Behan to lead social care inspectors

The president of the Association of Directors of Social Services
has been named as the chief inspector of the new Commission for
Social Care Inspection (CSCI).

David Behan, director of social services in Greenwich, will take up
the shadow chief inspector post in November when he leaves the
London council. He is due to finish his ADSS presidency in
October.

The CSCI is expected to become operational in April 2004 after the
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
receives royal assent. It will regulate and inspect public, private
and voluntary social care providers and assess the performance of
local social services authorities in England.

Despite being an amalgamation of the social care functions of the
National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) and the Social Services
Inspectorate and taking on some of the work of the Audit
Commission, Behan said the commission was “truly a new body”.

He said the CSCI shadow chairperson, Denise Platt, would outline
the new commission’s “values and principles” at the annual social
services conference in Brighton in October and highlight the
importance of engaging people who use social care services in its
work.

Behan said that although work had started on transferring NCSC and
SSI staff to the CSCI, it was too early to give details. But he
acknowledged the need to learn from previous major transitions –
particularly the move of local authority inspection staff to the
NCSC in 2002.

He said it was “impossible” to confirm before the publication of
the green paper on children whether the regulation and inspection
of children’s social services would remain with the CSCI or move to
Ofsted following the move of children’s social services from the
Department of Health to the Department for Education and Skills in
June.

But Behan insisted the CSCI would remain the “custodian of
standards for social care”.

He also confirmed that the CSCI would assume responsibility for the
star ratings system introduced last year to measure social services
departments’ performance and that the assessment process would
remain the same.

Four commissioners were also appointed to the shadow board last
week: Jim Mansell, professor of Applied Psychology of Learning
Disability at the University of Kent; Olu Olasode, a public
services productivity and finance consultant who has undertaken
assignments for the Audit Commission; John Knight, head of external
policy at disability charity The Leonard Cheshire Foundation; and
Peter Westland, former director of social services at Hammersmith
and Fulham Council in London.

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