Government funds social care leaders to prepare sector for Care Bill reforms

Taken from Community Care:

The government has provided hundreds of thousands of pounds to help council managers prepare for and influence the biggest overhaul of adult social care in recent history, in 2015.

The Department of Health is funding a Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services programme designed to prepare authorities for the implementation of the Care Bill and introduction of a £3.8bn pooled health and social care budget in April 2015.

The changes will throw up significant challenges to council managers and practitioners. The Care Bill will introduce several new or revised legal duties for councils covering care management, information and advice and safeguarding, and trigger a significant increase in the number of assessments practitioners will have to carry out every year. The £3.8bn integration transformation fund (ITF) will introduce payment by results for some aspects of government funding for local authorities for the first time, and require councils to introduce seven-day-a-week social care for people leaving hospital or at risk of an admission.

The LGA-based programme is designed to help council managers prepare for these changes and influence government policy in order to make implementation as smooth as possible. It will be led by Andrew Webster, who has taken on an expanded role at the LGA as director of health and care integration, supported by an assistant director of adult social care reform, who is due to be appointed next month. A number of LGA officers will be moved to the programme, whose DH funding level has not been disclosed but is somewhat in excess of £100,000, which is roughly the maximum salary for the assistant director's post.