CCPS is delighted to report that CCPS members have scooped more than half of all the Care Accolades awards 2010 for excellence in social care and social work practice this year, including the award for overall winner.

CCPS members won five out of the eight award categories, with Barnardo’s Scotland taking the overall crown for its innovative youth employment partnership with Scottish and Southern Energy. Thistle Foundation, CrossReach, Quarriers and Aberlour Child Care Trust each came first in the awards categories for Investment in the workforce, Team of the year, Use of technology and Involving the community (respectively). Hansel Alliance was a key partner in the Personalisation into practice award won by North Ayrshire Council. Congratulations also go to Turning Point Scotland, Alzheimer Scotland, Action for Children and Enable Scotland, who were all short-listed for an award this year.

We also applaud another CCPS member, Crossroads (Harris), for winning Scottish Charity of the Year at the TFN Scottish Charity Awards 2010. The organisation, which has an annual budget of just £42,000, provides an essential lifeline for vulnerable people who are isolated from both mainland Scotland and often their own neighbours. Its commitment to high-level service user involvement and dialogue was highlighted by the judges of the Scottish Charity Awards.

This recognition of excellent service provision within the voluntary sector follows the pleasing results revealed within the Care Commission's 'Making the Grade' report, issued in March 2010. The report showed that 30% of voluntary sector housing support services and 34% of voluntary sector care at home services received "very good" or "excellent" gradings, far higher than similar services within the public or private sector.

For more information about CCPS members, please follow this link to the CCPS website.

Increasing public concern about re-tendering of social care services in recent months, and calls for greater scrutiny over commissioning from CCPS and other concerned organisations, have resulted in plans by Audit Scotland to undertake an audit of social care commissioning in Scotland.

Audit Scotland’s planned programme for 2010-11 includes a performance audit which intends to assess the reasons for the variations in local social care commissioning practices, how decisions to re-tender are made, and highlight whether good practice principles are being applied. The planned audit also aims to explore the costs and different sectors involved, including the voluntary sector.

This move by Audit Scotland follows strong representations by CCPS both directly to government, and through the Local Government Committee of the Scottish Parliament, whose Convener Duncan McNeil MSP recently backed CCPS' calls for more scrutiny of competitive tendering in care.

According to its website, Audit Scotland has set out its plans as follows: “When commissioning social care, councils must ensure that they focus on the varying needs of often quite vulnerable people, the outcomes to be achieved, human rights and equalities as well as complying with procurement legislation and regulations.”

CCPS hopes the proposed performance audit will be confirmed shortly by Audit Scotland, and anticipates working closely with Audit Scotland, and other interested parties, on this area.

For more information on commissioning, re-tendering and procurement issues, please go to the CCPS website pages on this topic.


 

In May 2010, CCPS moved its offices across Edinburgh, and is now based at Norton Park. Our new contact details are listed below, although our website address remains unchanged, and our work continues apace on issues such as Commissioning and procurement, Regulation of Care, and Personalisation.

CCPS
Norton Park
57 Albion Rd
Edinburgh
EH7 5QY

Tel 0131 475 2676
Fax 0131 475 2528

For more information about our current work, news items and forthcoming events please go to the CCPS website.


 

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