Regional Social Care Partnerships in Wales

WHO ARE THE REGIONAL SOCIAL CARE PARTNERSHIPS?

There are four Regional Social Care Partnerships across Wales:

These voluntary & autonomous Partnerships were set up in 2001, following the recommendations highlighted in the Welsh Assembly Governments Report of the Task and Finish Group on Workforce Issues in Social Care published in September 2001.  A copy of the 'Report of the Task and Finish Group on Workforce Issues in Social Care' (September 2001) can be found by clicking here.

WHY DO THEY EXIST?

These Regional Social Care Partnerships were established to enable employers and other key stakeholders within the social care sector, to work together to address some of the workforce retention, recruitment and development challenges that face the sector in each region.

WHAT IS THE PARTNERSHIPS ROLE?

It is the role of these Partnerships to provide a regional perspective and influence strategic policy making organisations; to enhance, support and raise awareness of the social care sector across Wales.

WHAT ARE THE PARTNERSHIPS AIMS?

Initial Aims were established by the Welsh Assembly Government in 2001, who funded the Regional Social Care Partnerships from 2002 - 2005. These were further developed in April 2005, to reflect the new funding arrangements for the Regional Social Care Partnerships via the Care Council for Wales. The Regional Social Care Partnerships Aims established by Care Council for Wales now include: 

• To identify the key workforce issues from the sector in each region;
• To develop and update a business plan including financial breakdown indicating how the grant will contribute to the achievement of the partnerships core objectives in the relevant financial year;
• To continue to work in partnership with the Care Council to maximise the benefits for the whole sector;
• To enhance and maintain partnerships between employers across the whole social care sector, FE colleges and education and training providers, career companies and job centre plus;
• To establish a positive working relationship with the Regional ELWa Committee and office;
• To identify key funding and education and training provision priorities for the sector in each region;
• To identify and promote initiatives and good practice within the Partnership regions

WHO REPRESENT THE REGIONAL PARTNERSHIPS?

The Regional Social Care Partnerships have representation from a variety of stakeholder groups including employers, trainers and educators from the independent, voluntary and statutory sectors.

It is presently FREE to become a member of each of the Regional Social Care Partnerships and all are also seeking the valuable input of carers and service users.

WHO FUNDS THESE PARTNERSHIPS?

Each Regional Partnership was established as an autonomous body and received a Welsh Assembly Government grant of £35,000 per annum to support the costs for a co-ordinator for each region. Since 2005 this Welsh Assembly Grant is now administered to the Partnerships via the Care Council for Wales.

In addition to this funding grant, each Partnership has identified avenues of further funding contributions to support the work of each partnership. These additional funds, although small, provide the Partnerships with much needed development budgets to support the work of initiatives developed across each region.

The Partnerships were also able to act as funding conduits for members to access additional funding streams in 2005/06 from Sector Skills Council and Skills Development Funds that were made available via the Care Council for Wales.

HOW ARE THESE PARTNERSHIPS STRUCTURED?

As independent, voluntary Partnerships, each Regional Partnership employs a Co-ordinator, who is the only paid member of that Partnership, each supported by a voluntary Strategic Steering Group.

The composition of the Strategic Steering Groups, broadly reflect the make up of the Partnerships to include a mix of representatives from local authority social services, voluntary and independent providers, DELLS (previously known as ELWa), Careers Wales Companies and HE/FE Education. The input of these members is voluntary and much appreciated.

Each Partnership has its own regional structure of supporting task/sub groups who work with the Co-ordinator to take forward the objectives in each Regional Partnership's Annual Business Plan, developed through consultation with their respective members.

To view how these partnerships feed into consultations and policy making across Wales, please click on the Structures Flow Chart in the right hand menu above.

ALL WALES PARTNERSHIP RELATIONS

Although each Partnership is autonomous within its own region, the coordinators meet on a quarterly basis to share good practice and identify collaborative partnership working to support development of All-Wales initiatives.

As such one of the initiatives developed in 2006, was to merge the website pages used by the individual Partnerships within the Social Services Improvement Agency Website (previously known as the All Wales Unit). With this merger there were several elements that the four Partnerships agreed had an All Wales remit, for which a collaborative approach was suggested. These elements are identified below and are available to view in the left hand menu:

• Communications
• Recruitment
• Learning & Education Provisions
• Funding Opportunities

For additional information on the activities being undertaken by the Regional Partnership for your area, please click on the relevant partnership logo above