Producing a Local Account

Genny Webb Performance & Information Officer

The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead

Genny.Webb@RBWM.gov.ukTel: 01628 796961

Local context

• CQC inspection action plan• Early Implementer H&WB Board• Vanguard for Big Society - Transparency

• Willingness to ‘have a go’ and learn by doing

Summary - what did we do?

• Used structure of corporate Council plan• Organised under 4 ASCOF domains• Engaged relevant people to contribute• Collated facts, figures, photos & narrative• Approved by CMT• Approved by Overview & Scrutiny Committee• Published on website

Practical Challenges

• Who are the intended audience?• Who is actually going to read it?• How much should I write?• What should I write?• How are we going to publicise it?• How do I explain to partnership boards/LINk what a

local account is?• Do we need permission to use photographs?

How did we resolve them?

• Be practical• Used DoH Quality Accounts toolkit

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_122545

• Guidance for Managers• Tried to keep concise (20 pages)• Work within resource we’ve got – website• Hyper links to other documents• Involve Comms team for photos

What feedback did we get?

• Less stories and more facts and figures – need to be able to use it to hold Council to account

• Don’t use ‘local account’ as a title – doesn’t mean anything

• Looks and feels like an internal Council report – not very engaging

• Difficult to find the section I am interested in e.g. carers

• Need to produce an executive summary in easy-read format

What have we learnt?• We need to clarify who are the audience?– CQC?– ADASS?– Public – who exactly?– Internal audit/evaluation?– Peer Review?

• We need to define a clear purpose – what are we trying to achieve?

• Improve presentation and usability• Appropriate publicity

Next steps

• Get as much feedback as we can• Look at what other LAs have done• Workshops with Managers• Workshop with readers?• Updates from ADASS ‘Towards Excellence’ Board• Engage with HealthWatch as they

develop• Develop as component of H&WB

Strategy

•Link to RBWM’s Adult Social Care Quality Report:

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/social_publications.htm#Adult_Social_Care_Quality_Report

•All feedback very welcome!