Councils call for new burdens funding after pilots reveal planned assurance process for adult social care services to be “time and energy intensive”

The Care Quality Commission will begin an assessment regime which will see councils handed an overall rating of either ‘inadequate’, ‘requires improvement’, ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ as part of a new assurance process for council adult social care services.

This follows the completion of pilots with five councils - Birmingham City Council, Lincolnshire County Council, North Lincolnshire Council, Nottingham City Council and Suffolk County Council.

Outlining themes from the assurance pilots at the National Children and Adult Services Conference yesterday (30 November), the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that waiting lists for assessments existed mainly due to lack of capacity in the social work assessment workforce, but local authorities were “managing this by prioritising risk”.

The pilots also revealed that transition pathways from children to adult services did not always work well.

Overall, the CQC said local authorities had “developed learning cultures to help them identify where things were not working well and take steps to improve”.

The Local Government Association (LGA) warned that following interviews with the pilot councils, it is evident that a “significant” amount of work is required to prepare and execute the assessments.

The LGA has therefore called for a “guarantee” of adequate new burdens funding for the process, as well as “sufficient advance notice of the assessments for councils”.

Further, the LGA advised that councils in the first tranche of assessments “need to be notified as soon as possible, given the significant amount of preparatory work required in advance of assessment team on-site visit”.

Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board said: “While councils are very willing to participate in this process, the current precarious position of adult social care must be recognised.

“Despite unmet and under met need remaining concerningly high, councils received no additional funding for adult social care in the Autumn Statement.

“The added workload these assessments are causing for councils must be addressed and councils should be given appropriate additional funding and support in order to participate in them effectively.”

Cathie Williams, Chief Executive of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said: “The pilots have shown the assurance process takes up a huge amount of time and energy within local authorities, at a time when social care teams are already under pressure with growing numbers of people needing care and support, budgets under severe strain and high levels of vacancies. To ensure assurance doesn’t take away from support going to people who need social care, the Government must provide local authorities with additional funding and resource to carry this out.

“We’re also keen to work with the Department of Health and Social Care on what support will be available for councils following assessments, as that will be vital in maximising the impact of this new assessment programme."

Lottie Winson