Council and democracy

What is the Adult Care Services Plan?

The Adult Care Services plan outlines the key priorities that we, as a department, will be working towards over the next three years through our work with users and carers, our contracts with providers and our partnership arrangements.

These priorities have been informed by:

• What users and carers have said to us – for example, the Mori consultation on the budget and the county council’s challenges, ‘having your say’ feedback, targeted interviews in surveys and audits and via our complaints and compliments system
• The ACS service improvement process – the priorities for this plan are driven primarily by the service improvement process this year, which has taken stock of progress in plans for 2005/6 and what is working well / what needs improving across all services areas
• Hertfordshire County Council’s Corporate Plan – which is based on what the public considers to be most important in making Hertfordshire an even better place to live and work, and is summarised as seven key challenges for the county council. The Adult Care Services plan integrates the elements of these challenges for which the department is responsible
• The Local Area Agreement and Local Strategic Partnerships – the Local Area Agreement (LAA) refers to a new agreement between central and local government, which aims to achieve better outcomes for citizens through greater partnership working with district councils, primary care trusts and other groups. Targets for the LAA are agreed and monitored by central government. The Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) agreements in each district will contribute to the LAA and are still important.
  It is within these agreements that Adult Care Services has to deliver on ‘stretch’ targets – for example, increasing by a set amount the number of people using direct payments. There is ‘reward money’ available for achieving stretch targets, which could be used for further service development.
• National legislation and service frameworks – there are existing frameworks for older people and people with learning disabilities (called ‘valuing people’) that will continue to be progressed over the coming years. There are also major new initiatives to address from this year, such as the White Paper: ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: a new direction for community services’, the Mental Capacity Act, and the National Service Framework on Long Term Conditions.
• The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), Adult Care Services annual review and external audits – CSCI carries out an annual assessment of how well adult care services in Hertfordshire are being delivered. The rating for 2005/06 was that the department is serving most people well with excellent prospects for improvement.
• The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) – this is an external assessment by The Audit Commission of how well Hertfordshire County Council as a whole is delivering services to its residents across the county. The council is currently rated as a four-star excellent authority.

Both the CSCI and CPA high ratings for Adult Care Services and Hertfordshire County Council allow more freedom to manage and set our own priorities, with greater financial flexibility. It is important for this to be sustained in the interests of public confidence and the services we provide.