Staffordshire County Council: local authority assessment

All staff and partners told us there was an inclusive and positive culture of continuous learning and improvement at Staffordshire County Council. Local authority staff said they had ongoing access to learning and support through the Social Work Learning Academy (SWLA) so they could deliver the local authority’s Care Act 2014 duties safely and effectively. Leaders oversaw quality of practice and proactively monitored themes and trends from performance, staff and people’s feedback, and compliments and complaints to identify best practice and areas for improvement.

There was support for continuous professional development in relation to Care Act 2014 duties. For example, staff told us they used feedback from leaders and colleagues in other teams to determine the effectiveness of the Care Act 2014 support arrangements they had put in place and identify areas for improvement. Mandatory and supplementary online training was available for all staff. Staff told us they found supervisions and ‘My Time’ meetings to be useful, and leaders encouraged staff to take up development opportunities such as becoming Best Interests Assessors, taking up apprenticeships, or qualifying as Approved Mental Health Practitioners (AMHPs). In these ways, all staff we spoke to said they had multiple opportunities to develop professionally in relation to their Care Act 2014 duties.

Staff also said the local authority drew on relevant nationally recognised best practice, standards, guidance, accreditation and evidence-based practice to achieve the highest standards in its delivery of Care Act 2014 duties. For example, specialist practitioners said they were registered with a professional body which helped keep their continual professional development up to date and their knowledge of national best practice current.

The local authority engaged with external work, including research, and actively participated in peer review and sector-led improvement activity to support continuous learning and improvement. Staff told us learning was shared through multi-agency networks, for example, the Skills for Care network. The local authority also piloted new ways of support to improve people’s outcomes. For example, they were piloting a night support service at the time of our assessment with a view to improving the options for people to be cared for at home when they had been discharged from hospital. Other ongoing pilots involved the use of assistive technology, such as wearable sensors aimed at improving people’s safety and independence in their homes.

The local authority also worked collaboratively with people and partners to promote and support innovative and new ways of working aimed at improving people's social care experiences and outcomes such as independence and well-being. These included digital and technology enabled care solutions. For example, a provider told us they had been involved by the local authority in piloting the use of a ‘support robot’ which helped prompt people with reminders to complete basic tasks such as taking medication. The aim of the pilot was to help people maintain their independence in their homes and reduce their likelihood of future or long-term care needs, though more time was needed to fully realise the benefits of this and other new ways of working.

Staff, partners, and people told us pieces of coproduced work the local authority had facilitated included the ‘All Age Carers strategy’ and ‘Living My Best Life - A joint Strategy for Disabled and Neurodivergent people in Staffordshire 2023-2028’. People and the local Healthwatch partner acknowledged the local authority was doing more to listen to those who previously or currently had unmet needs, such as autism, and staff spoke about engaging with people and including their voices in their work. However, peoples’ experiences of the local authority’s approach to coproduction were mixed: some said they were well-involved from the start of projects while others said they were consulted to input their views only once work had been completed. Leaders were aware more work was needed to include peoples’ views earlier on in the coproduction process and embed coproduction more widely throughout the local authority’s work. In response to peoples’ feedback, local authority leaders aimed to introduce longer timeframes for groups of people with lived experience to collate and submit feedback on a proposed idea to the local authority.

The local authority obtained feedback from people, staff and partners about their experiences of care and support and delivery of Care Act 2014 duties in multiple ways, for example, through complaints analysis, engagement surveys, voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector (VCFSE) group channels, Partnership Boards, and local council members. This informed strategy, improvement activity and decision making at all levels. For example, staff told us local authority leaders worked with health partners to evaluate and extract learning from complaints around financial assessments. As a result of this, improvement measures such as additional training for frontline staff were introduced to improve communication of the need for financial assessments to people contacting the local authority. Complaints related to this issue had reduced as a result of these improvements. Additionally, feedback from a service-user survey indicating people wanted a simpler way to access information about care and support options was being addressed through an Accessible Information working group. Frontline staff said improvements in peoples’ experiences as a result of this work were beginning to be seen.

Staff and partners said leaders encouraged reflection and collective problem-solving and time for this was embedded into practice. Monthly quality circles, supervisions, reflective practice sessions, and ‘My Time’ meetings provided space for staff at all levels to reflect on their work, and the approach to discussing issues in practice was described by staff as non-blaming and an opportunity for learning. Similarly, VCFSE partners told us local authority leaders were receptive to feedback and collaboratively engaged with them to solve problems.

There were processes to ensure that learning happened when things went wrong, both locally and in other areas, and recommendations were acted on. 36 complaints were made to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) of which 19 were upheld. Plans were in place to mitigate risk associated with these cases and prevent recurrence, and progress towards this was monitored through regular quality assurance meetings to ensure practice was improved as a result. Additionally, leaders told us staff at all levels of the directorate were involved with learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs). For example, practitioners had identified a need for training on hoarding following learning from a recent SAR and this had been provided to improve awareness and help keep people staff supported safe.

The local authority was aware of system-wide reviews and those relating to other agencies such as Children’s services, and it shared and embedded the learning from them.  For example, learning from a 2023 Ofsted report in Staffordshire indicated some care leavers with support needs required more detailed and earlier planning for adulthood. The local authority took action to update pathway plans to ensure care leavers’ support needs were being sufficiently met as they approached adulthood.