Diary of a CQC assessment: Stage one – volunteering

I wanted to write about the experience of CQC assessment in Lincolnshire before the CQC reported their findings, which will not be for at least several more weeks. I’ve found writing has helped me reflect on the experience and understand rather better – hoovering the house or mowing the lawn has the same effect! I also hope it may help some colleagues think about their own CQC assessment when it comes.

Lincolnshire was the first council Adult Social Services Department in the country to have CQC assessment on all nine Quality Statements. It’s one of five pilot areas with Nottingham City, Birmingham, North Lincolnshire and Suffolk. When CQC first wrote to all DASS’s in the country seeking expressions of interest to help them pilot assessment of adult social care, I had a long-held view in favour of assessment. Of the many reasons to proceed, I recognised both risks and opportunities were in the mix. I think it’s fair to say that regular conversations with my fellow ‘mad-hatters’ suggests some common thoughts and some more disparate.

As our council’s Fire Brigade and Children’s Services had both recently come through inspections, we benefitted significantly from learning from our colleagues in terms of planning and logistics. Both these areas have more mature forms of inspection, and using their experience helped us prepare for an inspection less well evolved. Due to the pilot nature of our inspection, it should be noted that we were limited in understanding how we might compare, beyond insights afforded by nationally reported metrics.

I am also particularly cognisant of the importance of context e.g. rural/coastal, urban, outer London. Context can be used as an excuse or, an opportunity to reason why an organisation and services are shaped the way they are and in part, why culturally we are also rather different.  It’s also  another factor in judging how well an organisation works, uses its resources (though use of resources doesn’t really feature in the CQC assessment programme), and helps improve the lives of the people for whom it is responsible.  Fellow DASSs from pilot sites were also very conscious of how the CQC might come to a judgement, without some appreciation of context (or a mature programme against which to inform those judgements).

Of course, the fact that local government in England represents an accumulation of varying structural models where national policy lands differently is part of our context – a not altogether encouraging example of the consequence of incremental muddling through.  Lincolnshire is a two-tier area (with 7 districts) so Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) policy in the Better Care Fund, for example, is experienced very differently here compared to a Unitary Council. But this is another story…

With the support of my Chief Executive and Portfolio Holder and my leadership team (thanks for the support guys) I sent the letter to volunteer. My request to be considered was acknowledged on 12 April and, confirmation of being a pilot site two weeks later. I knew who I wanted to lead my programme before I applied and was reassured when one of my Assistant Directors agreed to take on the role. I deliberately chose a colleague who had good attention to detail, had been the senior lead in areas for a number of years, I knew to be a key point of focus (e.g. safeguarding) and had most recently been through a peer review. Their ability to be quite capable of living with detail and to apply challenge were other factors – I gave personal attributes and knowledge base equal weighting! This is, in my view, a terribly important choice.