Staffordshire County Council: local authority assessment

There were effective arrangements for governance, quality assurance, performance management and assessing the impact and outcomes of the adult social care strategy at all levels within the local authority. These included quality audits of practice, oversight of performance data, and arrangements to listen to and analyse people’s feedback. This activity provided visibility and assurance on delivery of Care Act 2014 duties, current or future risks to delivery, quality, and sustainability, which would impact on people’s care and support experiences and outcomes. For example, the local authority regularly reviewed performance data in collaboration with the Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust with which it had a Section 75 agreement. A joint forum oversaw the established information-sharing system in place between the organisations, which supported information sharing capabilities between the partners. This directly benefited frontline teams who gained visibility of people’s information and increased positive outcomes such as continuity of care for people receiving care and support. This showed that the local authority’s accountability and governance arrangements were effective, embedded, and provided space for improvements that positively impacted people’s outcomes.

There was a stable adult social care leadership team with clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities. Staff described leaders as being visible, supportive, and compassionate. Equality, human rights and diversity principles were embedded in the local authority’s values, culture, and leadership behaviours, as evidenced by the local authority’s extensive equality training offer and the level of cultural competency within the workforce. Staff said there was parity of esteem across professions and leaders had raised the profile of adult social care over the previous two years. Local authority survey data indicated job satisfaction was high within the workforce; however, work-life balance data was comparatively lower and leaders were aware more action was required to address this.

There were clear risk management and escalation arrangements, including escalation within the adult social care directorate and the wider council, and externally as required. There was senior oversight of risks to the delivery of Care Act 2014 duties through arrangements such as monthly Quality and Performance Management Group meetings. Where there were risks to the delivery of Care Act 2014 duties, mitigations to reduce risk were in place, and these were effective in keeping people safe. Leaders used a directorate risk register to actively monitor the impact of risks, and action was being taken to reduce the risk of harm to people. For example, the risk register identified the “risk that a person comes to harm due to waiting for Community [Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard] DoLS or DoLS”, as an immediate concern and several actions had been put in place to lower the risk to people. These included prioritising DoLS assessments according to risk and the recruitment of additional staff to review outstanding DoLS assessments.

Where actions to address shortfalls were in place, these were having a positive impact on performance. For example, staff raised to management that people were experiencing delays to their equipment deliveries as a result of provider vacancies, which put them at risk of worse outcomes such as falls or hospital admission. Leaders had addressed this with providers, resulting in equipment delivery times improving and targets under the Care Act 2014 being consistently met. This improvement showed leaders’ swift and effective response to issues raised to them and positive outcomes for peoples’ experiences of care as a result.

The local authority’s Executive Members, Shadow Executive Members, corporate directors and other leaders were well informed about performance in relation to Care Act duties and any potential delivery risks. Scrutiny arrangements were in place to allow adult social care decisions to be discussed and challenged. Where scrutiny was shared with other directorates or other council functions, proportionate time was given to adult social care on the scrutiny agenda and in discussions.

Adult social care was prominent in the wider Council’s resource allocation, and it had sufficient budget to deliver Care Act duties effectively.

There was a clear, co-produced vision for adult social care and there were multiple evidence-based strategies developed through the directorate with staff, partners, and people with lived experience. These sought to improve outcomes for people with care and support needs, unpaid carers and reduce inequalities of experience and outcomes for people in the local area. For example, a strategy called ‘Living my Best Life – A Joint Strategy for Disabled and Neurodivergent People (2023-2028)’ aimed to better support disabled and neurodivergent people and their unpaid carers by equipping them with knowledge around their options to put them in control of their care and support. Fully resourced action plans were aligned with these strategies, and arrangements for monitoring the impact of strategic actions were in place. For example, regarding ‘Living my Best Life’, progress was being overseen by multi-agency groups including people with lived experience, with lines of reporting to the Staffordshire Health and Wellbeing Board.

Strategies were based on a sound understanding of local priorities and were aligned and integrated with the strategic plans of other key partners and services, including health, children’s social care, and public health. For example, leaders told us adult and children’s social care strategies around workforce development aligned with those of their health partners. As a result, recruitment drives to attract apprenticeship candidates to the social care workforce were undertaken collaboratively. Additionally, there was a clear integration of public health and adult social care priorities at a strategic and operational level, aimed at proactively addressing local and national priorities including the increasing ageing population and complexity of social care needs.

Adult social care strategy and delivery plans were communicated well and understood within the local authority and amongst key partners. Leaders, staff, people, and partners spoke about their involvement in developing strategies around all-age unpaid carers, commissioning, and workforce, and there was a clear and robust awareness of the priorities in each of these areas.

The local authority used governance information regarding risks, performance, inequalities and outcomes to inform its adult social strategies and plans, allocate resources, and deliver the actions needed to improve delivery of Care Act 2014 duties and outcomes for people and local communities. Staff told us that the feedback from people with lived experience of learning disabilities or being an unpaid carer had directly influenced adult social care strategies. Additionally, several staff groups said their experience working with the community had started to be used to inform strategic decision making and improve outcomes for people. For example, work was ongoing to develop dashboards highlighting where people were facing intersecting inequalities in the county, such as people with learning disabilities from ethnic minority communities, to support leaders in setting strategic priorities.

The local authority had arrangements to maintain the security, availability, integrity and confidentiality of data, records and data management systems. This included the multi-agency One Staffordshire information sharing agreement and the enforcement of mandatory annual data protection and records management training.

There were clear plans to respond and manage risks to delivery of Care Act 2014 duties presented in the event of a cyber-attack. Staff were aware of reporting requirements in the event of a data breach or other incident that compromised data held by the local authority.