Partnership and collaborative working is vital in enabling us to achieve an increased impact through our work and greatest benefit to the sector.
We have continued to work collaboratively with key national organisations, employers of all shapes and sizes, registered managers and people who use care and support, their families and carers and the organisations that represent them. This engagement enables us to seek to ensure that policy decisions will achieve positive outcomes for all.
Our close strategic partnership with our counterparts in the other UK nations now includes the Republic of Ireland and has expanded to seven organisations: Skills for Care, Social Care Wales, the Scottish Social Services Council, the Northern Ireland Social Care Council, the Early Years Alliance, Social Work England and CORU.
This important relationship, under the Skills for Care and Development Alliance umbrella, allows us to coordinate our response to issues to enable an increased impact and to support and learn from each other.
As the delivery partner for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on leadership and workforce in adult social care, we have continued to work with colleagues at DHSC to influence the development of a range of activities, including the Care Workforce Pathway for adult social care.
We also engaged with other government departments including the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department of Work and Pensions.
We were an active partner in Think Local Act Personal (TLAP).
We worked closely with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) at national level on their Workforce Development Network and locally with ADASS regional branch members.
We have formed a strategic relationship with the National Care Forum (NCF) with a view to furthering the good history of collaboration between our two organisations.
Skills for Care’s area teams continued to maintain close relationships with key stakeholders and continue to have an important role at a local level in informing, intervening and influencing on behalf of the sector.
We delivered, quality assured and administered - including disbursement of resources - the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment for the child and family sector on behalf of the DfE.
We continued to work closely with the Federation for Industry Sector Skills & Standards (FISSS).
We worked in partnership with the Chief Social Worker and Chief Nurse in DHSC, influencing and supporting them and their teams on relevant strategic workforce issues.
We worked with Health Education England, NHS England and DHSC over an extended period on the development of a refreshed ‘Framework 15’ strategic workforce framework which, for the first time, included the regulated workforce in social care.