Hampshire County Council

Executive Member, Policy & Resources Item 8

9 December 2004

Learning Resource Centre Networks

Report of the Director of Social Services

1.

Introduction

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1.2

1.3

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1.5

The Learning Resource Centre Network (LRCN) is an initiative of the Training Organisation for Personal Social Services (Topss), the employer-led strategic workforce development body for social care. The Topss aim is to support employers in improving standards of social care provision through training and development, workforce planning and workforce intelligence.

The development of LRCNs, fully funded by the Department of Health, is integral to achieving this aim. They are intended to play an important part in the establishment of a co-ordinated approach to the development of the social care workforce in each region. This will benefit people who work in social care services for adults, children, young people and families as well as related services such as health, housing, education and criminal justice.

There are four key strands of LRCN activity, all of which have significant benefits to social care - the workforce, employers and service users:

· They are expected to support the development of active partnerships between employers, educators and employee organisations that will ensure that education and training that is well attuned to the needs of employing organisations, their staff and the people they serve is commissioned and developed.

· Their initial focus will be on increasing the amount, quality and range of practice experience for students who are studying for the new honours degree in social work. They will then broaden this focus to include the needs of the wider workforce for improved learning opportunities within their work settings, aiming to ensure that there are enough people trained and available to guide and assess the practice development of everyone who is working towards a vocational qualification and/or a linked academic award.

· The LRCNs will enable employees, students, employers, educators, service users and carers to work together to identify (and, where necessary, develop) the materials, skills and equipment needed to support learning in the work place. A key objective will be to increase the availability of e-learning materials and to ensure that people have the equipment and support they need to make use of them.

· LRCNs will promote and actively contribute to initiatives that will enable service users and informal carers to play a substantial part in the education and training of the social care workforce.

Networks are being established in each region. For the South East Region, there will be four networks - Surrey/Sussex, Kent, Thames Valley and Hampshire/Isle of Wight. The mechanism adopted by Topss England is to contract with an employer to host a local Project Manager, with half-time support, on a temporary basis until March 2006. Surrey/Sussex and Thames Valley are already hosted and are well underway, have contracted for the development money available and are making progress towards the required outcomes.

It is expected that work will be undertaken during the period of the contract to identify sources of funding which will sustain the work of the LRCNs in the longer term.

2.

Proposal

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2.2

A Hampshire and Isle of Wight LRCN steering group, representing social care employers and educators, has been formed, with the County Council's Learning and Development Manager for Social Services elected as joint chair. This group has agreed to support a bid to Topss England for Hampshire County Council to host the Hampshire/Isle of Wight LRCN.

The proposal being put forward is for the employment of a full-time Project Manager and half-time Support Officer until the end of March 2006. The post grades have been set by Topss England and equate to the top of PO3 for the senior post and Scale 4 for the assistant. Both posts would be based at Glen Lodge with the existing Practice Learning and Professional Development Team. The bid, totalling £94,313 for the 15 month period from January 2005 to March 2006, covers all costs in addition to salary and costs of employment - accommodation (including IT costs) and management (including training costs) fees, travel expenses and recruitment.

3.

Recommendations

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That the bid to Topss England for the County Council to host the Learning Resource Centre Network for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight be approved.

That approval be given to the creation of two posts - Project Manager and Support Officer - for a period of 15 months in the first instance.