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Inclusivity must be at the centre of workforce planning, supporting and developing staff and service delivery if social care organisations are to deliver culturally appropriate services that are fit for the 21st century, Daphne Obang told a policy session this week, writes Alison Miller in Newcastle.

The director of social services and housing at Bracknell Forest and the Association of Directors of Social Services policy committee lead on inclusivity, was speaking in advance of the launch tomorrow of Race Equality Through Leadership in Social Care.

The document produced by the ADSS, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Social Care Institute for Excellence, is to help social services directors achieve race equality within their organisations and enable service users to have equality of access to services.

"The social care workforce doesn’t exist for itself, it exists to deliver effective services and excellent services for its customers," Obang said. "Research shows that organisations with black and ethnic minority staff who feel disenchanted are more likely to have staff from other groups who feel disaffected. They are therefore not delivering well."

Really inclusive organisations, she said, use the term valuing staff as an organisational tool – not just rhetoric – and their staff and service users benefit as a result.