The Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission was scheduled to discuss the transition of children to adult social care, early action in adult social care, and the adult social care workforce strategy. The commission was also expected to receive a verbal update on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection.

External Workforce Strategy

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education submitted a report to summarise the current position for the workforce that supports Adult Social Care in Leicester. The report pack included a draft of Leicester’s Adult Social Care Workforce Strategy, which stated its vision as:

Making Leicester a great place to work and deliver high quality social care services.

The strategy was scheduled to focus on three priorities:

• Valued: Enhancing the professionalisation of staff, bringing in rewards and incentives, setting out clear career pathways and upskilling staff, ensuring there is a fair pay offer, and developing a communications campaign.
• Sufficient: Supporting recruitment and retention, learning from data from partners such as Skills for Care and using it to focus efforts, moving towards an integrated workforce strategy, exploring how pathways into Social Care can be enhanced and publicised to all age groups, working in partnership with internal and external colleagues to synergise and add value and engaging with and consulting the workforce and representing them as appropriate.
• Confident and Competent: Continuing to offer and support training provision either directly or through partners, linking with key work programmes to identify gaps and opportunities, supporting the workforce through practical solutions and information sharing, and embracing innovation and the use of technology.

The report noted that the adult social care sector in England had an estimated 18,500 organisations with 40,000 care-providing locations and a workforce of around 1.84 million posts in 2023/24. It also noted that Leicester employs 5% of the total adult social care workforce in the city, with the workforce typically being 77% female and having an average age of 41 years old.

Transitions from Children's to Adults

The Strategy Director of Social Care and Education submitted a report to update the Commission on the achievements of the current Joint Health, Social Care and Education Transitions Strategy which ended in 2024, and the plans for the development of a new strategy going forward.

The Joint Health, Social Care and Education Transitions Strategy (2019-22) was developed to ensure that staff working to support young people as they transition into adulthood were clear about the work needed to make sure young people have a good experience as they leave children’s services and become adults.

The Strategy aims to support three groups of children and young people who are likely to require additional support as they transition to adulthood. This includes some of our children who are looked after by the council and may have more complex needs, some children with special educational needs¹, and young people who are eligible for support from adult social care.

The report stated that the current strategy has made progress in advancing key objectives:

Earlier Planning: Implemented and embedded the use of an Independence Checklist starting at age 14 to support preparation for adulthood.

Accessing support: Developed more user-friendly materials, including easy-read information guides to enhance accessibility.

Working together: Established multi-agency panels comprising representatives from social care, health, SEND, and education sectors to identify and proactively support young people with more complex needs.

Supportive Initiatives: Introduced programmes such as travel training and supported internships to empower individuals to realise their potential.

Housing Support: Developing a comprehensive Housing Information Pack (HIP) to provide detailed guidance on housing-related transitions.

Pathway Development: Designed a structured Transitions Pathway and alternative support for young people not eligible for support from Adult Social Care.

Joint Collaborative Workshops: regular open workshops for families and carers in community settings that offer advice and information.

Supported internships: 80% of the interns in the last academic year were offered permanent employment.

Early Action in Adult Social Care

The Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding was scheduled to give a presentation on the high-level of work taking place in Adult Social Care (ASC) that enables the department to prevent, delay or reduce the need for statutory ASC services. The presentation was scheduled to cover the types of early action available, the impact of this support, and areas for further attention.

Early action was described in three tiers:

• ‘Primary’ or universal help, available to all citizens.
• ‘Secondary’ or targeted help, available to people with emerging needs.
• ‘Tertiary’ or supplementary action that minimises the level of long-term support required.

CQC Inspection

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education was scheduled to give a verbal update on the CQC inspection. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.