Recently in Wales Category

This ministerial statement is worth checking out for the latest on plans to legislate to overhaul social services in Wales.
The plans are pretty much as we had them last year - getting councils to collaborate with each other more closely in commissioning and decision-making, putting adult protection on a statutory footing etc

Interesting story from the BBC on Welsh government plans to deliver social services and other council services - through six regions.
No surprises there - the government has made no secret of the fact that it sees collaboration, though not outright merger, between councils as a crucial way of saving money.
The question is what will this mean in practice; will councils within each region have to have a joint director of social services?; how many jobs will be lost at frontline level?
There don't appear to be any answers to these questions at the moment but we'll keep asking the question.

The Welsh government should institute a right to respite for carers, the Tories have said.

In a statement yesterday assembly member Darren Millar said: "Caring for an unwell or elderly friend or relative can be both mentally and physically exhausting and places a heavy burden on relationships.

"Even a brief period of respite care can be a major source of support and rejuvenation to carers."

Full statement after the jump.

Then number of adult safeguarding referrals has rose 9%in 2009-10 official figures show.

Wales Online reports that the annual adult safeguarding report from the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales shows that the total referrals were up to just short of 5,000 over the course of the year.

That sounds like a bad thing but given we know that abuse is vastly under reported it's probably a very good.

It's got to be a boost for the profession when the second biggest party in Wales, Plaid Cymru, bothers to mention you in such glowing terms.

Clearly valuing the contribution of social workers, the party's election manifesto, out today, states: "We will work to eliminate delayed transfers of care, improve services and raise the esteem of social workers and care assistants."

It also promises to develop a Centre of Excellence for Social Services Research to strengthen the quality and quantity of that research.

The manifesto also states: "Plaid will examine the case for creating a comprehensive advocacy service for older people and simplify access to support and information."

All bold words indeed, although its telling that its promise to provide free care is tempered by what it sees as a unfair settlement for Wales from Westminster. That pesky money detail may prove a little problematic for those other pledges too.

However, it's worth noting that the party stops short of recommending an integration of health and social care which is favoured in Scotland, instead plumping to "greater integration". That, after all, would potentially be even more expensive.

Carers in Wales can expect local authorities to take into consideration their needs when planning services and consult them on their plans, under regulations published today.

The draft regulations are still in the consultation stage, so to make your view heard just take a look at them and drop the Welsh government a line.

Could the increasing policy divergence between the four UK nations make it difficult for social work professionals to move across the borders for jobs?

So far this isn't a widespread thought, though it is one that is beginning to be uttered.

As Jon Skone, director of social services in Pembrokeshire and county director of health with the Hywel Dda Health Board, said to me in relation to Wales, the systems social workers and directors work in within those two countries are physically and structurally different from each other.

Hence personalisation is different between the two as is the split between adults and children's departments in England, which remain combined in Wales.

So if someone has to move to another of the home nations to be with a partner, say from Wales to England, that person would be up against people who have worked in England before and know the systems well. Unfortunately one can imagine the outcome.

Skone admits: "I would be anxious about going in a job in England because I don't understand what a director of  a social services department does anymore. I don't have a feel about that and what does personalisation mean in England?"

Does this matter? In itself no but in somewhere like Wales where there is a small and shrinking pool of directors there may be difficulties in finding replacements, though not insurmountable.

To a degree this links with stories of social work students from Wales who study in England or other parts of the UK struggling to make ends meet after no longer being eligible for bursaries from the Welsh regulator.

We've had campaigns against disability benefit reform, campaigns against redundancies and various national groups speaking out for their own section of the sector or clients.

Now, a group of charities, baronesses and academics have launched a consorted campaign against public sector funding cuts.

The Campaign for a Fairer Society says it "wants power and control to shift from government to citizens, families and communities. But we don't want the government's 'Big Society' if that means a loss of basic human rights and unfair cuts focused on the most vulnerable".

It has even got a list of seven principles for a fairer society.

Supporters include Alzheimer's Scotland, Baroness Campbell (herself a well known disability right campaigner) and Jim Mansell (an expert in learning disabilities).

Image by Northampton Museum on Flickr

Cardiff City Council will have its decision to cut the number of providers it deals with from 56 to 11 scrutinised by the national inspectorate, the Guardian reports.

The Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW) will report on the decision with the aim of informing other neighbouring councils.

On one level reducing the number of providers makes sense if it saves councils money, Cardiff says it will save £1.5m through the plan. However, if you are to keep the amount of service the same and cut the number of providers this will surely mean the individual providers have to be larger.

On the face of it that would seem to disadvantage smaller providers, surely just the kind of businesses and social enterprises that the government's Big Society aims to support. We already know that voluntary sector providers are being squeezed endangering the Big Society agenda.

At this rate the government will be left with little foundation on which to build its Big Society.

Coalition cuts are being made on the basis of hunches and not on evidence a report from a Tory-backed thinktank will argue tomorrow.

The Centre for Social Justice, which was set up by the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan-Smith, says Whitehall appears to not be planning cuts properly and that instead services are sacrificed unnecessarily.

I've heard a similar argument before with critics arguing that departments are taking arbitrary decisions in order to cut a sum of money and the report makes it clear that this is an historic problem.

However its key point is that with less money around there has to be a better link to outcomes.

As The Guardian says: "That conclusion will be particularly controversial as the coalition government has scrapped Labour's outcome-based targets and introduced 'business plans' for each department, setting out what ministers must ensure their departments do by when."

In a follow-up to the Health and Social Care Bill, the Western Mail has a good article on the Bill's impact upon Wales. Economic pressures on the English NHS could benefit retention and recruitment in Wales, where there have been problems in the past, it argued and pointed also to the dangers of a postcode lottery appearing.

Finally the Mirror warns that 10 UK troops a day are now being treated for ­psychological problems as a result of the bitter fight with the Taliban.