Executive Summary

Social Work in North Lanarkshire promotes social welfare and social justice.  We are committed to the principles of quality and choice, supporting our service users and their carers to lead independent lives within the community.  We work to promote equal opportunities and ensure fair access to Social Work Services.  We recognise staff as our greatest asset and invest in staff development and training to improve Social Work Services.

The most important development for social work services since the year 2000 has been the growth of joint working with health partners.  The aim of joint working is to improve life for service users and their carers by delivering more responsive and better quality services.  We see service users and carers as our partners in this process and are committed to improving the working arrangements we have developed with them.  The emphasis on joint working is reflected in many of the planned improvement actions in this Service Improvement Plan.

Further progress on joint working will result from the Community Health Partnerships (CHPs) which were launched in April 2006.  CHPs will be responsible for delivering effective and modern health care services and will build on the links between local authorities and health, particularly in health improvement and in joint health and care provision.

In order to promote more effective working between health and social care, we have recently revised the workings of the Health and Care Partnership.  This has involved the development of four new care partnership boards, dealing with older people, mental health, disabilities and addictions.  New locality arrangements have also been developed in order to make services more responsive to need at a local level.

A further major development in the last year was the establishment of Community Justice Authorities.  The role of Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) is to plan, co-ordinate, monitor and report on the delivery of offender services.  The Lanarkshire CJA brings together North and South Lanarkshire Councils, the Scottish Prison Service, Strathclyde Police and other key partners.  The CJA will take steps to tackle crime and reduce re-offending in Lanarkshire.  It has produced its first area plan to cover 2007-08 and this is reflected in the Service Improvement Plan.  The CJA will be fully implemented by April 2007.

The Service Improvement Plan 2006/9 reports on the department's progress in implementing the actions outlined in the last plan (2005/8) and details the actions we will take over the next two years to improve our services.

A number of achievements and developments from the current year are highlighted below:

·        The pilot alignment of day care and day hospital services on the Coathill site is complete and is now being rolled out across the area

·        328 staff have been trained in fuel poverty awareness

·        There has been progress in the modernisation programme for residential children's houses with the first Children's House opened in Summer 2006

·        102 people are currently accessing permanent supported employment

·        Care group partnership boards have been developed under new, more effective joint governance arrangements

·        Over 8,500 community alarms are in place for the over 65 population; 34% of the over 75 population now has a community alarm

·        521 people are being supported to control their own arrangements to meet their needs with the planning, design, delivery and funding completely individualised

·        Service user and carer participation and involvement in planning and service delivery is being reviewed and developed

·        A single equalities working group has been established to take forward the equalities agenda

·        The new Lanarkshire Community Justice Authority has been established and will lead to effective joint working in Justice services

In the year 2007/8 we will improve our service by:

·        Continuing to assist service users across all care groups into mainstream employment

·        Increasing the number of people accessing assisted technology

·        Maintaining the number of admissions prevented and number of discharges speeded up through the rapid response service

·        Implementing the new foster carer arrangements

·        Completing the agreed joint strategy with user and carer groups

·        Working in partnership with the Lanarkshire Community Justice Authority to tackle re-offending.

·        Progressing the modernisation programme for residential children's houses

·        Redesigning and reconfiguring Alzheimer Scotland services so that they cover all localities in North Lanarkshire

·        Continuing to develop individualised day opportunities across all care groups

·        Completing the discharge and closure programme for long stay hospitals and residential units

·        Progressing towards the integration of social work and health substance misuse services

·        Rolling out the Clubnet service across North Lanarkshire and incorporating the SAMH mental health information project

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