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SOCIAL SERVICES NORTH WEST
MEETING ON 14 SEPTEMBER 2001 AT BLACKBURN
REPORT OF THE CO-ORDINATOR
ANNUAL REPORT 2000-01 AND WORK PROGRAMME 2001-02
1. Matter for Consideration:
To consider a brief Annual Report on the organisation’s activities during the year 2000-01, and to finalise the Work Programme for 2001-02
- Introduction:
Members have customarily received a brief Annual Report at the first meeting of each municipal year. In 2000, the concept of an Annual Work Programme was introduced. This report brings these two strands together, beginning with a brief review of activity in Social Services North West during the past year. The report concludes by asking members to determine a Work Programme for 2001-02, following the preliminary consideration given to the issue at the June meeting.
3. Annual Report 2000-01:
3.1 Meetings. Five meetings of Social Services North West have been held since the last Annual Report:
16 June 2000 at St Helens
11 October 2000 at Bolton
15 December 2000 at Blackpool
16 March 2001 at Halton (Runcorn)
15 June 2001 at Tameside (Ashton-under-Lyne)
3.2 Conferences. Six conferences were held during the year, many of them jointly with other bodies:
A total of over 400 attendances were made across the six conferences.27 September 2000 We’re only human (Emergency Planning)
6 October 2000 Sharing Initiatives in Foster Care
13 October 2000 Dealing with Death (Major Incidents)
24 November 2000 People Need People (Human Resources)
18 January 2001 Social Care and the NHS Plan
17 May 2001 Making Quality Count
3.3 Issues addressed. The June 2000 meeting selected the following four areas as the main priorities for the 2000-01 Work Programme.
Working with the NHS
Performance Assessment and Quality
Quality Protects and Children’s Issues
Financial Issues
Reports were also considered on other issues of concern to members:
Children’s Rights Commissioner
Asylum Seekers
No Secrets (Protecting Vulnerable Adults from Abuse)
Celebrating Excellence in the North West
Charges for Police Checks on Volunteers
3.4 Lobbying of Ministers. Social Services North West has lobbied Ministers on the following issues during the year, and reasoned replies have been received.
Children’s Rights Commissioner
Commissioning Social Care for Older People
The Government’s Quality Strategy
Financial and Service Pressures
3.5 Liaison with national and regional bodies. Close liaison has been continued or developed with the following bodies:
LGA Social Affairs and Health Executive
(Joint meeting 13 October 2000)
NHS Executive North West
(Meetings held 10 July 2000, 6 February and 22 August 2001)
TOPSS England North West Regional Training Forum
(Member appointed, and SSNW staff team administers)
North West Development Agency
(Member appointed to North West Health Partnership)
North West Regional Assembly
(Member appointed to Economy and Society Key Priority Group)
3.6 Raising the profile. Action has been taken to raise the profile of Social Services North West in the following additional ways:
Quarterly editions of SSNW News (on paper)
Quarterly editions of SSNW eNews (email)
Website launched October 2000 (www.ssnw.org.uk) and updated weekly since: nearly 2000 visits have been made to the site.
3.7 Staffing of Social Services North West. Following decisions in 1999, Professional Assistant Peter Viggers was appointed early in 2000 to a permanent post with Lancashire County Council and Peter Hewitt was appointed Co-ordinator (15 hours per week) for 12 months from 31 January 2000. Elaine Trotter was appointed Clerical Assistant (18 1/2 hours) in June 2000. Following a staffing and budgeting review, it was decided in March 2001 to bring the secretarial and finanacial functions together with the operational staff at Lancashire Social Services in Preston. Accordingly, the post of Co-ordinator was made permanent, the post of Clerical Assistant was regraded Administrative Assistant, and the Chief Executive of Manchester and the Director of Corporate Services at Oldham were thanked for their past services.
3.8 Administrative support to TOPSS England North West Regional Training Forum. This was established in November 2000 with Vic Citarella, former Director of Social Services, Liverpool as Chair. Social Services North West was asked to undertake the administrative support to the Forum, and financial terms were agreed initially for the period November 2000 to March 2001. This was extended for a further 12 months as part of the 2001-02 budgetary process. The growth of work involved has made it clear that the terms will need to be renegotiated in-year and in future years, and a further report will be presented to a future meeting.
4. Work Programme 2001-02
4.1 Work Programme Priorities. The June 2000 meeting selected the following four areas as the main priorities for the 2000-01 Work Programme: Working with the NHS; Performance Assessment and Quality; Quality Protects and Children’s Issues; and Financial Issues. Regarding topics for 2001-02, the following six issues all received substantial support in a survey of members and officers carried out in May 2001, but it was considered necessary to reduce this list from six to four. A questionnaire was therefore circulated in August to the newly appointed Members and Deputy Members, asking them to indicate their preferences by ticking four of the six topics listed below.
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Working with the NHS |
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Financial Issues |
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Quality Protects and Children's Issues |
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Human Resources (recruitment, retention, training): |
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Learning Disability (White Paper implementation): |
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Performance Assessment and Quality |
The outcome of this process will be reported to the meeting.
4.2 Dates and Venues for meetings. The following venues are proposed for the remaining meetings of this municipal year, based on the usual principle of rotation between member authorities:
21 December 2001 Warrington
15 March Salford
21 June Bury
5 Recommendations:
5.1 That the Annual Report for 2000-01 be noted
5.2 That the four Work Programme Priorities for the forthcoming year be determined by members after considering the feedback from the questionnaires.
5.3 That the dates and venues for the meetings be determined.
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