1. Single Outcome Agreements 2009-10: an analysis by CCPS
CCPS membership meeting, December 2009
research-reports
Here we are again 
Can read full report or exec summary online, I’m just going to give you a quick tour of the main findings.
Am assuming by now that you are reasonably up to speed on what SOAs are, but as a reminder:

2. National performance framework
1 common purpose
5 strategic objectives
7 high level targets
15 national outcomes
45 performance indicators/targets
This framework set by government nationally – SOAs to reflect how local areas will meet the national outcomes/indicators they are interested in and what their local priorities are.
But to a certain extent these don’t seem to matter.
When these were published in late 2007, we were worried that social care wasn’t explicitly referenced in the framework, and you may remember that last year one of our conclusions was that that didn’t matter too much, as the national indicators, where we might have expected to find social care, were used/not used by local authorities as they saw fit.
This year we actually found that social care received the best ‘quality’ of coverage in SOAs that moved away from the national outcomes and indicators and were a bit creative e.g.
Dundee and Clackmannanshire, rather than reporting on NO6 ‘we live longer, healthier lives’ had split this into 3 health outcomes – both then ended up with an outcome specific to social care and were able to give good coverage to the issue
Removal of indicator on independent living from IS menu made no difference – refs to ind living went up
Reliance on statutory indicators bit limiting – not so much from national outcomes, but from HEAT targets and ccof
Some examples of cpps that had thought outside the box e.g. no of children supported using direct payments, older people with positive perceptions of quality of life – but these were pretty few and far between
Most of the research not concerned with the quality of the references but the quantity – limitations of this method, but allowed comparison with last year.

3. Is social care adequately covered?
Hard to say as different client groups receive different levels and types of coverage:
Older people, children young people and families, people with mental health problems and people with problematic alcohol and drug use feature in all 32 SOAs
People with disabilities 28
Carers 24
Offenders/ex-offenders 23
People with learning disabilities 19

4. Won’t be able to read but this is a screenshot of the appendix to the full report – gives info by client group

5. Topic
National Outcome
Text
Local
Outcome
Indicator
Social care
Service delivery
NO15
One of the central approaches to delivering further efficiencies is to plan and deliver more services on a shared basis with partners both within the City and across the broader region.
Funding
Our public services are consistently high quality, continually improving, efficient and responsive to local people’s needs
Deliver national target of 2% efficiency savings across all statutory partners

6. Is social care adequately covered?
Independent living – 21 contain an outcome or indicator, up from 14 last year BUT
telecare down from 6 to 5
dp or self-directed support down from 5 to 3
personalisation down from 2 to 1
employability for social care client groups down from 22 to 12
Re employability, the number referencing services went up – this is not what we were expecting

7. Are social care services adequately covered?
Below the waterline?
31 reference services for children, young people and families, 26 for older people BUT 8 reference services for people with disabilities
The golden thread?
27 reference children’s services plans, 4 reference plans relating to disability services
We were concerned last year at lack of references to services – IS and COSLA said clearly that SOAs should be strategic documents only, and that references to services should be below the waterline.
So the answer to both research questions, is social care adequately covered and are social care services adequately covered is:

8. Unanswered questions How are SOAs being reported on and monitored?
What does it mean not to be included?
Started reporting in September, but hard to find on websites and patchy standards of reporting
More important though, what if they don’t meet own targets – electorate??
No national monitoring – vol orgs are filling the gap but is this really the best use of our time?
Hard to answer that as still not really sure how important they are – mainly as not yet established link between SOAs and budgets/service decisions
Very basic research re learning disability suggests that budgets more likely to be cut where not mentioned, but this is back of the envelope stuff and there’s a real need for something robust.
This leads on to my overall scary conclusion which is that

9. Conclusion?
Reading the SOAs is not in itself enough to draw conclusions about implications for social care in local areas
SO WHAT NEXT??
Do we maintain an interest in SOAs – is this where you want us to be putting our resources c.f. can we afford to take our eye off the ball
Do we repeat the analysis – I’d be tempted to say no
Do we try to influence SOAs – does CCPS have a locus at the local level
I’ll be presenting thoughts to the board on this in the new year, so very happy to hear your thoughts. Also happy to take any questions on what I’ve presented or other parts of the report – would encourage you to read it if you’ve got time