The importance of local voices and people’s experiences to our assessments of local authorities
In this blog, Alison Hall, Deputy Director of local authority assessments calls on people and organisations involved in voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise activities to share their experiences of supporting people in their local area, to inform CQC’s assessments of local authorities.
As we progress with our local authority assessment programme, we continue to see the importance of understanding communities, and hearing about people’s lived experiences through our assessments and research.
Assessing how local authorities are meeting their duties under Part 1 of the Care Act (2014) is a new responsibility for CQC, under the Health and Care Act 2022. We have previously highlighted some emerging themes from our assessments. For example, local authorities that have good relationships with local people and organisations tend to have a good understanding of equality and diversity issues in their local population.
To really understand local communities, we need to hear from a diverse range of local voices, so we’re keen to speak to people involved in voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) activities. This includes people and organisations involved in supporting people who experience barriers in accessing care because of their ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, autism, and health conditions.
We know some of you — and the organisations you lead or work for — may not be commissioned by your local authority to carry out the work you’re doing. You may not feel that you have a voice, or that your feedback doesn’t apply to our assessments because you don’t actually provide adult social care services — but we do want to hear from you. We strongly encourage you to contact CQC about what you’re hearing, the type of people you support and how you’re helping people in your community.
If you, your organisation or community can be described as one or more of these groups, we want to hear from you:
- People or organisations that provide services and resources including food banks, drop-in centres, faith groups, providers of advice and support generally, volunteers, befrienders who work across a range of needs — not just adult social care.
- People or organisations that support people with sensory needs, LGBTQ+ communities, autism groups (social and/or daily support), mental health support, homelessness groups, addiction and substance misuse groups.
- People or organisations directly commissioned by the local authority or health partners to deliver adult social care support, whether this is to prevent, reduce, or delay the need for care or to meet eligible needs.
All experiences and circumstances that affect people in a local area are important to us. They help to give us a better understanding of the area, and the support needs of the people and communities within it.
As part of an assessment, our teams contact local organisations, charities and faith-based groups to speak to them about the support they provide to people, carers and families. If you’re involved in any of these groups, we gather your feedback to help us understand the local communities and people’s experiences of care. We know the work you do keeps you busy in the community, but it really helps if you can share your feedback with us, so we can highlight the impact you make and how improving the support that is available can result in better outcomes for people. You can also use our Give feedback on care form to tell us about your role in the community and what you’re hearing from local people, carers and families.
Our assessments also enable local authorities to talk about their relationships with people and organisations involved in VCFSE activities. We assess how they are working with people and organisations to recognise and respond to underserved communities and meet people’s unmet needs when delivering their Care Act responsibilities.
The data we collect from leaders and staff in a local authority provides a picture of their relationship and awareness of local support and community initiatives. We also look at each local authority’s strategies to see how well local organisations and people are embedded in their infrastructure, for example setting up expert advisory groups, involving groups in decision making and providing training for staff.
We look forward to working with individual people and organisations involved in VCFSE work to help shape our assessments and shape services for the future. By helping to bring us closer to people, families and communities, you will help us to deliver our duties and support improvement by highlighting good practice across local authorities.
For more information about our local authority assessments, see our website https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-regulation/local-authorities
