WAGC 001/2012
Directors of Social Services in Wales for actionChief Executives
Directors of Finance
Chief Executive, Care Council for Wales
Local Authority Training Managers
Date 21 March 2012
Dear Sir or Madam,
Social Care Workforce Development Programme 2012-13: Circular
A. Introduction
1. This circular sets out the arrangements for the Social Care Workforce Development Programme (SCWDP) for 2012-13. It announces indicative grant allocations and invites local authorities to apply for the grant on behalf of their Social Care Workforce Development Partnership by 04 May 2012.
2. This circular details the requirements to be met by Directors of Social Services on behalf of their Partnerships to draw down the SCWDP grant.
3. Planned expenditure on the Social Care Workforce Development Programme (SCWDP) for 2012-13 will total £12,015,714 The grant element, which provides 70% of the cost of the programme, will be £8,411,000 The SCWDP grant is intended as a supplement to employers’ own training resources.
4. Since staff members are the principle resource for providers of social care, their development and training, needs to be planned, resourced, delivered and evaluated effectively. The primary responsibility for these tasks remains with each employer within the Partnership. The SCWDP grant is intended to provide a significant supplement to the resources provided by employers to train and develop their own staff.
5. With the exception of 2 ring-fenced flat rate allocations for social worker qualifying and post qualifying training and partnership support, the grant will be distributed solely using the Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) formula.
6. We expect to see grant applications setting out clearly the arrangements for SCWDP Partnerships and containing clear staff development and training plans for the whole social care sector. All documentation will be required to be submitted to the Welsh Government in electronic format only with electronic signatures where appropriate. A proforma for applications will be issued to local authorities alongside this circular.
7. Sustainable Social Services for Wales: A Framework for Action (SSSW) sets out the future strategic direction for social services in Wales. One of the key Projects within the Government’s programme is A Strong and Professional Delivery Team striving for the further development of a fully fledged approach to the professionalisation of the workforce. The social care workforce has been significantly strengthened over the last ten years through improved recruitment and retention, qualifications and training. We now want to build upon that improvement through the objectives of this project. These objectives are wide ranging, encompassing career pathways, management development and continuing professional development. Together they will enable a strong and professional delivery team for the future by building upon the foundation of workforce development achieved so far. The Welsh Government will work with you in 2012-13 to consider how the SCWDP grant can further develop professionalisation of the workforce and how the SCWDP grant can be better aligned with the new objectives.
8. The Welsh Government is currently implementing a project to introduce standard processes and procedures for grant management and other funding. This may lead to changes in the corporate governance processes for this grant in future years. Information on these changes will be communicated as soon as it is available.
9. Sustainable Social Services for Wales signals the Welsh Government’s intention to review and revise our approach to service and workforce improvement including how resources are used and this will include the SCWDP grant.
10. To enable us to align available funding to core priorities in Sustainable Social Services for Wales we consider that the end of the 2014-15 financial year is an appropriate time to end the grant in its current format. This places even greater emphasis on the need for Partnerships to ensure they have full command of workforce development priorities over the next 3 years. We are clear that this needs to include financial planning to support workforce development priorities.
B. Sources of guidance
11. This circular should be read in conjunction with ‘Planning for Training and Staff Development across the Social Care Sector’, which is the key guidance document to help Social Care Workforce Development Partnerships draw up effective training and staff development arrangements. The guidance is available from the website:
http://wales.gov.uk/cssiwsubsite/newcssiw/publications/ourfindings/allwales/2003/training_development_sector?lang=en
Aims and Objectives
12. The broad aim of the SCWDP is to improve the quality and management of social services provision through a planned approach to training and by seeking to increase the take-up of training across the social care sector.
13. The objectives of the SCWDP are:
· to increase the proportion of staff across the whole social care sector with the qualifications, skills and knowledge they need for the work they do;
· to achieve the above through Social Care Workforce Development Partnerships led by local authorities and informed by the commissioners of services within local authorities;
C. Expectations of Directors of Social Services and SCWDP Partnerships
14. The grant will support compliance with the Welsh Government statutory guidance on the role and accountabilities of the Director of Social Services, in particular section 4.8.6 for workforce planning and professional development and section 4.8.7 for partnership working. Key to this is the development and delivery of a plan for workforce development for the whole sector workforce.
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/health/publications/socialcare/guidance1/3188997/;jsessionid=WZmhN4JdNB7FmPLBdj5W6LQCSZhnRMRrvZTcQzk76lsTQ2K5hxYp!1471696857?lang=en
15. Partnerships are expected to draw membership from commissioners, commissioned services, statutory, third sector and private sector employers, service user and carers and training providers. Other local statutory partners including health should also be involved and there will be a need to consider the workforce implications that flow from the development of a more integrated approach to services. Partnerships should include members from regulated and non-regulated settings covering social work and social care for children and family services and adults services and must as a minimum draw members that reflect views of:.
1
· Adult Care Providers;
· Domiciliary Care Providers;
· Children’s Care Providers;
· Foster Carers;
· Further and Higher Education;
· Service Users and Carers.
1
16. The objectives for the Partnerships each year are to facilitate:
· the planning of SCWDP-funded training and development across the whole social care workforce;
· the monitoring of progress against those plans;
· the evaluation of the impact of those plans on services and the workforce.
17. However, Partnerships have and will want to develop wider aims and objectives to meet local needs and resources, and to plan training and development activity that is wider than that funded by the grant.
18. Partnerships are encouraged to look for practical and accountable means of collaboration in 2012-13 in order to optimise efficiency, effectiveness and value for money. Proposals for collaboration should be highlighted in application and monitoring documentation in 2012-13 with appropriate implementation plans.
19. As you will be aware accelerating progress towards collaborative service delivery is key to the Welsh Government’s approach to public service reform and to the delivery of Sustainable Social Services for Wales. The Welsh Government has recently announced a footprint of 6 public service collaborative areas:
http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dsjlg/minutes/110721pc374approachen.doc
We would therefore expect that your applications give a clear indication that you are using 2012-13 as an opportunity to begin working towards the new collaborative arrangements and for you to question current collaborations across different footprints.
20. The SCWDP grant should be regarded as only one source of funding for workforce development and training. Partnerships should adopt a leadership role in relation to identifying other sources of funding for different parts of the sector and encourage and support co-ordinated approaches to training across the whole sector.
21. Partnerships should also ensure training offered through the SCWDP is appropriately split, in line with local needs, across the different service areas (including children, adult, older people, management, carers and service users).
22. Partnerships should ensure that consideration is given to the workforces’ ability to deliver services bilingually.
23. We expect to see a continuing increase in the level of engagement of providers of residential child care as partnership members in 2012 -13;
24. Partnerships will be expected to share local information and examples of best practice at a regional level and where appropriate at a national level.
D. SCWDP and Social Work – a regulated profession
25. Partnerships need to continue to ensure access to, and completion of the qualification in social work. Authorities will need to plan on the basis of the assessed future workforce need, taking into account the data and information in the report “Social Worker Workforce Planning (SWWP) baseline year 2009-10” and any current local data to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of social workers in Wales in their planning.
http://dissemination.dataunitwales.gov.uk/webview/index.jsp?mode=documentation&submode=egmsresource&resource=http%3A%2F%2F192.168.100.31%3A80%2Fobj%2FcEGMSResource%2FEGMS20100226101256605&language=en&v=2&top=yes
26. The continuous professional development of social workers, including the acquisition of post-qualifying social work awards, needs planning within the overall Partnership strategic plan and business / operational plan. Those plans need to be supplemented by employer’s workforce planning and staff appraisal, including individual career planning.
27. The Care Council for Wales has developed a Continuing Professional Education and Learning Framework (CPEL). Partnership plans will be expected to show how they will work with others to deliver the Consolidation Programme in 2012/13 and how funding will be targeted to deliver this objective. The ring fenced allocation for social work training has been increased to support this objective.
28. In order to continue to ensure the supply of social workers through support to social work training and to ensure that CPEL is embedded within plans and arrangements we have increased the specific ring fenced funding elements of the grant. £40,000 is now ring fenced to support the qualifying and post qualifying training of social workers. This can include the development of infrastructures to support the delivery of a framework for continuous professional development. Partnerships need to set out in a distinct plan how the SCWDP grant will be used to support social work traineeships and secondments and how it will be used to support the implementation of CPEL.
29. We wish to encourage local authorities to consider implementing similar schemes for other professional training, particularly occupational therapists, and we would be interested to see plans for such schemes within the overall plans for this application.
E. Targets
30. In addition, we expect Partnerships to be embedding the new Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) and the implications that this will have for social care. We will be working closely with Partnerships and the Care Council for Wales in 2012-13 to ensure that the SCWDP continues to reflect requirements set through the QCF.
31. In 2012-13, a focus should be given to accredited or formal training or training linked to continuing professional education and learning and practice improvement (particularly for staff and managers of residential child care and managers of care homes and domiciliary care agencies for adults).
F. The 2012-13 SCWDP Grant
32. Indicative grant allocations for 2012-13 are provided in Annexe 2. These allocations are calculated from 3 elements:
· Firstly, £20,000 is allocated to each authority to support the social care workforce development partnerships;
· Secondly, an allocation of £40,000 is made to each authority to directly contribute to the qualifying and post qualifying training of those who are or wish to become social workers including secondment costs and contributions to Practice Learning Centres. We expect this funding to contribute to ensuring the development of the infrastructure to support CPEL.
· Thirdly, the remaining £7,091,000 million is distributed on the basis of each authority’s share of the Personal Social Services Standard Spending Assessments (SSAs).
G. Funding
33. Uses of this funding are limited to the categories below:
· The costs of secondments for social work qualifying training and occupational therapy qualifying training, including staff replacement costs;
· Social worker training – with an emphasis on pre-qualifying, qualifying and post qualifying training which focus on continuing professional education and learning in line with the new CPEL framework;
· The costs of other training events and activities, including staff replacement and other costs for social work and social care staff and managers, with a primary focus on:
· accredited training;
· meeting regulation requirements such as required for Adult Residential Managers to be registered by July 2011 and Domiciliary Care Managers to be register by October 2012.
http://www.ccwales.org.uk/registration-and-conduct/how-to-register/social-care-manager/adult-care-home-manager
· Practice Improvement linked to professional regulation.
· Leadership and management skills.
· The non-salary costs, including course fees, of seconding staff for training;
· The costs of staff employed to provide training and development and for work-based assessment, including QCF assessment;
· The costs of the provision of equipment and, where justified, the rent of premises for training and assessment of competencies;
· The costs of helping users and carers to take part in the SCWDP partnership training events and evaluation;
· The costs of developing and maintaining the SCWDP Partnership, including administrative support. Authorities and Partnerships are encouraged to undertake this jointly, where this is an effective approach.
34. For training supported by the SCWDP grant, all the following conditions must be met:
· Training must be provided free to all partner social care organisations[1];
· Only 10% of Welsh Government SCWDP contribution can be used to support training that is solely used to comply with health and safety legislation, as these are the responsibility of the employer. This does not include training completed as part of broader training (i.e. as part of a QCF level qualification). This legislation includes the:
o Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999;
o Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992;
o Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations;
o Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences
Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR);
o Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998;
o Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998;