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CHAPTER 8 Capacity for improvement
Performance in this area was good - having important strengths with some areas for improvement.
We have based our evaluation of capacity for improvement on three key factors:
- improvement in achieving key outcomes and the experience of people using services;
- effective arrangements for assuring the quality of services; and
- effective leadership and management.
National and local performance indicators show that the services had made good progress with improving the quality of life of some service users. People who used services were generally positive about the way the service treated them. Carers had more criticisms to make.
The services had a performance management framework in place that could provide a range of information about how well the service was performing. Delays in establishing an audit unit had not held up the services' auditing activity.
Senior managers and elected members had clear ideas about their direction of travel and a bold vision about how they could improve services for the people of Glasgow. They needed to do more to take staff along with them on this journey. There were planned changes to the senior management structure and some key senior managers including the director and chief social work officer, had left or were due to leave post. Most other members of the management team were relatively new in post.
Improving outcomes
Most people who used services that we met or who responded to our survey believed that social work services had made a real difference to the quality of their lives. Local and national performance indicators offered supporting evidence that this was the case for many people. For example the services had enabled many more older people to remain in their own homes or return home from hospital; had helped large numbers of people with substance misuse problems into employment or training; and had well-developed proposals to improve outcomes for children. They needed to do better at increasing the range of opportunities for people with learning disabilities.
Carers were less content with services available for them and for those they cared for.
Quality improvement arrangements
The services had developed a good range of performance measures and were reporting on these. They were also building on this and developing a joint performance framework with NHS colleagues. We have recommended that they need to move more quickly to resolve data entry and recording issues.
The services had created the post of head of performance located within the senior management team. Although there had been some delays in establishing an audit unit that would report to this postholder this had not halted the auditing process. The services had also built performance monitoring into its contract management arrangements.
The council had moved to a new committee structure that placed responsibility for performance monitoring with new policy development and scrutiny committees.
Leadership
Elected members and senior officers were prepared to take ambitous steps to improve the quality of services for people in Glasgow. This was evident in implementation of the fieldwork review, the development of CHCPs and of growing partnerships with other key agencies. Moves to strengthen these partnerships through co-location of other public services were also encouraging.
Key elected members we met were supportive of social work services and were hopeful that the new committee structures and involvement of elected members in CHCPs would help involve a wider range of councillors in developing and overseeing social work services.
Staff, however, had little confidence that elected members valued their work or that senior social work managers offered effective leadership of change. We were concerned that these groups had not taken a radical enough look at how they engaged with their workforce and managed the change agenda.
The services had already undergone a great deal of change and further change was imminent. Plans were in place to introduce the post of executive director to oversee the integration of relevant social work and education services and this was due to lead to major changes in the senior management structure of the services. Senior social work managers, including the director and chief social work officer, had left or were due to leave post. Most remaining members of the senior management team had been appointed within a year to 18 months although some had previously worked in other posts in the services.
These changes presented the services with both an opportunity and a challenge at a point in time when CHCPs were still bedding in and were at different stages of development. The services and their partners had developed some promising plans to improve services across the city but at a crucial point were losing some key people at the centre.
In the immediate and in the longer term it is vital that the services can assure the people of Glasgow that they will have the same access to provision no matter which CHCP they live in and that these services will be of consistently high quality. To help ensure that this is the case the services should ensure that they retain not only a strong strategic core but also that they pay due attention to the need for clear professional leadership of social work.
Recommendation 16
The services should make sure that the move to CHCPs does not result in unacceptable differences in the level and quality of provision across the city. In order to prevent this they should ensure that they retain a strong strategic core that can ensure that local plans fit within an over-arching vision for services and that can maintain oversight of service standards.
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