Contact: David Marshall, ext 5226

1 Introduction

1.1 The purpose of this report is to inform Members about progress on the 12 reviews carried out in the first year of Best Value. These reviews presented their final reports and improvement plans to the Social Services Best Value Review Panel around 12 months ago. This report serves to update Members on achievements since then as well as areas in which progress has not been made to the deadlines originally intended.

1.2 The leaders of each review have already made presentations to the Department Management Team in December 2001 in which progress reports and improvement plans for each review were closely examined.

2 Background

2.1 The Government's proposals to introduce a Best Value regime for Councils were set out in the White Paper `Modern Local Government - In Touch with the People', and is now a statutory duty under the Local Government Act 1999.

2.2 The duty on the County Council is to examine its services in order to find ways of continuous improvement through the use of challenge, comparison, consultation and competition.

2.3 As the largest department of the County Council, Social Services completed more reviews in year one (2000/1) than any other department. In line with early guidance, the programme of reviews was designed to cover 100% of the department's expenditure and reflected a fairly traditional service-based approach. There were no inter-departmental reviews that have come to be a feature of year two and are increasingly being encouraged by the Audit Commission and Social Services Inspectorate.

3 General lessons from Year 1

3.1 This section of the report highlights a few general lessons from year 1 which serve to set the improvement plans in context.

3.2 The review programme in the first year was over-ambitious and, as a consequence, placed a significant burden on Members and officers alike. A fresh approach taken this year has seen fewer, more broadly scoped strategic reviews.

3.3 The process in year 1 was heavily prescriptive and rather bureaucratic with rigid timescales, report structures and methodologies. The limited scope of reviews also mitigated against creative or innovative solutions. Again this has been addressed in the second year with reviews having a more strategic focus and explicitly considering a range of options (including some more radical in nature).

3.4 Reviews last year lacked adequate focus on service outcomes and consequently proposed performance measures which were rather input or process oriented. This year, improvement plans are setting performance targets directly tied to service outcomes.

3.5 On a more positive side, Best Value did impose a rigorous and systematic approach to service scrutiny and successfully took forward the way in which Members and officers work and learn together.

4 Year 1 reviews

4.1 The department carried out the following reviews in the first year :

Children and Families services

Children and adolescent mental health service

Mental Health services

Provider and contracted services
Receiverships service

Older Persons services

Day care for older people

Physical Disability services

Disabled persons parking permit scheme

Equipment, technician and occupational therapy services

Day and resource centres

Learning Disability services

Day activities for adults

Cross-client group services

Transport services

Complaints service

Information analysis service

Employment services

4.2 The next section of the report provides a brief summary of progress against the approved improvement plan for each of the services listed above. Full reports and updated plans are given in Appendices should Members wish to consider the detail.

5 Key findings and progress on individual reviews

5.1 Children and adolescent mental health service (Appendix 1)

The key messages from the CAMHS review were that there needed to be improved leadership and management, an increase in user involvement and greater clarity around expectations between Health and Social Services.

Progress to-date includes the appointment of a Service Manager for children with special needs (strategy) and the setting up of a joint CAMHS steering group which is working on a Position Statement to help clarify the requirements for CAMHS, its needs and priorities. Proposals will also emerge from this work for a joint strategy between Health and Social Services.

The overall conclusion at this stage is that some progress has been made as set out above but the performance targets identified in the original action plan are not fully met. The target dates for actions to meet these targets were ambitious, particularly in the light of the changes in the NHS structure, the remodelling of Social Services and the timescales for appointing the new service manager. Dates have now been adjusted and should now be achievable.

5.2 Mental health provider and contracted services (Appendix 2)

Eight specific improvement recommendations emerged from this review. Particularly worthy of note were the proposals to ensure that services were available at times required by service users (including evenings and weekends) and to systematically involve service users in their running. Greater efficiency improvements were also to be sought through the combining of smaller contracts and exploring the feasibility of externalising a support work service.

An outline of progress to-date is given in sections 4 and 5 of the template in Appendix 2, but overall the review leader is able to report steady progress in the modernisation of services against national criteria.

5.3 Receiverships service (Appendix 3)

The review recommended that the Receivership Unit should continue to be provided as a service of last resort when no suitable alterative person could be found to undertake the required duties. It was also agreed that a feasibility study should be carried out into whether or not the Unit should become a business unit.

In terms of progress, this feasibility study is now underway. Work was delayed because of the need to introduce new information technology and to adapt to new requirements from the Public Guardianship Office (the successor body to the Public Trust Office).

5.4 Day care for older people (Appendix 4)

This review did not propose major changes to the pattern and range of provision. The service was deemed to be highly valued by users and carers alike and was considered to be particularly effective at preventing social isolation. However, accurate information about the service in terms of activity, cost, need and demand was not felt to be easily available. It was, therefore, particularly recommended that work be put in hand to ensure that that day care services are more effectively commissioned, from a sound knowledge base. The review leader reports that a strategic framework for more efficient commissioning is now in place.

5.5 Disabled persons parking permit scheme (Appendix 5)

The principal recommendation of this review was that the service previously being administered from eleven local offices within Social Services should be transferred to a new dedicated `Blue Badge Unit' within the County Treasurer's Department. The target date for the transfer was March 2002 and plans are well advanced for completion on or before that date.

5.6 Equipment, technician and occupational therapy services (Appendix 6)

Broadly speaking, this review highlighted a good level of satisfaction with each of the component services. Public demand, waiting times and the need to achieve a greater degree of consistency between equipment stores was noted. Since the review, waiting times for an OT assessment have improved and the performance of all three joint equipment stores has been brought into line by monitoring and benchmarking against the performance of the best. The investigation of the potential and sustainability of new models of service will continue the work of the initial Best Value review.

5.7 Day and resource centres for physically disabled people (Appendix 7)

The review concluded that day services provide a useful and valued component to supporting a disabled person in the community and to give respite to carers. Generally the service was held in high regard.

The seven recommendations that emerged from the review proposed encouraging the promotion of direct payments as an option to maximise user control, increasing training for key staff on independent living and initiating further work to improve the availability of information on costs and performance indicators. Significant progress generally is reported on these recommendations with further activity planned in rolling out work with independent providers.

5.8 Day activities for adults with learning disabilities (Appendix 8)

The review highlighted the need to achieve the following:-

1. Social Services providers of day activities to provide £15,000 in 2001/2 for direct payments, to increase the number of people who arrange their own day/evening or weekend activities.

2. By the end of March 2003, costed plans to be prepared for the redevelopment of day activities across Hampshire, based on the needs and aspirations of service users and designed to provide more flexible and responsive services

3. Links to be established with employment agencies and leisure services across Hampshire that will work pro-actively to support people with learning disabilities to have greater access to employment and leisure opportunities.

Progress to-date includes the identification of direct payment investment as outlined above. Work is underway in most day services to build on current assessment and consultation information to develop plans for future services in each locality.

In contrast, links with main stream employment and leisure services are still being established and will continue to be developed over the next twelve months. Work on the link with employment services will be progressed at a strategic level also over the next year to comply with the priority set out in the White Paper "Valuing People".

5.9 Transport services (Appendix 9)

This Best Value review was completed slightly later than others in March 2001 and supported the option of testing what the benefits would be of organising Social Services transport needs corporately. Anticipated advantages of this option were around economics of scale in purchasing and in better policy development, co-ordination and brokerage. Members endorsed a pilot approach to this for a period of one year.

Discussions are underway with the County Surveyor's department about the pilot and it is hoped to commence this in the Eastleigh/Romsey local area in the new year with a view to determining the level of activity and resource requirements.

5.10 Complaints service (Appendix 10)

The review identified an action plan to achieve the improvements to be made to the service. These included fundamental actions such as the publication of clear service objectives and performance measures and a revised complaints procedure, supported by new complaints information leaflets for service users. It was also agreed to amend the staffing structure of the service to include additional staff time and changes to roles and responsibilities. This would allow support to and supervision of Independent Persons to be more consistently given.

A new complaints information leaflet has now been produced. Work has commenced on improving the support and supervision given to Independent Persons and an information pack has been put together.

The staffing changes are currently being implemented.

5.11 Information analysis service (Appendix 11)

This Best Value review found that a step-change in the performance of the service was necessary if it was to fulfil its crucial role in helping the Department meet the mounting demands of Best Value and other modernisation initiatives for good quality management information. In line with the agreed improvement plan, an additional analyst has been recruited since the review so that the improvements to indicators for the phase 1 plan can be realised. Revised work plans are already in place for the core team so that existing skills and new resources are utilised to the best advantage.

However, phase 2 of the improvement plan (requiring an additional injection of resource) has yet to be implemented.

5.12 Employment services (Appendix 12)

This review took a cross cutting approach to employment services across client groups. Two key objectives were identified for the enabling role currently undertaken by the Department and supported by the review. It was deemed crucial that we assist the maximum number of service users into open employment and that we further assist others into meaningful training, voluntary or subsidised work .

Work is going on across the board to implement these recommendations as outlined in the revised action plan and information template.

6 Recommendations.

1. That Members endorse the progress made on year 1 Best Value reviews.

2. That Members receive further progress reports on these reviews in December 2002.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB The list excludes:

1. Published works

2. documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the act.

None.