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Formal Consultation Response to Modernisation of Care Management Pathways. Dec 07
Mr. T. Golby
Assistant Director - ACS
Devon County Council
County Hall
EXETER EX2 4QW
Our concerns remain as stated in our letter of 29 Oct 07. The timing of the consultation process, the manner of implementation of the Assessment and Review Teams (ART) and the Trusted Assessor pilots and the nature of the road shows lead us to be concerned that this is not a genuine consultation in respect of the model, and that management have already made their decisions concerning the outcome. ACAS guidelines and Court Cases have stated that there must be a full and genuine consultation to fully engage with unions to consider all these aspects.
If it appears the decision has already been made then this invalidates the consultation process. We therefore request that the current proposals be abandoned and that a genuine and meaningful consultation commence that looks at existing good practice and is prepared to listen to alternatives.
It is a fact that SMG have introduced one new strategy after another over the last 10 years at great financial cost to DCC. Each one has added to the bureaucracy that frontline staff has to deal with and adversely impacted on the amount of assessments that can be undertaken every week. SMG have admitted that each previous initiative 'has not delivered' the desired effect - in other words SMG have repeatedly failed in their duty to identify the necessary policies and practices to meet the needs of the people of Devon. As a consequence of SMG management's failed actions over the last 10 years, the ability of staff to meet Government targets regarding assessing need in 28 days has been compromised, and waiting lists have steadily risen.
SMG now state that there is major problem with OT waiting lists and there needs to be new pathways to dealing with referrals. The fact is that despite OT related referrals accounting for between 60 and 70% of all face to face assessments, the OT workforce only accounts for 20% of frontline staff. It is clear that had SMG been aware of this and acted accordingly, we would not now be in this situation of 'urgent need' for change. It is also a fact that if the OT workforce by half they will then only account for 10% of the workforce. This is at a time when all predictions are for a significant demographic increase in vulnerable people living in Devon over the next 20 years and that there will be a need for qualified experienced staff to meet their needs.
It is also a fact that in many frontline teams where local management have taken action in implementing effective referral pathways, there have not been OT waiting lists. If SMG had been aware and looked at this good practice and adopted these methods across the County rather than spend significant amounts of money on obtaining the views of external consultants, a lot of ratepayers money could have been saved, and it is reasonable to state that there would not be any OT waiting lists.
SMG have not obtained written legal opinion with regards to their changes to the assessment of client needs. UNISON have obtained advice that leads us to believe that these changes will not comply with Community Care and Disability legislation and have outlined these concerns to SMG and requested written legal opinion be obtained. SMG have not obtained this written advice and believe that they are acting lawfully, based purely on the opinion of their own managers, who are not legally qualified. We remain of the view that these changes may be unlawful, and that this watering down of the assessment process will expose vulnerable clients to unnecessary risk, and also expose DCC to subsequent legal action for failing to appropriately assess need. We believe that the elected members of DCC should be made aware of these risks and that a vote should not be taken without independent legal opinion being obtained as if they vote to pass policies that are subsequently found to be unlawful they could be held personally liable.
It is a fact that it has also been a legal requirement since December 2006 for DCC to carry out 'Equality / Disability Impact Assessments' on all existing policies, but more importantly on any new policies before implementation. This is a rigorous process of assessment that should have taken place from the outset, even more so with these proposals as they will clearly impact on the disabled people of Devon for many years to come. Since the beginning of the year UNISON has been raising this legal requirement to carry out this EIA/ DIA with SMG, but this request has been ignored.
As part of this new process SMG plan to set up 'Complex Care Teams' (CCT), the staff in these teams will in future only deal with very complex cases. Staff will be exposed day in, day out, to exposure to very challenging cases. Whilst such staff do possess high levels of 'emotional resilience' this will be degraded by this constant exposure to cases of this nature. The proposals do not facilitate any breaks from this kind of work and consequently such staff will in all likelihood suffer from stress and breakdown and will be unable to maintain the quality of work required and they will go absent. It is likely that this may result in legal claims against DCC.
In summary our view is that if we are being consulted on an outline / skeleton policy which is a work in process to be developed in future then that is fine but management is not currently in a position to consult effectively on redundancy as there are too many unknowns. If we are also being consulted on definitive outcomes for working practices, then management are once again in no position to consult as they have not as yet provided sufficient information for us to consider.
In respect of ART we have not as yet received the full evaluation document to comment on, only a partial evaluation. The qualitative work consultation meetings have only just finished and the report on them has yet to be finalised and submitted and this forms part of the evaluation.
In respect of Trusted Assessors the pilots have only just started
- There is no information about how reviews are to be reintroduced into ART
- There is no information about how Learning Disability is to be integrated into ART
- There is no information about how aspects of Supporting People are to be introduced into ART
- The process in respect of CCT formation has yet to start - are there to be pilots?
- There is no information as to how recruitment issues are to be resolved
Discussion on Brokerage / Enhanced Brokerage has been minimal and that remains a pilot currently.
Our view is that we are in a consultation phase in respect of policy formation only and the outcome / redundancy consultation phase needs to be later when the information is clearer.
Pauline Roberts
ACS UNISON Convenor
Cc Sam Newman
David Johnstone
Elected Members.