Ageless at Work - Skills for Care

On the 31st March 2009, almost 93,000 people were receiving Personal Budgets, equating to over
£681m of council expenditure. By the end of March next year it is expected this will rise to around
206,000 people. Based on current trends, this would commit nearly £1.5bn of Council funding,
and mean that more than one in five people receiving non-residential council support will have a
personal budget. The position of individual authorities varies widely. Variance is, however, less
pronounced between whole regions, and, significantly, across the country over 40% of personal
budgets now go to older people.
When asked to rank a number of categories in terms of support that is needed in their area,
support for market development was ranked highest by the largest number of respondents (46%).
This was followed by operating systems (18%) and then efficiency and effectiveness (16%).
Specifically in relation to organisational change and workforce development, the issues were:
99% of respondents (147 councils) report being linked into best-practice/personalisation networks
in their local or regional area. These networks, in rank percentage order of frequency, are:
Regional Personalisation Network 97%; In Control 79%; and In Control – Total Transformation
16%
88 (59%) had a whole system and 55 (37%) partial system change programmes in place. 119 of
these programmes (83%) included undertaking engagement with people who use services, their
carers and stakeholders.
Most respondents reported that they felt that support across partners was “strong” or “very strong”
for all partners, except for private sector/providers and consumers. The highest levels of
perceived commitment to the Putting People First agenda were in voluntary and third sector
organisations, followed by the NHS.
Local authorities are considering significant changes to their operating systems and business
processes in a range of areas. 130 (88%) were considering significant changes to initial contact
arrangements, including their referral points, call centres and initial information and advice. 141
(95%) are considering significant changes to assessment and care management arrangements.
This will affect the majority of care management staff: 69 councils stated that it will affect all such
staff and another 69 a significant proportion.
Whilst only 6 authorities (4%) reported that they have a market development and/or
commissioning strategy that fully aligns to Putting People First, 105 (71%) have one in part or in
development. Of concern is the fact that 37 authorities (25%) report they do not have such a
strategy as yet.
Only 5 councils stated that they already have in place an Integrated Local Area Workforce
Strategy (InLaws) using data and information from the NMDS. 95 planned for this to be in place in
the next twelve months and 48 in the next 2-3 years 9 .
9 A separate survey exploring Local Authorities’ progress in implementing integrated local area
workforce strategies found the barriers were: managing the complexity of bringing needs and
workforce data through engagement with difficult stakeholders; lack of an integrated Human Resources
information system for collecting workforce data; lack of good data management; conflicting priorities; lack of
Ageless at Work: Change workplace cultures, development skills. Good practice report 17