Strategy to call for more joint working

The Welsh assembly government’s long-awaited social services strategy will reiterate calls for greater job sharing and more joint commissioning of services between councils.

The strategy will say many councils lack the staff and resources to deliver the full quota of social services to the highest standards. As a result, there will need to be more cross-authority collaboration in designing and delivering care and more shared social care management posts.

It will also reinforce many of the messages in the recent review of Welsh public services by Sir Jeremy Beecham.

But the 10-year strategy – dubbed Designed for Care – is unlikely to set specific targets and times for implementing changes, unlike the assembly’s health strategy Designed for Life.

A draft version of the strategy is due to be published early this month after it was approved by the assembly cabinet.

One official close to the strategy, who preferred not to be named, said: “There are clear connections with Beecham: issues around commissioning and collaboration that social services have to grasp. It is about change but it doesn’t call for dramatic things.”