviews of the care plans of children in residential schools and re-focused intervention; and
• increased levels of intensive support from projects like Includem and CHOSI.

A relatively high percentage (29%) of children and young people looked after had had three or more placements in 2002. They are normally young people with very challenging behaviour who have progressed through fostering and residential placements and are currently in residential units and residential schools.

Fostering and adoption

At the moment, 22 children are waiting for foster placements - some are in residential units and schools, and some are with short-term carers. Some children have been waiting for some time and are particularly difficult to place because of the complexity of their behaviour. Those who are waiting are mostly aged between eight and12, and some have had foster placements which have broken down. The population of foster carers is ageing and it is difficult to recruit new carers. The Council is making plans for a professional contract foster scheme.

Eight children are waiting for adoption - fewer than five have been referred to the West of Scotland consortium and five are linked. Also, 11 children are with temporary carers who are being reassessed as permanent. It is difficult to place larger groups of brothers and sisters and boys aged between six and eight. The Council currently has more approved adoptive parents than children waiting to be placed.

Educational attainment

In North Lanarkshire, fewer than five 16 to 17 year olds who stopped being looked after in 2001-2002 attained Standard Grade English and Maths so no figures are available. The Council has put initiatives in place to improve the low performance for children and young people who are looked after, including:

• link teachers offering support to children and young people who are looked after;
• using the 'SuccessMaker' software package in all primary and secondary schools;
• taking part in the pilot for the Microsoft Virtual School Bag initiative;
• training foster parents to provide educational support, including providing laptops; and
• setting up an innovative inclusion support base for foster carers and children's unit staff to speak to specialised teachers, borrow resources such as encyclopaedias and curriculum documents, and get support on IT issues such as software.

For accommodated children, reports from education services are requested as part of care plans and are discussed at reviews, often with education staff attending. A screening group for residential schools scrutinises care plans and education plans.

At the time of the visit, it was not known how many children and young people who are looked after are receiving full-time education or are excluded. However, the SWIS social work system and SEEMIS education system are now linked, which should allow accurate monitoring for the future.

All accommodated children have a care plan, but it is uncertain how many children who are looked after at home do. The Council was doing a survey to find this out.

Throughcare and aftercare

A centralised throughcare team is currently working with 125 young people (67 of them 16 to 19 year olds). Another 73 young people are expected to leave care up to October 2003. A throughcare co-ordinator is now in post. The team has produced an action plan which includes timescales. The team work with young people from the age of 15-and-a-half. There is no information available on the accommodation or employment position of young people who have been looked after, although the Council is currently developing an IT system to record this type of information.

Mental health

The mental health needs of children and young people looked after are being dealt with in a number of ways:

• reviewing child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) with a focus on looked after and accommodated young people;
• using a youth health service across Lanarkshire to help young people access health services;
• using a Youth Emotional Wellbeing project (YEW project) and a Reach Out project to help those with mental health problems in the family;
• working with casualty departments in assessing young people who have been admitted for self-harming, overdoses, and so on; and
• providing mental awareness courses for staff and foster carers who have requested information on mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Child protection

The number of referrals increased significantly between 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 but the rate of referrals is still relatively low. The number of registrations almost doubled between 2000-2001 and 2001-2002. A relatively high percentage of children on the register in 2002 (17%) had been included on it before. The percentage was even higher (33%) in 2001. This reflects the practice of taking young people off the register when they are accommodated and registering them again when they return home.

There have been a number of child protection developments, including:

• reviewing inter-agency training;
• preparing joint procedures with South Lanarkshire;
• appointing a Child Protection Co-ordinator (located within the Council's Social Work Department) to improve giving out information about practice and to work with other authorities to help develop best practice within the Council and its partner agencies;
• sampling cases by a child protection forum in each area team;
• a child protection helpline (run by primary care) and a child protection advisor recently appointed to look at referrals to the health service;
• creating an early intervention team and linking it to the family centre to pull together the different elements of early intervention;
• extending a protocol for sharing information to the police, housing and education; and
• training all staff in child protection.

The Council and its partners in the West of Scotland Child Protection Consortium have agreed to defer a major review of their shared procedures, pending future guidance from the Scottish Executive.

Children with disabilities

At the moment, 295 children are receiving a service through area teams, each of which includes a disability post. A few are in residential schools and units, and most receive respite care support. A young carers' project caters for 75 young carers, among them carers whose families have drug and alcohol problems. The home care service has multiplied considerably and rapid response teams are available for crisis periods. Seven children receive more than 20 hours a week. On average, children receive 6.6 hours.

The Council is reviewing day care services to convert them to 'person-centred' services, so that young people can be supported in their own communities through home care or other community support. These services will be planned and designed by a joint-funded project.

Working of children's hearings

No information is available on achievement of Standard 2 (referral within five working days of case conference) in 2001-2002.

Only 13% of reports were submitted within 20 working days of the date of request (standard 3), due to recruitment problems. Social work assistants have been trained to deal with non-complex initial enquiry reports.

There is no information on achievement of Standard 15 (the local authority will give effect to supervision requirements with no condition of residence to be given effect within 15 working days of issue by the children's hearings). High vacancies in children and families mean that all looked after and accommodated cases are allocated but those looked after at home may not be.

Youth Justice

Under the youth court pilot, the Council will appoint extra Youth Court workers and add them to the Youth Justice teams set up for each geographical area. A youth justice co-ordinator has been appointed.

The Council is developing the youth justice programmes in several ways, including:

• using the assessment tool YLS to decide the appropriate level of intervention with young people;
• training staff to deliver the offence-focused programme 'Offending is not the only choice';
• buying in extra support from Includem for persistent young offenders aged 14 to 17, for whom group work is not appropriate or not adequate (the service includes a 24-hour helpline and mediation by other young people);
• with South Lanarkshire Council, jointly buying in services from Includem for at least 10 places for persistent young offenders;
• adapting community service for young people (the Council will appoint two placement coaches to support young people in finishing their service, and community service will include a more educative and training element);
• buying in a bail fostering scheme;
• using the Barnardo's and North Lanarkshire CHOSI project to offer a range of intensive services for young people aged 14 to 18;
• buying in a youth justice reparation and mediation service for 11 to 18 year olds;
• re-organising community service and expanding it into a restorative justice service which will work with young people aged 14 and over;
• buying in reparation and mediation services from SACRO; and
• 'spot purchasing' extra services when individual young people have complex and specific needs and need intensive packages of intervention and support.

Criminal Justice

Structure

North and South Lanarkshire operate as a partnership for delivery of criminal justice social work services. Service developments for the partnership are overseen by a Criminal Justice Joint Planning Forum which meets bi-annually. The Chair is rotated between the Council's on a bi-annual basis. Developments are implemented through four weekly meetings of criminal justice managers. Lead officers have been identified to develop joint approaches to service development and to ensure consistency of practice.

Workload

Demand for services has risen over the past year, with social enquiry reports increasing by 29% in North Lanarkshire and 11% in South Lanarkshire, while Community Service orders have increased by 12% and 19% respectively and the numbers of probation orders in South Lanarkshire has risen by 25%. The reasons for the increases are complex, in part reflecting the national upward trend. Performance in relation to social enquiry reports remains high with a noticeable increase for N. Lanarkshire however, there are costs in other areas. As well as increases in volume the grouping is experiencing significant qualitative increases in the complexity of the cases they are working with.

Effective practice

The pace of change has been particularly significant in youth justice services with the establishment, in June 2003, of a Youth Court pilot in the jurisdiction of Hamilton Sheriff Court. The Court aims to fast-track 16-18 year old persistent or serious offenders and direct, where appropriate, to community based programmes to support change in behaviour. Both councils have adopted an assessment tool, YLS/CMI, to assist them identify the risk and needs presented by young offenders and deliver in North and South Lanarkshire respectively, the personal change programmes, "Offending Is Not The Only Choice" and "Pathways".

The grouping has devised an assessment pack to ensure consistency. This incorporates LSI (R), the Scottish Executive risk of harm assessment framework and an alcohol assessment tool are used where appropriate. MATRIX 2000 is used to assess sex offenders. Development of consistent programmes to challenge offending behaviour is a priority for the coming year. A pilot programme for women offenders has already been devised and is being delivered with an evaluation due in September 2003. Both authorities are also currently running separate programmes for perpetrators of domestic abuse, with starting times staggered to accommodate referrals from both areas. The grouping is also considering the potential to introduce a low level contact service following evaluation of a pilot in North Lanarkshire.

The grouping is in the process of auditing available Community Service placements and will be developing resources that can meet the needs of female offenders and those with a substance misuse problem. During the course of the next year the grouping will also be introducing Drug Treatment and Testing orders across Lanarkshire. Other developments include full implementation of integrated court services across the grouping and the introduction of a court forensic service. A joint bail service has already been established in partnership with SACRO. A steering group has also been established for organistations representing victims, survivors and families.

The partnership has introduced joint employee training events on a quarterly basis.

Public protection

Services to sex offenders are being considered by a multi-agency group across the partnership though the authorities retain their individual responsibility for the management of sex offenders on a day to day basis. Some staff have been trained to pilot the Community Sex Offender Groupwork Programme currently being prepared for accreditation. Both authorities are also progressing work with young people who display sexually aggressive behaviour and programmes for sex offenders with learning difficulties.

Future developments include development of a strategy for mentally disordered offenders and implementation of the joint Throughcare strategic plan.

Quality assurance

The grouping has established a monitoring and evaluation sub group to consider appropriate performance measures for services and processes across the grouping and will continue to develop these.

Human Resource

Structure of the workforce

Between 2000 and 2002, there were substantial increases in the number of whole time equivalent fieldwork staff working with all client groups, but most notably among those working with adults where the increase over the 2000 figure was over 40%. There were also increases among the social worker posts (main grade and first line managers) working with adults and offenders, but a fall among those working with children, and those classed as working generically.

The overall effect was a slight reduction in the establishment figure for social workers, totalling six whole time equivalent and a substantial gain of 70 whole time equivalent among those working in fieldwork services more generally. In the same period, staff vacancies increased significantly across the client groups, except for offenders workers.

Overall amongst field work staff, there was an increase of 70 posts, whilst vacancies rose by 53 to 118 whole time equivalent. Social worker posts went down overall by four, while vacancies rose from 18 to 54. These were most severe among children's services, but also had an effect on community care services.

Latest figures provided by the Council but not yet confirmed suggest a dramatic change in circumstances. Between October 2002 and the end June 2003, vacancy levels have gone down significantly, falling from 59 to 15 WTE social work posts, a fall from 30% to just under 13% of establishment. This was achieved by pro-active workforce planning by the Council.

The Council provides services through six area offices, with a broad generic base, and recently created reception teams who provide an information and intervention service to customers. This frees up other members of staff to concentrate on case work.

The Children and Families and Community Care teams are split into sub-teams, each with direct responsibility for specific client groups or topics.

The Council has recruited 580 home support workers since March 2003, following a massive and imaginative recruitment campaign, using a range of media including radio and billboards. A comprehensive training package for them is now in place as well as career routes.

The Council has introduced the senior practitioner post at grade PO2 as an incentive to keep staff for those who can show clear evidence of the post qualifying award. This currently relates to 10 social workers and occupational therapists. To deal with its vacancies, the Council has introduced an incentive payments scheme to new and existing social workers to attract and keep staff. This has been effective in reducing its vacancies but has had a knock-on effect in neighbouring authorities who complain of losing staff to North Lanarkshire.

Support for staff

The Council has a range of systems to improve how it monitors performance and how it plans business. These systems include self-assessment and preparing employee development plans. However, senior managers acknowledge that these systems need to be better co-ordinated and be a more central part of the social work department and this work is in progress.

The sickness rates in the social work department are higher than in other areas of the Council. Most absences are known to be related to stress. The Council has taken the initiative by employing consultants to review its sickness problem. The consultants' report should allow the Council to reduce absence levels within a year. The Council has also expanded its health and safety team.

Working towards a more highly qualified workforce

The Council has made extensive commitment in training its own staff. It is currently sponsoring 72 staff through the DipSW, of whom 48 are the Council's own staff.

Overall, the training structure is well developed and funded, partly drawing on the savings from unfilled posts. The vacancy level does not seem to have prevented existing staff from receiving training.

The Council's actions include:

• providing a structured set of training courses for each level of worker, with no limit on the number receiving training;
• providing a range of options on post-qualifying training, with no limit;
• meeting external training costs (although not always fully) and granting study leave;
• encouraging qualified staff to continue training;
• employing two full-time practice teachers and a practice teaching co-ordinator;
• offering 46 practice placements (double the number of last year's placements), and the Council expects this number to keep on increasing;
• creating a career path for an extended range of staff;
• creating mentoring arrangements for senior practitioners; and
• developing a new training structure for home support workers.

Preparing for registration

The Council has checked that the Codes of Conduct for Employers fit with its own policies. Through its own SVQ assessment centre, the Council supports staff through SVQ programmes and is confident it can bring its staff (for example, 70% of unqualified residential childcare staff) up to the necessary qualification level for registration with the Scottish Social Services Council. It is supporting this process by employing extra staff to cover for time lost through training.

Race Equality

In North Lanarkshire, 1.3% of the local population are from a minority ethnic group, compared with 2% for Scotland as a whole.

The Council's actions to identify and meet the needs of minority ethnic groups include:

• a Race Equality Scheme and Action Plan, published in November 2002;
• a Social Work Racial Equality working group, set up in March 2002;
• consulting on 'Mainstreaming Racial Equality in North Lanarkshire'; and
• agreeing with Community Planning partners to work together in consulting with black and minority ethnic communities.

Use of Information Communications Technology (ICT)

Social Work Department

North Lanarkshire has had electronic recording systems since 1999 but is now upgrading its system, which will allow it to create electronic case files for individual clients. The Council has developed a very successful website and used technology to boost its recruitment and training. It is also testing out automatic sensors through its community alarm service, supported by an emergency helpline and 24-hour response teams to support people living at home. However, there was little evidence that technology was being used to support children and family services, although a new looked after children module had recently been implemented.

Partnerships

Through MGF1 funding, North and South Lanarkshire Councils and primary and acute health trusts developed a computerised system providing information that they can all share and access. This appears to be easy for them all to use and has the potential to be repeated elsewhere. They are currently looking at ways of allowing staff to access the information in users' homes, although they expect social workers may be uncomfortable using palmtops, which limit the record-keeping they can make. The system allows for health professionals to order up to 28 visits a week as part of Single Shared Assessment. Information being shared currently covers only frail older people and people with dementia, but it can be extended to all care groups.

Background Profile

As traditional heavy industries have declined, the Council has made sustained efforts to revitalise the local economy and to reduce the effects of poverty and deprivation. Compared with Scotland, there are more jobs in production and construction and fewer jobs in the service sector. However, the number of jobs in the service sector increased significantly between 1995 and 2001.

There are significant and persistent health problems. The local rate of death from coronary disease was 12% above the Scottish average in 2000 and 20% above the national average for respiratory diseases.

Spending for every person on social work in 2001-2002 was 239, compared with 267 for Scotland.

Expected population change

Community Care

Expenditure on community care has increased progressively in the period 1999-2002.

Children and Young People

Expenditure on children's services has remained relatively steady in the period 1999-2002.

Criminal Justice

Human Resources

« Previous | Contents | Next »