Job well done, says annual report
24 July 2006
For a second successive year, the Commission for Social Care
Inspection (CSCI) has achieved its objectives, according to the
annual report for 2005 – 2006, published today.
These include assessing care sector performance, delivering star
ratings for councils, more proportionate inspections, stripping out
costs and focusing on outcomes for people using social care
services. All these have been achieved while pressing ahead with
plans to modernise and improve its regulatory and performance
work.
Dame Denise Platt, Chair of CSCI said: “The last 12 months have
been marked by progress, change, achievement and challenge. Once
again we have shown we are up to the challenge and have improved on
last year’s performance, while working with our partners to plan
for the transition to new regulatory bodies.
“The report demonstrates how CSCI as an organisation is changing
and how we are encouraging councils and the care sector to make
essential improvements for people who use and rely on social care
services.”
She continued: “We have completed a full inspection programme
and focused above all on outcomes for the 1.7 million people who
use social care and the 5 million people who look after their
relatives and friends. We are putting in place a viable,
modernised, sustainable regulatory framework and working to develop
a new performance framework to accompany the Government’s community
services White Paper ‘Our health, our care, our say’. As long as we
are here we will continue to try to raise standards in social
care!”
This year saw CSCI exploring new ways of engaging people of
diverse ages and backgrounds who use social care services, to
ensure its activities were shaped by people’s views, experiences,
needs and aspirations.
The report specifically focuses on CSCI’s work to improve the
quality of social care year on year and the implementation of
CSCI’s programme of modernising regulation. In addition, new
arrangements for assessing councils’ social care services for
children in 2007 have been introduced, in partnership with the
Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).
CSCI’s commitment to making evidence and data available to a
wide audience and reporting to Government on the state of social
care ensured that the organisation enhanced its reputation as an
expert with stakeholders in the social care sector.
Using this information, a range of reports and special studies,
including the first overview report on the state of social care in
England, have been published.
Over the year, CSCI has developed its staff and delivered
significant efficiency savings to prepare staff and systems for a
period of intensive change. Without the commitment of the staff,
which helped to unify the organisation from three separate bodies
in 2004, none of this work would have been achieved.
An outline of the changes to the way the social care sector will
be regulated in the future is also given in the report.
To read the annual report visit the publications section:
Ends