Buckinghamshire Council could outsource all adult social workers

ALL social workers for OAPs and the disabled could be outsourced under controversial new council plans. Buckinghamshire County Council could stop directly employing home care social workers under the cash-saving move.

An opposition councillor said this could see inferior services – and the authority admits the move could see it fail to meet statutory duties to look after the vulnerable.

The move comes as the council faces a resource and financial time bomb as county residents live longer, increasing the need for social care.

Demand rocketed 46 per cent from 2005 to 2009. In the 2008/09 a total of 1.3 million hours of care was delivered.

A council report said the change would benefit the authority as social workers are difficult to recruit and cost more than agencies. BCC uses about 40 agencies.

Social care chief Mike Colston agreed to “market test” the proposal.

Yet Liberal Democrat county leader Mary Baldwin said: “This is fine if there are good quality services out there and they don’t take the cheapest option going. That is my concern.

“Quality of service is the priority – I am not sure that is the council’s priority.”

The quality of care differs between the agencies on offer, official star ratings show (see link, below).

Latest inspections show three agencies got the top three stars, 18 agencies got two stars, seven got one and one got no stars. Twelve have yet to be rated.

A council report admitted agency care was “mixed” – but said agencies would have to be two or three stars to take over council work.

The council, meanwhile “receives high levels of user satisfaction and provides high quality care”.

Having agencies provide all care would give people greater choice over who to go to, the council argues. People can now choose who provides their care, rather than the council.

Yet it said the move “could exacerbate the current instability in the market and could result in us being able to continue to meet our statutory duties” over social care.

Most care is already delivered by agencies. Council care fell from 25 per cent in 2005 to 13 per cent in 20008.

Along with education, social care is the council’s biggest outgoing with £6.4m spend on BCC social workers and £14m spent on agencies in the last year.

The authority gets most cash, about £1,050, from the council tax bill.