Angus Council Leads The Way For Inspections

Angus Council’s department of social work and health is delivering services which will improve the lives of many people who receive them.
The council is the first to be inspected as part of the Social Work Inspection Agency’s (SWIA) performance inspections of all local authority social work services in Scotland.
The inspection highlighted a number of strengths. For example staff are enthusiastic and committed to delivering good quality services and they are supported by their managers and by their councillors. The department is increasingly planning and delivering services in partnership with others.
Inspectors also made 17 recommendations to improve the service, including putting in place ways to evaluate the impact of services, setting up a more robust duty system and reviewing its children’s services.
SWIA chief inspector Alexis Jay said: “This report measures how well Angus Council is performing and, on the whole, it’s a positive picture with dedicated staff providing vital help and support. But there’s always room for improvement and our inspectors found some areas where Angus can do more. We will now work with Angus Council to agree an action plan in response to this report to ensure that the necessary changes are both implemented and monitored.”

Council Response

To be part of the three pilot inspections being undertaken by the Social Work Inspection Agency was seen by Robert Peat, Director of Social Work and Health as an opportunity to complete a circle of evaluation.
Angus Council was the first to be audited by Audit Scotland and the Tayside Criminal Justice Partnership had recently been inspected. Social Work had also contributed to the inspections of housing and education services and in 2004 achieved Investors in People recognition.
For Robert there remained a significant gap: “There had not been a holistic independent evaluation of the services delivered by the social work and health department in Angus,“ he said.{mospagebreak}
The picture was the same across Scotland and working with SWIA offered the opportunity to highlight examples of good practice and also to identify where the services in Angus should improve.
In Angus the pilot inspection began with case file reading at the end of August 2005, the fieldwork period from 19-30 September and the final report published in February.
The inspection therefore was the first of Scotland’s 32 local authority social work services to be carried out and its findings show that on the whole it’s a positive picture in Angus.  Angus Council’s Social Work and Health services are held in high regard by those that use them, the general public and partner agencies.
The work being done with young carers and those just diagnosed with dementia were singled out for praise as was the development and delivery of integrated services at the new Whitehills health and community care centre in Forfar and the integrated approach to reduce older people’s emergency hospital admissions.
Social Work & Health convener Glennis Middleton welcomed the report: “I am delighted that the dedication and commitment of our staff has been recognised and that the broad and challenging range of services we provide are valued by both service users and the wider public. Equally I take on board the agency’s recommendations for improvement as there is always scope to get better.”
Robert Peat said that overall he was pleased with the findings of the report which he thought gave a fair and balanced assessment of the social work service in Angus: “We continually review our services and this report will help us as we prioritise the keys areas for attention.
“In nine out of the ten key areas of evaluation we scored highly and many of the points made in the report were already being addressed, such as the establishment of a new duty service. Just two weeks ago we opened a new joint child protection facility which will further improve inter-agency working in this area.
“We are now working on a comprehensive action plan to address the other areas highlighted. First and foremost we will be exploring ways to routinely measure the impact of our services as this is key to all aspects of our work.
“Like many other authorities we know how and what were are putting in but we need to develop a more systematic approach to measure what impact this is having on those receiving services.
“Gathering this information would provide more robust evidence for our long term planning and delivery.”
Chief Executive David Sawers said the council welcomed external assessments of its performance: “An informed and rigorous assessment of the services we provide is to be welcomed as it assists us as we continuously strive to improve. I am pleased with this overall positive assessment of the performance of our Social Work & Health services. It is indicative of the excellent calibre of staff we have in Angus, in this particularly challenging profession.”
Robert Peat wanted to thank the Social Work Inspection Agency for the helpful approach adopted by them during the inspection and he is now looking forward to continuing to work with them as Angus Council addresses the recommendations set out in the inspection report.