Social Work Services Strategic Forum
Tuesday 3 February 2015, St Andrews House, Edinburgh
Note of Meeting
Attendees
Fiona McLeod (Chair)
Alan Baird
Anna Fowlie
Trish Hall
Ron Culley
Stephen Smellie
Ranald Mair
Andy Kendrick
Harry Stevenson
Annie Gunner Logan
Mike Foulis
Geoff Huggins
Fiona McQueen
Jane Mackenzie
Shona MacPherson
Ruth Winkler
Neil Weston
Apologies
Jane Devine
Robert Peat
Michelle Miller
Neil Rennick
Shirley Rogers
Christina Naismith
Minister for Children and Young People
Chief Social Work Officer, SG
SSSC
Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW)
COSLA
Unison
Scottish Care
HEI Rep (Strathclyde University)
Social Work Scotland
CCPS
Director of Children & Families, SG
Director, Health & Social Care Integration, SG
Chief Nursing Officer, SG
OCSWA, SG
OCSWA, SG
OCSWA, SG
Assistant Private Secretary, Minister’s office
Social Work Scotland
Care Inspectorate
SOLACE
Justice Directorate, SG
Health Workforce Division, SG
Joint Improvement Team
1. Welcome and introductions
The Minister welcomed everyone to the meeting, the main purpose of which was to
discuss the Final Draft Vision and Strategy for Social Services in Scotland.
2. Vision & Strategy for Social Services – Final Draft
Alan gave a brief overview of the main changes to the version of the Strategy which
had been sent out before the meeting. He drew attention to a number of points
including the greater emphasis made in the context section to current financial
climate within which we are operating. He noted that all of the input from strand
leads, partners and wider stakeholders had been extremely helpful in development
of the revised version. He noted that he had met and discussed the actions with the
strand leads and that the revised version was reflective of these discussions.
1
Points made in discussion:
Terminology/Language
 Ranald suggested that it would be useful to be clearer about the definition of
social services, who is in the workforce etc. and that possibly some of the
information about the sector in Annex 1 could go earlier, in the main body of the
text.
 Anna suggested that an organisation like Enable might be able to write a short
pamphlet explaining the Strategy to make it more accessible for service users.
Context/ Actions
 Andy noted that the context section was good but that some of the actions were
quite technical and could be re-ordered, redrafted to better reflect the aspirations
of the vision. However Annie advised that the balance in the wording needs to be
quite careful as some of the CCPS members had felt that in earlier versions the
actions were too vague and not specific enough.
 Harry noted that he agreed that dates etc. should not be too detailed in the
Strategy as it could quickly date the document.
 Ranald suggested that greater focus on the outcomes which the actions were
intended to achieve might help give greater context to them.
Political Context
 Trish felt there was still scope to highlight that social services are based on
welfare principles. We are quite unique in this country in that social workers are
agents of change, with a strong link to social policy.
Workload/caseload issues
 Fiona McQueen asked if this issue was explicit enough in the document.
 Alan noted that it was difficult to get consistency on the best approach to this
across the sector.
 Stephen agreed that workload management is critical to all social services given
increasing workloads across the sector. The different ways of supporting the
workforce is implicit in the actions being taken forward to support workforce
management.
 The Minister suggested that the Paper for Agenda Item 5 (The IRISS View from
Here Project) was likely to be an action which would be relevant for this issue.
 Ranald noted that the Strategy needs a quite broad-brush approach because of
the wide range of occupational groups and different staffing ratios particularly in
the care sector.
 The Minister noted that much of the detail would be picked up as part of the
Implementation Plan
Performance
 Ron reminded the Forum of the Cosla view about the key role of the Care
Inspectorate in leading on any actions on this strand rather than any others on
the Forum. He also noted that there should be a link with the Health and Social
Care outcomes to avoid duplication.
2


Ron also asked whether there was some duplication between some of the
Performance actions. Jane clarified that action 1 related to qualitative information
collected by the Care Inspectorate whilst action 4 related to existing data
sets/quantitative, however there may be scope to merge into one single
recommendation.
There was discussion about the key purpose of the actions on this strand being
about collating and making more consistent existing sources of performance
information rather than creating anything g new. It was also acknowledge that if
gaps in our understanding of performance were identified then there would be
opportunities to discuss this as part of implementation activities in order to
consider how best to fill gaps.
ACTIONS:
 OCSWA to make final adjustments to the Strategy and send to Forum
members by 12 February.
 Forum members to respond by 20 February in order to agree Final version
for launching on 17 March.
 Anna Fowlie to liaise with Enable re production of a “summary” pamphlet
which will be an easier read version of the Strategy.
3. Implementation of Strategy – Draft Implementation Plan
Alan summarised that the purpose of the draft Implementation Plan was to outline
how the actions from the Strategy would be taken forward. The Minister noted the
importance of keeping the momentum going after the March launch so that progress
can be reported at the next Forum meeting in June.
Points made in discussion
Context/Prioritisation
 Geoff noted that the Implementation Plan reads a bit like a long “to do” list and
might be improved if it said more about the outcomes the actions will achieve. It
might also be useful to prioritise the actions into the significant “must do” ones
and the ones that “would be nice to do if”. There are also interactions between
the actions so it would be useful to show this, to better understand their totality.
 Anna suggested we remove the numbers against the actions as this could
suggest a prioritisation that does not actually exist.
Progressing the Implementation Plan
 Ranald noted it would be necessary to have small groups of people to take some
of the actions forward. There was general agreement that we could not expect
everyone to be involved in everything.
 Harry noted that some organisations are already involved in taking actions
forward and some groups already exist which are leading on some of the
actions. It will be important for the plan to reflect this current activity as well as
indicating where something new will need to be asset up.
 Jane suggested that it might be helpful to have some kind of workshop event
(similar to the 10th March 2014 event) to go through the Implementation plan in
more details with Forum members before the June 23 Forum meeting. This
3

would allow greater discussion on the links and the best groups to take forward
collective actions.
Harry agreed and suggested that this might also provide an opportunity to get
other people from outwith the Forum involved in taking forward the actions.
Resources
 Ron noted at some of the actions are “aspirational” and potentially more difficult
to deliver, particularly in the current financial climate.
 Ranald noted that implementation is not cost neutral. In looking at implementation
we will need to be clear what resources are required and where they might come
from.
 Alan noted that there are two aspects to the financial implications of the Strategy
– what money might become available to support certain actions and also what
resources are available through partners round the table, but this will be explored
further as part of the Implementation plan discussions.
Performance
 Ron noted he will be taking the Vision and Strategy to the Cosla Leaders meeting
at the end of February, before its launch. There could be an issue relating to the
Performance section if it is not clear that in the implementation approach that the
Care Inspectorate has lead on production/publication of performance information
rather than the Scottish Government.
 Mike emphasised that the section is called “Understanding Performance” rather
than “performance management” and that this distinction is important to set the
section and the actions in the right context. It is about the people who run
services having access to the right information to know what is working and how
they can improve things.
 The Minister noted this was also her interpretation of the section – that it was
about how understanding performance informs improvement and making sure the
correct information was available so service providers can deliver services well.
She was keen to understand this issue more and see how it fits with the Care
Inspectorate’s forward plans .
ACTIONS:
 OCSWA to set up meeting with the Minister, Ron Culley, Alan Baird and
Robert Peat Inspectorate to discuss Performance strand further
 OCSWA to organise workshop events to enable Forum members to discuss
the detail of the Implementation Plan as soon as possible to enable
discussion on progressing the actions to take place at June Forum
meeting.
4. Launch of Strategy – Event Outline
Shona talked through the outline which had been distributed about the format of the
proposed Launch Event which had been developed with input from Trisha Hall and
Jane Devine. (Event to take place at the Hub, Edinburgh on afternoon of 17 th March
2015) It was noted that Richard Holloway would be unable to attend so suggestions
for a keynote speaker would be welcomed. Involvement in the event from as many
Forum members as possible was sought in order to emphasise the partner
4
ownership of the Strategy. OCSWA would co-ordinate invitations to the event in
order to manage numbers.






A number of suggestions for keynote speakers were made, including: Bob
Holman, Karen McCluskey and Elish Angiolini.
Annie suggested that Forum members should suggest representatives from their
organisations/workforce to speak at the event to say what the Strategy means for
them.
Steven agreed that we should get workforce representatives to speak at the
event.
It was agreed that the use of film clips would be useful to get Forum members to
say something about the Strategy for everyone to see at the start, but also to
include people who are delivering services talking about social services.
Workstrand leads agreed they were happy to do a Q&A session and to give a
brief overview at the start about the proposed actions.
Harry suggested that the Chief Officers from Health & Social Care Integration
partnerships should also be on the invite list.
ACTIONS:
 Annie, Stephen, Ranald, Harry and Trisha to send confirmation of who will
speak on behalf of their organisations/interests at the launch by Friday 13
February
 Forum members to send names/emails addresses for their 10 nominated
invitees to OCSWA by Friday 13 February.
 OCSWA/SASW and SWS to continue to develop the detail of the launch.
5. Update on Early Actions
Practitioner Engagement Paper
Jane introduced the paper as an example of the one of the recent/current actions of
relevance to the work of the Forum – particularly in regard to workforce actions. She
noted that the paper was look back at 2014 events and that OCSWA would be
developing a plan for similar events in 2015 which would be shared with the Forum.

Ranald noted that it was important that people know what has happened with
the points they raised in the discussions at the engagement events. The
Minister agreed that Forum members and others need to feedback to people
the actions that have been taken. There is also scope to consider how we
might more widely disseminate the findings more widely.

Trisha noted that SASW had a series of events planned so we should try to
synchronise the next Practitioner Engagements with these. There might also
be scope to theme events around the strands of the Strategy.

Harry said that South Lanarkshire would be happy to host a further event.
Alan thanked him for the offer and noted that the intention would be to try and
cover different venues/geographic areas from 2014.
5
ACTIONS:
 OCSWA to circulate plans for future events as early as possible to enable
“joining-up” with events being organised by other Forum members
 Trisha to send OCSWA the dates for planned SASW engagement events.
IRISS Project – the View From Here
Jane summarised the proposal and asked for if the Forum members would like to be
involved in a reference group to oversee the project. Alternatively Forum members
could nominate someone from their organisation to be involved. It was noted it
should be possible to do much of the engagement on the project via email.
Forum members indicated support for the project and willingness to be involved as
reference group. In specific connection with the survey aspect of the project a
number of questions were raised relating to who owned the data and how it would
link with other surveys being undertaken across the sector. Jane noted these
questions were being discussed at the moment with IRISS and the Guardian and
that she would make sure that Forum concerns were addressed.
ACTION:
 Forum members to confirm to OCSWA by 20 February whether they or a
nominated individual from their organisation would be the nominee for the
Reference Group for the View from Here project.
6. Sum up and Next Steps
Alan thanked Forum members for their positive and constructive participation in the
development of the Strategy and noted the general consensus on the agreed
direction of travel.
The Minister also thanked Forum members for their very useful contributions to the
meeting. She also noted how interesting she had found the discussion and that she
was looking forward to her continued involvement with the Forum over the next few
months.
Next Steps



OCSWA will send out a note of the meeting highlighting the specific actions
for Forum members.
OCSWA will address the comments made on the Strategy and issue a
“Final” version to Forum members by week ending Friday 13 February.
Forum members to submit any final comments no later than Friday 20
February 2015.
7. AOCB - None
8. Dates of next Meetings. Location: St Andrews House, Edinburgh
Tuesday 23 June 2015
10.00 – 12.00
Tuesday 15 September 2015
10.00 – 12.00
Tuesday 8 December 2015
10.00 – 12.00
6