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3. The change programmes

The detail of implementation has been divided into five change programmes:

• Performance Improvement;
• Service Development;
• Workforce Development;
• Practice Governance; and
• Leadership and Management

Each programme will be led by an external chair and supported by Social Work Services Policy Division. We will bring together under each chair a group of people with an interest and expertise in the subject. The make up of groups will change over time to reflect changing priorities. The remit of the groups will be developmental and action focused in nature, taking the recommendations of Changing Lives and turning them into concrete actions.

They will:

• be creative, developing new thinking on the subject;
• draw in expertise, ideas and approaches from elsewhere;
• develop and test out approaches that contribute to the goals of Changing Lives;
• share learning and promote good practice;
• work with change networks to support and champion wider implementation; and
• review progress and set new milestones as appropriate.

The change programmes will use the website to communicate their work in a collaborative way, promoting wider engagement in the development and encouraging all interested parties to contribute to the development. Programme leads will report back to the Social Work Services Forum, ensuring that their work informs and is informed by the deliberations of the forum.

In this way, we aim to develop a process that is both collaborative, involving a wide range of expertise, and iterative, constantly seeking solutions, testing them out, revising approaches where necessary then supporting wider roll out.

The implementation process recognises that no one holds all of the solutions to the challenges that Changing Lives raises and models the types of behaviours and approaches that will be necessary to find sustainable solutions. It is an approach that will in itself build capacity to develop practice and improve performance across public services.

Each of the change programmes has an overall aim or aims and is broken down into a series of workstreams. These are summarised in figure 2. In addition to resources set out in figure 2, totalling £14.82M, resources will be made available to support the development of the Social Work Services Forum and Practitioner Fora. Annex A gives a breakdown of major milestones for each of the workstreams over the next two years.

Success in implementing Changing Lives will also require the imaginative integration of Executive policy. There are two dimensions to this, represented diagrammatically in figure 1:

Figure 1 Integrating implementation of Changing Lives

• A vertical dimension, where policy is made for individual client groups within the respective departments (children & families within education, community care within health and criminal justice within justice). In these instances, individual departments set the overall direction and the framework within which performance improvement is expected. Changing Lives implementation will be closely aligned with developments and seek to add value to implementation, for example through supporting service re-design or development; and
• A horizontal dimension, where policy for social work services development sits within the implementation of Changing Lives, for example in relation to workforce development or leadership development, but needs to reflect the distinctive needs of each individual policy area. In these areas Changing Lives implementation can inform and help drive policy development within policy areas.

The development of the public service reform agenda as set out in Transforming Public Services - The Next Phase of Reform creates a perfect opportunity for a new approach to this, allowing the Executive to model the types of behaviour it increasingly expects of public service bodies and creating coherence of policy development and implementation.

Public service reform principles

Public services should:

• be more focused and personalised. They should be organised around users' and citizens' needs and aspirations, not the convenience of the service provider.
• drive up quality and encourage innovation at all levels across organisations and teams.
• be efficient, productive and focused on outcomes.
• be joined up, with isolated and separated services becoming minimal.
• be accountable to those they are there to serve.

All of these values are embedded in Changing Lives and in other related policy streams such as:

• Delivering for Health;
• Joint Future;
• Getting it Right for Every Child;
• The Executive's response to The Future of Unpaid Care in Scotland;
• Supporting Children's Learning - the code of practice for the Additional Support for Learning Act ;
• The development of Community Justice Authorities;
• The implementation of the Vision for the Voluntary Sector;
• Helping Homeless People (delivering the Action Plan for Prevention and Effective Response); and
• Refugee Integration Forum.

We therefore aim to use the implementation of Changing Lives as a vehicle to model the application of the public service reform principles to the implementation of a cohesive policy framework, ensuring effective governance of the change process within the Scottish Executive. The Social Work Services Forum will have a significant contribution to play in this development as will the Cabinet Delivery Group.

Figure 2: Summary of Change Programmes

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