A case study of a council and place that scores higher in this aspect
We have done lots of work to make sure we really understand what we are doing regarding compliance. We built policies with the legal team, people with lived experience, and excluded groups, and we engaged with health colleagues to make sure we had a consistent approach (and necessary differences were clearly identified). We worked with policy and procurement people to shape ways of working we could reliably keep to, so that, along with all our business cases, we have a compliance case and a fuller equalities impact assessment.
It is a lot of work but because we have really worked it through, it adds value. It also makes it much harder for people to criticise our work once it has been through the whole process. We became a Social Value case study and we are talking with DHSC about adopting the new white paper guidance early, which gives us the opportunity to feed back (and is going to be quite important for our financial sustainability).
A case study of a council and place that scores lower in this aspect
We do occasionally run into problems with procurement telling us that our most innovative plans are not a good fit with policy, and often that has to go to the corporate management team to get resolved. We have also had a couple of challenges under the Equalities Act which caused us to reconsider some big recommissioning work.
In general, we understand the framework we have to work within, and we stick to it – this also means that when working with users and practitioners, we have the cover of the Care Act to be able to push through required changes. We had to follow the council policy on social value, which was a bit of a missed opportunity, and our approach to market shaping actually needs to be shaken up a bit – that will be an opportunity to work with providers to come up with something a bit more fit-for-purpose – just in time for the new requirements!
Equality and equity considerations with this aspect
A strong policy and compliance approach to equality is very important, as is responding to compliance requirements with equality and equity in mind. It is important to recognise that compliance with regulation is not a full answer to supporting equality, diversity, and inclusion, but just the beginning.