Looking ahead to the next phase of our local authority assessments
Chris Badger, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care, describes what to expect from the next phase of CQC’s local authority assessments
We recently started the next phase of our local authority assessments, marking a huge milestone for what is still a relatively new duty for CQC and a new requirement for local authorities. Starting the next phase also marks the conclusion of our initial baselining assessment programme of all 153 local authorities in England. This has enabled us to establish a view of how adult social care responsibilities under the Care Act are being delivered.
Reflecting on the baselining phase, we have seen that local authorities continue to perform well overall and deliver services in a very challenging environment. It has also been inspiring to see the commitment and passion of the wide range of people involved in delivering adult social care. We will publish a report in the summer highlighting our findings and themes from the baselining phase, drawing attention to both the successes and challenges across adult social care.
I now have experience of being on both sides of an assessment, and I believe that through our ongoing assessments and unique insight, CQC can be a strong and credible advocate for social care, both locally and nationally, and help to support improvement.
Our updated approach to assessments
We updated the way we assess local authorities by working with stakeholders — building on what we heard from them and what we have learned from the baselining phase. It is a more flexible and relational approach, which includes different types of assessments: comprehensive assessments will review and score all quality statements, whereas focused assessments will look at specific quality statements and will not lead to a change in the overall rating. This will allow us to be more flexible and responsive to the context in which a local authority is delivering its adult social care duties.
Our assurance meetings with local authorities will play a vital part in how this works in practice by helping us to understand local context, updates, and priorities. We hope local authorities will find these new meetings useful and that they will build on the relationships we established during baselining.
Discussions at the meetings will also help to inform when we carry out an assessment. This will be determined by a range of factors. To create a balanced schedule of assessments, we aim to assess across the range of local authority ratings and geographical areas in any given year. Elements that inform our schedule include the level of risk, improvement, local elections, other regulatory activity, and local government reform.
The timeframes set out in our guidance show the maximum timeframes for a comprehensive assessment, but it is worth knowing that we are likely to come out earlier as we start assessments using our new approach and move into a more balanced programme of assessments.
We will also carry out thematic activity focusing on specific topics to enable us to share insights on patterns and themes in people’s experiences and good practice in adult social care. We’re currently considering which topic we might focus on, to report on next year, and will update more on this in the coming months.
Refining and improving the assessment process
Our baselining assessments were delivered at pace, and we have taken on board feedback about how we could refine and improve the process. Feedback and input have been vital in getting us to this point and we are grateful to everyone who has played a part. We have made improvements to the approach, including:
- better use of data to inform decisions by adopting new metrics where appropriate rather than relying on a fixed set, with any changes to standard metrics clearly communicated
- introducing rating characteristics alongside nationally published best practice to support our judgements
- an improved report template to avoid duplication and be clearer about scoring, as well as introducing a section on the priorities of the Secretary of State
- better co-production processes to make sure we have more time to plan the logistics of co-production meetings and avoid duplication
- better communication during and after an assessment, including clearer guidance about the purpose of keeping in touch and high-level feedback meetings
- a more streamlined process for the information return to avoid duplicating the information requested, and improved processes for quality assuring and checking the factual accuracy of the assessment report
We also have a stronger focus on the experience of unpaid carers in our assessments, which is evident in the quality statements and rating characteristics we use. This is to ensure unpaid carers are represented consistently and equally, and is in direct response to the strong feedback we heard from unpaid carers and the organisations that represent them. Our Deputy Director of Local Authority Assessments, Amanda Stride, talks more about why lived experience matters in our assessments in her blog that published during Carers Week.
Local government reorganisation
Our flexible and risk-based approach means we can respond to the significant organisational challenges for local authorities that are affected by local government reorganisation. During this period of change, we will continue to focus on how services identify and respond to risks to vulnerable adults, while recognising that local authorities are additionally having to manage and resource transitions to new organisations.
Arrangements for local authorities to share self-assessments with CQC will continue, and our regular assurance meetings will provide opportunities to identify and mitigate any risks. Assurance meetings will focus on how the local authority is maintaining its Care Act (2014) duties as well as on safeguarding.
We are working with other regulators and central government to understand the changes and ensure that our approaches align. We are also talking with local authorities, the Local Government Association and ADASS to inform our overall approach. We will take a proportionate and risk-based approach to assessing local authorities involved with local government reorganisation, which recognises their capacity challenges as they manage change and the associated risks this may present to delivering Care Act duties. We will be providing a further update about this in the coming weeks.
Further information about local authority assessments
Watch our recent webinar Beyond baselining — what to expect from local authority assessments to hear more details about what to expect from a local authority assessment.
To keep up to date with local authority assessment news sign up to our regular newsletter.
