The Consultation Institute offers a great foundation training course in co-production for consultation and engagement, created by Senior Associate Andy Wright, but recently I’ve needed to delve a bit deeper into the co-production requirements of the Care Act 2014 and how this affects local Adult Social Care policy development.

It’s worth re-stating that the Care Act is one of the first pieces of UK legislation to include a requirement for co-production in its statutory guidance. This covers both the planning and delivery of care services, and should therefore include the development of policy and procedures

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) produced some excellent guidance in 2022, Co-production – what it is and how to do it, and identified a number of Local Authorities who have adopted this approach. Of particular interest to tCI is Hammersmith and Fulham Council who has established a Disabled Person’s Commission to consider all aspects of policy and procedure in adult social care. The commission found that in addition to substantive issues relating to the lawfulness of current policy, much of their policy development work had been undertaken without input from disabled people.

The commission proposed that people with disabilities should be offered the opportunity to take part in co-production of policy, and that this is likely to reduce the number of complaints and challenges to implementation.

tCI is currently working with a Local Authority who wish to use co-production (and continuous engagement and shared decision making) to review their ASC Charging Policy for non-residents which has come under the spotlight due to changes in national policy and a local legal challenge.

If your policies need reviewing because of similar drivers, contact us via email or give us a call on 01767 318350 for a conversation about starting this process using co-production.