The story for Shropshire is a familiar one for local councils. Budgets are stretched and the cost of social care is a growing pressure we can’t ignore.
I have been the Executive Director for People since 2022, holding the statutory roles of Director for Children’s Services and Director for Adults’ Social Services. With 28 years’ experience in social work, I have worked at all levels. Starting out as a support worker, helping adults with learning disabilities resettle after a long stay in hospital, I later became a social worker before moving into leadership roles. I am passionate about making a difference and very familiar with the pressure that social workers face every day. This has never been greater than in the last 12 months.
Demand for adults’ and children’s services has soared since before the pandemic and the cost of providing them has spiralled with inflation. As a rural county with an older than average population Shropshire has been hit hard by reduced funding from central Government.
The council-wide savings target for 2023/24 was set at £51m, and People Directorate’s share of that was an ambitious £21.3m – more than 10% of our budget. I can’t deny feeling apprehensive as April 1st loomed, but I had confidence in our plan – The Shropshire Plan – and in our exceptionally committed teams, bolstered by our award-winning leadership programme. It has always been our mantra that if you focus on delivering healthier outcomes for people, the money will follow. This has been proven by savings we had already made, around £15m over the previous three years.
I have been clear with the teams that we may not get every change right every time, but we are prepared to be brave, rethinking and challenging systems and processes to make sure we get the best outcomes for our residents in Shropshire.
Rising to the challenge and improving experiences
It was essential that we rose to our new challenge at the same time as maintaining, or even improving, the experience of people who need our services.
In children’s services, we have overhauled Early Help, making sure families get the support they need at the earliest possible stage. We have developed a new children’s home, the fourth since 2020, reducing the need to use private providers and ‘growing our own’ high quality care provision instead. We have invested in support to allow children to return home from care, with lasting changes in place to keep families safely together. Working with schools and our transport partners, we have also made it possible for more children to go to schools close to their homes, in the heart of their communities.
In adults’ services we have championed a new joined-up partnership approach to helping people recover more quickly after a stay in hospital. Our virtual care project uses assistive technology to connect residents to a virtual care team, supporting them to reach their goals for independence.
Every person who uses our services is unique and so are their needs, but we know that the more independent we can encourage a person to become, the better for their health in the long term.
Through incredible efforts we had surpassed our target by the end of March and savings across the People Directorate totalled £22.1m for 2023/24. This exceptional savings delivery helped to reduce the overspend resulting from increased cost and demand for adults’ and children’s services by more than 40%.
Rallying against adversity, every team in Shropshire’s People Directorate has contributed to long term change that will continue to benefit our residents and our council.
To say I am grateful to all our staff is an understatement, as well as our partners including the NHS and voluntary and community sector.
We have proven how effective it is to work together as one system to improve and reduce health inequalities, looking beyond the capabilities in adults’ and children’s services to support our most vulnerable residents.
Confident, caring, capable and compassionate
It is not possible to overstate how challenging the last few years have been for our sector or how big the challenge yet to come is going to be. We must continue doing everything we can to manage demand and limit overspending, with more savings to make in this financial year and doubtless, it won’t end there.
We won’t stop making the case for fairer funding that takes account of the very real pressures on adults’ and children’s services, and I don’t pretend there are endless efficiencies we can continue to make – there aren’t.
But I can honestly say we are leaving no stone unturned as we prioritise services for the people who need us most and deliver these in the most efficient way we can – as a confident, caring, capable and compassionate council sowing the seeds for a healthy future.