Bexley Council (the Council) asked the Local Government Association (LGA) to undertake an Adult Social Care Preparation for Assurance Peer Challenge at the Council, and with partners.

The Council commissioned an independent peer review to assess the ability of the adult social care service to deliver good services to people, as well as preparedness of the adult social service for a Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessment. At the request of the Council, the primary areas of focus were independence, population health outcomes, and the approach to outsourcing assessments.

The purpose of a peer challenge is to help an authority and its partners assess current achievements, areas for development, and capacity to change. Peer challenges are improvement focused and are not an inspection.

The peer team used their experience and knowledge of local government and adult social care (ASC) to reflect on the information presented to them by people they met, and material that they read.

Prior to being onsite, the LGA Peer Challenge team undertook a case file audit, lived experience interviews, a review of data, and held 1 to 1 calls between members of the peer team and their counterparts at Bexley Council. The team were then onsite for three days holding interviews, focus groups, and discussions to fully understand the adult social care department to develop feedback and recommendations through triangulating the evidence presented.

All information collected was non-attributable to promote an open and honest dialogue.

The members of the peer challenge team were:

• Jo Williams, Torbay Council – DASS and Lead Peer
• Cllr. Sue Woolley, Lincolnshire County Council – Member Peer
• Steve Maddern, Swindon Borough Council– Public Health Peer
• Alyson Wagget, Kent – Operational Peer
• Jane Walker, Portsmouth City Council, Operational Peer
• Lara Fromings, Reading Borough Council - Commissioning Peer
• Alun Davies, Independent Consultant – Lived Experience Peer
• Sarah Farragher, LGA Peer Challenge Manager

The team were on-site at Bexley for three days from the 14 to 16 May 2024. In arriving at their findings, the peer team:

• Held around 50 interviews and discussions with 100 different people including Councillors, officers, partners, people with lived experience, and carers.
• Had access to around thirty-seven documents provided by Bexley including a self-assessment.
• Completed seven case file audits with one follow up conversations and spoke to ten other people with lived experience during the onsite review.

The peer challenge team spent approximately 160 hours with Bexley Council the equivalent of twenty-one working days. Invariably, this is still a snapshot of Bexley rather than being a comprehensive picture.

Specifically, the peer team’s work focused on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) framework four assurance themes for the up-coming adult social care assurance.

They are:

Care Quality Commission Assurance themes

The peer challenge team would like to thank Councillors, staff, people with a lived experience, carers, partners, and providers for their open and constructive responses during the challenge process. All information was collected on a non-attributable basis. Initial feedback was presented to the Council on the last day of the peer challenge and gave an overview of the key messages. This report builds on the presentation and gives a more detailed account of the findings of the peer team.