The government is recruiting troubleshooters to help 'failing' council adults' services improve.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is looking for sector leaders to act on its behalf as improvement advisers or commissioners, tasked with helping struggling authorities recover, in a similar model to that which exists in children's social care services.
The callout comes two years after the DHSC issued its adult social care intervention framework, setting out how it would use new statutory powers of intervention to tackle poor performance, as identified - principally - by Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessments of authorities.
This stated that councils would generally be left to lead their own improvement, including by drawing on the DHSC-funded Partners in Care and Health (PCH) programme, delivered by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the Local Government Association (LGA).
However, where there were "serious and persistent failures", the department would offer “enhanced support and monitoring”, a non-statutory form of intervention that may involve appointing an improvement adviser to work with the authority.
Improvement adviser role
In its recruitment pack for the roles, the DHSC said advisers would be expected to spend up to two days a week during their posting providing "support, guidance and challenge to the authority to develop and deliver a robust improvement plan".They would have a broad remit, potentially including supporting leaders to address weaknesses, working with practitioners at all levels to boost performance, using their contacts to signpost the authority to examples of good practice and providing oversight of improvement plans.
They would also provide regular reports to the DHSC on the council's progress and make recommendations as to whether this has been sufficient, in which case the authority would be removed from "support and monitoring".
However, where such progress does not happen and the DHSC has “limited confidence in the authority’s ability to improve”, or where failings are more serious, it may carry out a statutory intervention, under the Care Act (see box).
The law on statutory intervention in adults' services
Section 72A of the Care Act states that, where the secretary of state (ie the DHSC) is satisfied that a local authority is failing, or has failed, to discharge any of its adult social care functions under the act, they may give the local authority any directions they consider appropriate for addressing the failings. These directions may:- Require the council to act in accordance with the advice of, collaborate with, or provide specified information to, the secretary of state, or a person nominated by them.
- Allow the secretary of state – or a nominee – to exercise specified functions of the authority for a defined period or for as long as the secretary of state considers appropriate, if they feel this is necessary to address the failings.
- Require the council to comply with any instructions from the secretary of state – or a nominee, in the exercise of its functions, if the secretary of state feels this is necessary to address the failings.
- Require the council to pay the secretary of state – or a nominee – for costs incurred as a result of the directions.
Non-executive commissioners would also be tasked with reviewing and improving the quality of senior leadership and social work, and assessing the council's capability to improve itself within a reasonable timeframe, and reporting on this to the DHSC.
Power for government nominee to direct councils
Should levels of failure run deeper than this, the DHSC may appoint an executive commissioner, also for at least 12 months. Unlike non-executives, they would have the power to instruct council officers and to overrule elected members, if necessary, and would be responsible for driving improvement at the relevant authority.They would report regularly to the department on the authority's progress and make recommendations, including on the ongoing scope of the intervention. Unlike in children's services, there is no power for the government to turn over the authority's functions to an independent trust.
The DHSC said it was looking for candidates with a "demonstrable track record of leading, motivating and managing teams to achieve sustainable service improvements across multiple service areas in the context of growing demand and increasingly constrained resources", to carry out the three roles.
They would need to have experience of working as a local authority chief executive or director of adult social services, or in a comparably senior role. Improvement advisers would be paid up to £950 a day, with commissioners offered a comparable rate, though the DHSC said successful candidates would be placed in a pool of troubleshooters and would not be guaranteed deployment.
CQC ratings of local authorities
Government intervention is likely to be focused on authorities rated inadequate by the CQC in its assessments of local authorities, but the DHSC said it would also draw on other sources of information, including the department's own engagement with the relevant council.Since it started assessing councils under the Care Act 2014 in December 2023, the CQC has rated two - Blackpool and East Riding of Yorkshire - as inadequate, with 24 graded as requires improvement, 53 as good and two as outstanding.
