Adass reorganises to meet adult care policy challenges

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has reorganised itself to respond to the current policy and economic challenges facing adult social care and exert greater influence on government.

Adass has created six new special programme boards, each chaired by a senior officer, which are designed to reflect the key issues being faced by the sector in the coming year.

Issues they will cover include the future delivery of adult care, the commission on care funding, announced last week, the impact of the health White Paper on adult social care, impending government spending cuts to councils and the government’s Big Society agenda.

The boards, which will operate over the next nine months, will draw on experience within Adass’s policy networks, which cover client groups and overarching issues such as resources, though it is unclear how the boards and networks will interact.

Adass president Richard Jones said: “These new, single-purpose programme boards will enable our association to have maximum flexibility in responding to the efficiency gauntlet which has been thrown down by the coalition, as well as enable us to take advantage of all the many opportunities to improve the offer we make to the people in our communities.”

The new boards are:

• The vision development board, which will develop a vision for adult social care for the next three to five years and produce a report by September for discussion with ministers, ahead of a planned government paper on the same issue later this year. The Adass report will be published in November.

• The integration board, which will respond to the health White Paper’s proposals to overhaul the NHS and its implications for joint working between councils and the health service. Initial thinking will be reported to the ADASS general meeting in November.

• The Big Society, care and support board, which will share learning around what is working in relation to Big Society initiatives to promote volunteering and active citizenship.

• The resource reduction board, which will support the work of the resources committee in preparing for the forthcoming autumn spending review and support adult social service directors in the budget setting process for 2011. It will also be required to develop specific work around simplifying and taking costs and complexity out of the care management process.

• The improvement board, which will work with the Improvement and Development Agency, the Local Government Association and the Department of Communities and Local Government to build an approach to sector-led improvement, inspection and support.

• Long-term care commission board, which will contribute to the thinking of the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support and help engage the public in the debate on the future funding of care. It will also look at the forthcoming proposals from the Law Commission in its review of adult care law.

Related stories

Thousands set to lose out on social services support

MPs: Councils will struggle to take on health White Paper role