8.2 Disaggregation and service quality impact
The overall risk of reduced quality of services may be further exacerbated by the fact that disaggregation will create additional senior management posts as new services are created (as explored in Section 7), with a shortage of experienced people to fill them. This may lead to further quality risk, as new senior leaders get to grips with running services undergoing significant operational transition. It is important to note that whilst (on average) upper tier county council services will be getting smaller, some neighbouring unitaries included in proposals will be increasing in overall size. Therefore, these authorities may benefit from an increase in quality because of their increased scale.
This analysis suggests that if county areas are disaggregated into smaller unitary authorities, there is a risk that the overall quality of people services may be reduced. When seeking to explain this relationship, service directors engaged through this programme suggested that larger local authorities can: Afford to have more resource dedicated to practice development, quality assurance, management oversight, and transformation. Generally offer improved opportunities for staff, increasing the quality of applicants and minimising vacancy rates.
Attract more experienced senior managers and leaders.
It is also the case that smaller local authorities are, on average, likely to make more out of area placements. Out of area placements have been highlighted by several bodies (including government, ADASS, ADCS, and the LGA) as posing a greater risk to the quality of care and requiring additional assurance and oversight. The factors behind this include less direct quality assurance from the placing local authority; a lack of flow of information and data; challenges in care management; the quality and frequency of reviews and support planning; and increased isolation of the person being cared for.
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