Scottish Government re £1.2Million pilot trial of ‘personalisation’ in Wigtownshire.

This email was sent 16 Feb 2010 to Chris Raftery  Scottish Government Adult Care and Support (0131 244 5492) re the Dumfries & Galloway Council £1.2Million pilot trial of ‘personalisation’ in Wigtownshire.  As yet there has been no reply and none of the requested information has been provided.

Dear Chris.  Very many thanks for your prompt and comprehensive reply received this morning at 11:34 in response to our two messages sent yesterday.  For the benefit of others your reply is attached.  First may we say that if only the local senior Dumfries & Galloway Council Officers could similarly communicate promptly, transparently and honestly then life would be much improved for everyone.  But seemingly that is a vain hope, not being their culture or attitude, for they do not communicate, never mind promptly, despite the upset they create for so many.

We fully understand all that you say and knew that had to be the position.  But we did not dream up or create the events started last October by the sudden publication of the Alexander/Proctor plan.  At a public meeting on Dec 16^th SW Director Alexander and Senior Social Work Officer Heather Collington used the lamely pathetic and weak defence of, ‘Not me guv – I was only following orders’.  In Dumfries and Galloway Council it is always someone else who is responsible!

The meeting was disingenuously told that Officers were obliged by Elected Members to write and publish that ARC closure plan in order to save £660,000 in 2010/11 and annually thereafter.  How convenient to forget they deliberately and cynically cited the Scottish Government National Policy of “personalisation” as the required underlying justification and to persuade Elected Members to agree.  That is why you and the test site pilot in Wigtownshire are involved, because those Officers involved you directly.  The very officers to whom you have entrusted £1.2Million of OUR money for a ‘pilot’, cynically created this plan and very publicly betrayed the trust of all involved, not least the service users.  By doing so and misusing the test pilot they have badly discredited that study.  That is why we reasonably insist their motives and competence need to be examined now, before that test pilot ‘progresses’ further.

As an aside locally we noted in the same recent block ad for D&G Council Jobs, one for a Carer at the Kirkconnell ARC, salary ~£8K.  Just above that was one for a Research and Evaluation Officer, salary £33K – £36.5K, for the Personalisation Test Pilot in Wigtownshire, closing date 12^th Feb, that is last Friday.  Now Wigtownshire is not a very large area and hardly densely populated.  Indeed we question whether and how it is suitable and representative as a ‘Personalisation’ test site at all, surely it is too small?  Where is the prior evaluation that any test pilot data will be statistically valid for extrapolation nationally?  Can we see this please.  Also we ask why, in addition to a Manager and a 22 person ‘Personalisation Board’ plus numerous other sub groups and committees all talking and writing copiously to each other but not service users, does a full time £36.5K pa job need to be created to “evaluate”?  Where is the justification for this, for it is public money being spent.

Evaluate what precisely?  How much data is expected?  How is this extra job justified, at a time of austerity and cuts, noting also it is more than 4 times the value of an ARC carer, who actually makes a direct front line contribution.  But then it’s easy to spend ‘other people’s money’, apparently with little or no accountability.

Where are the plans and assumptions underlying all of this?  Please can they be published to us, under FoI if necessary.  Please treat this as a formal FoI request if that is really necessary.  We have asked Director Alexander, but received no answer.  Will you, with responsibility for the £1.2Million being spent, please direct him to release all this public information to us by email immediately, or do so yourself or get others to do so.  Email and attached files PDF or Word is preferred and the simplest with little or nil variable cost.

As far as we can ascertain no D&G Council Elected Member has owned up to pressuring the two authors into writing the Alexander/Proctor plan, which must therefore entirely be the voluntary creative wish and policy of those Officers.  No one twisted their arms up their back!

It is clear that no one forced them to offer up a serious “achievable & sustainable” £660,000 annual budget saving plan by closing 4, as yet still secret and unidentified ARCs, by the end of next month.  That was their serious plan and still is their intention, even though they were forced to delay for a year once the massive management, statutory and accounting flaws in their ‘strategic plan’ were laid bare by a huge public outcry.  At best this is not competent, at worst there are far stronger words of criticism that can be justifiably used.

As your Dec 8^th paper clearly states “The Local Government (Scotland) Act 2003 provides that local authorities have a duty to involve service users in the services they provide. This can take the form of local support organisations …”.  However, not being to answer justified criticism is why Director Alexander is now trying to run away and evade his statutory duty by refusing to communicate with and involve a significant group of service users and their carers.  We reasonably ask if that is really the sort of attitude that should be exhibited by someone responsible for a National Strategic test pilot, spending £1.2Million?  We think not and are therefore demanding that all this now be examined openly and publicly.  We repeat, this situation has been entirely created by the subversion of ‘Personalisation’ and self directed support by the Alexander/Proctor plan.

So put simply we say that honesty and transparency and ‘Best Value’ of public money demands an immediate review now of the test pilot they are supposed to have been managing for the past year or more.  You are of course aware that as of late last year the ‘manager’ could not answer simple questions and was working off a domestic table in a kitchen or dining room.  If you doubt this contact the local carers.  Yet this is a £1.2Million test pilot of National strategic importance.  Ironically once this was made public by carers in Wigtownshire, who were not consulted, the manager was then housed in the local ARC building.  Presumably not one of the 4 ‘buildings’ to be closed by the end of next month!

We note that “In terms of the separate issue of progress of the test sites, we have contracted independent evaluators that will identify any progress or lack of progress. These evaluators will be able to determine the value achieved through this investment and determine learning for all Scottish Local Authorities and what interventions have worked well and which have not worked so well.”   Please will you advise who are the ‘independent  evaluators’, as we wish to be in contact with them about all these matters now, because we firmly believe public money is presently being wasted.

Is this the ‘academic’ evaluation we have reassured will ensure all is OK?  We have asked Director Alexander about this, but as ever no reply, since the track record in 2006 of the deliberate misuse of academic research by this Council & NHS Officers is not very encouraging or confidence inspiring.  See www.dumfries-galloway.org.uk in July and August 2006 for the historical evidence of this.

Please will you post all our correspondence on your site so others can freely see what we are saying from Dumfries & Galloway.  Also please will you make sure and confirm this is all FW to the 3 authors of the Dec 8th Paper as requested yesterday and your colleagues.  We wish to stress there is no opposition to the general concepts or actions concerning the objectives of SDS and ‘Personalisation’.  We have no doubt it is of great benefit to many, but as you say not all.

We look forward to hearing further.  Many thanks again for your prompt and helpful reply.                                      www.dumfries-galloway.org.uk