The ALLIANCE SDS/Social Care 2021 review

2021 saw the launch of the National Care Service for Scotland consultation, and extensive proposals for social care delivery in Scotland.

At the close of 2021, the SDS/Social Care team led on the ALLIANCE response to the National Care Service consultation, with full response, a summary document, and an anthology of contributions from members. This comprehensive consultation response has been followed by a suite of associated activity, including meetings with the Bill team, supporting colleagues who attend the Social Covenant group and the NCS Key Stakeholder Reference group, and the launch of a new Opinion/ALLIANCE Live series on the role of lived experience and the third sector in the National Care Service.

The team also highlighted social care considerations in several other policy documents, including a briefing on learning from changes to social care during the COVID-19 pandemic, the SiRD consultation on funding for the independent support sector, a briefing on vaccine passports, the Scotland becoming a Fair Work Nation consultation, the Good Food Nation Bill, and the development of a new suicide prevention strategy for Scotland.

Throughout 2021, the SDS/Social Care programme continued work on ‘My Support My Choice: People’s Experiences of Self-directed Support and Social Care in Scotland’ (MSMC). We published the final suite of reports, centred on people’s experiences of SDS in specific local areas. We also organised and ran five well-attended local feedback sessions, with Self Directed Support Scotland: Scottish Borders, Glasgow, Moray, South Lanarkshire, and Dumfries and Galloway, including contributions from Social Work Scotland and HSCP representatives.

Further activity intended to help improve SDS/social care across Scotland included running a joint event with CCPS, ‘Shifting Power’, on the future of SDS and adult social care in Scotland (with over 100 attendees). We also ran an ALLIANCE conference session with See Me, ‘Mental health, inclusion and social care’, and an International Women’s Day event on women’s experiences as users of SDS, including presenting findings from MSMC thematic report with a lived experience/professional speaker from Community Brokerage Network, event report here.

The SDS/Social Care team presented on SDS/social care at the launch event for the newly published Poverty in Scotland: towards a 2030 without poverty (this link will take you away from our website), where we wrote a chapter. We spoke at the ARC-KSS Academy Researcher’s Week (this link will take you away from our website) on social care in Scotland and presented at Coalition of Carers in Scotland’s AGM on human rights and people’s experiences of social care. We also presented on MSMC research approaches at a Policy Scotland/TSRF webinar on using third sector research to influence policy and practice (this link will take you away from our website).

The team published an ALLIANCE Thinkpiece on the Christie Commission 10 years on: achieving the vision today. We also wrote and published Opinions drawing on MSMC: on how people with learning disabilities experience SDS; on the importance of respite for unpaid carers; on older people’s access to SDS/social care; on Deafblind people’s experiences of SDS; reflections on partnership working and peer research for International Day of Disabled Persons; and on the need for good social care data to inform evidence-based policy.

We also worked closely with Social Work Scotland’s SDS team, as part of their steering group, and we contributed to the revisions of the FAQ to accompany Scottish Government and COSLA Guidance on SDS Option 1 and 2 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reports of other ALLIANCE programme activities during 2021 can be found in our News section.

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