Introduction

In November 1998, the government issued a White Paper entitled Modernising social services: Promoting independence, improving protection, raising standards (DH, 1998). It contained a raft of new structures and processes for regulating standards of social services provision at both an individual and a corporate level. It also introduced the concept of a Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) to “provide a basis for a common understanding between central and local government on performance, value for money and resourcing issues in social services” (p 116). This heralded the inception of a sophisticated social services performance assessment system to monitor and compare the performance of social services provision on a local authority basis, building on the established inspection functions of the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) and the then recently established system of Joint (SSI/Audit Commission) Reviews, and including a framework of statistical performance indicator information and twice-yearly self-auditing by councils with social services responsibilities (CSSR) to reflect the state of play in key national priority areas.

By 2002, this system had grown rapidly in sophistication, in response to the increasing requirements on it to provide a comprehensive and objective audit trail through all the available performance evidence on social care, culminating in the allocation of a yearly star rating for each CSSR, and (subsequently) the introduction of sanctions and rewards for failing and high performing councils respectively.

The main part of this chapter charts the development of the performance assessment system through those formative years. It gives an overview of the component parts of the system and of the methodology by which the star rating is determined. We explore and discuss some of the logistical challenges encountered in arriving at a single overall view of a council's performance; and present some contemporary views of practitioners in local authorities on the pros and cons of the performance assessment process and its potential for impact on services. We also discuss the extent to which the voice of service users is heard in this process.

This chapter also outlines the more recent organisational changes for social care inspection and discusses their implications for evaluation of social care services.