A campaign has been launched to give government care inspectors greater powers to stop local authorities flouting statutory guidance.
According to Care Forum Wales, there are numerous examples of “irrational behaviour” when councils commission services to look after elderly and vulnerable people.
The organisation, which is the main representative body of the care sector in Wales, is calling for stricter enforcement of official guidelines..
The plea to the new Welsh Assembly Government is contained in a manifesto published by Care Forum Wales.
Honorary Chief Executive Mario Kreft explained: “The important part of the manifesto is putting service users and social care workers at the heart of all we do in Wales.
“We’re seeing still some quite irrational behaviour by social service departments as they try to balance budgets without fully involving service users, care providers and the social care workforce.
“The new Government needs to give the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales greater powers to ensure that they follow statutory guidance when they are commissioning services.
“One of the most important aspects is that the people who are affected by change are being consulted and that primarily is service users.
“A couple of years ago we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)and the other signatories included the Welsh Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru.
“It was a ground-breaking agreement in the UK to provide a framework for working together but already there is little evidence in some areas that it’s worth more than the paper it’s written on.
“We want to go back to those basic principles on which good partnership working is based..
“At the moment we seem to be faced with departments obsessed with cutting budgets but they don’t seem to have the wherewithal to understand the problems and get a much better service with the providers they’ve got.
“There are authorities that have changed their arrangements without working with providers and consulting with service users and their families.
“There is an irrational approach to tendering. Social care is different to buying a widget for a car or something that can be easily imported from another country in Europe.
“We don’t have to go down the route of compulsory competitive tendering. We have agreed and accepted in Wales that the market alone should not be the determining factor in commissioning services.
“A tendering process driven by purely market forces is contrary to the public service ethos.
“The bottom price will almost certainly not provide the level and quality of services of the reliability and sustainability that we want.
“Under European legislation, there is an opportunity to work with existing providers and others to bring about a new way of working.
“What we’re seeing in far too many local authority areas is this irrational behaviour playing out and closing off the opportunities for innovation we would like to adopt.
“We need to streamline the commissioning process so that we can deliver better and more cost-effective services for Wales.
“There’s a lot to be said for spending the Welsh pound in Wales. We don’t necessarily need to bring in multi-national companies to provide a first class service.
“We can work with very good small and medium social care enterprises that already exist and do a damn good job.
“There is lack of understanding in social services departments that they can get the outcomes that they want as a local authority by working through local partnerships as agreed in the MOU.
“We have rising demand and scarce resources. We don’t need to follow a one size fits all tendering process – we can be imaginative.
“How can it be right that a voluntary or not for profit organisation offering a fantastic service can be excluded from the tendering process if they are not part of an approved list which is effectively a closed shop over a fixed term.
Sadly, our experience suggests that unless, the Assembly gives the Care Standards Inspectorate greater powers including sanctions we may well be having the same discussion in 10 years’ time when many of Wales’s social care enterprises have been consigned to history.
“What we want to ensure that local government is made to follow the law and comply with statutory guidance.
“We all have to abide by the law and we expect best practice in terms of commissioning social care services..
“It seems to me unforgiveable that, in a country that was the first in the world to appoint and Older Person’s Commissioner, that the people affected by changes are not being consulted about them.
“The inspectorate is already looking into the situation in Cardiff where service users were not engaged and we are now urging the new Government to look into a similar situation in North Wales.
“We have the highest proportion of older people in the UK and it is now time to show leadership and an understanding of the medium to long term effects of policy.
“Something has to be done and we are hoping the new Government is going to get a grip on the situation.”
