Health and Social Care Integration Partnerships: reporting guidance

5 Content of Reports

Assessing Performance in Relation to the National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes

5.1 The Performance Report Regulations require Partnerships to assess their performance in relation to the National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes. These outcomes are set out in the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes) (Scotland) Regulations 2014 and provide a strategic framework for the planning and delivery of health and social care services. They focus on the experiences and quality of services for people using those services, carers and their families, and more information can be found in the National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Guidance.

5.2 Performance must be assessed in the context of the arrangements set out in a Partnerships' strategic commissioning plan and financial statement, and how the expenditure allocated in the financial statement have achieved, or contributed to achieving, the health and wellbeing outcomes. It should also cover how significant decisions made by the Partnership over the course of the reporting year have contributed to progress towards the outcomes.

5.3 To support this, a set of core integration indicators have been developed in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders across all sectors, and with significant input from COSLA. They have been agreed by the Ministerial Strategic Group for Health and Community Care. Partnerships should report against these core indicators in their Performance Reports. In line with the Performance Report Regulations, data should be included for both the year which the report covers, and the 5 preceding years, or for all previous reporting years, if this is less than 5 years.

This requirement only relates to reporting years, the first of which will be 2016/17. For example, the first year's report will only need to cover 2016/17, the 2017/18 report will cover 2017/18 and 2016/17, and so on. The first performance report to include the full set of historical information will be 2021/22, which will include data for that year, and for the five year period 2016/17 to 2020/21. This is the case throughout the document where there is reference to reporting on both the year which the report covers, and the 5 preceding years, or for all previous reporting years, if this is less than 5 years. However, Partnerships remain free to include as much historical data beyond this minimum requirement as they see fit.

5.4 Separate guidance is available summarising the rationale behind each of the indicators, their definition and data sources. Although many of these indicators use data which is already available from a variety of sources, Information Services Division (ISD) will provide each Partnership with their data for all the indicators in a single spread sheet in order to facilitate consistency and clarity around the core indicators. This will include data from previous years in line with the requirements set out in section 5.3.

5.5 ISD will publish the core integration indicators in a way which will allow national benchmarking, and this will be publicly available. However, consistent with approach of the rest of the Performance Report, Partnerships are expected to report these indicators in a way that best suits their own local needs and that of the public in terms of understanding what they say about local progress towards the national outcomes, with support provided as necessary by ISD and the Scottish Government.

5.6 The core integration indicators provide an indication of progress towards the outcomes that can be compared across Partnerships and described at Scotland level and over the longer term. In addition, Partnerships will need to collect and understand a wide range of data and feedback to help understand the system at local level, and report on these within their Performance reports.

5.7 As well as covering performance at Partnership level, where appropriate, they may also wish to consider reporting on the performance for each locality in the Partnership, and how performance in localities contributes towards the performance of the Partnership as a whole. To facilitate this, locality data will be provided by ISD along with Partnership data where possible. More information on localities is covered later in this document.

5.8 Again, a wide range of support is available from both ISD and the Scottish Government, but ultimately it is for Partnerships to decide what these local measures should be and how they should be presented and interpreted.

Financial Performance and Best Value

5.9 The Performance Reporting Regulations require Partnerships to include information on their financial performance, for the reporting year and by comparison with the 5 preceding years, or with all previous reporting years if this is less than 5 years.

5.10 This must include not only the total amount spent by the Partnership in the course of the year, but also the total amount and proportion of spend in the reporting year broken down by the various services to which the money was allocated. It should also identify whether there has been an under or overspend against the planned spending for the year and, if this is the case, an assessment as to why this occurred.

5.11 The report must also set out the amount paid to, or set aside for use by, each locality. Information on the proportion of money spent on particular services, and on any underspends or overspends within the Partnership, must be provided both for the reporting year and the 5 preceding years, or for all years for which the information is available if this is less than 5 years.

5.12 The report must also assess whether the best value has been achieved in terms of the planning and delivery of services. This should include, where applicable, identification of whether there were opportunities for further efficiencies. For more information, Partnerships are referred to the Scottish Government's statutory Best Value Guidance for Local Authorities.

5.13 The Scottish Government has also issued Finance Guidance for Health and Social Care Integration and Integration Financial Assurance which Partnerships will wish to consider when preparing this section of the report.

Reporting on Localities

5.14 The 2014 Act requires a Partnership's strategic commissioning plan to specify two or more localities within its area. A locality is a smaller area within the borders of a Partnership the purpose of which is to provide an organisational mechanism for local leadership of service planning, to be fed upwards into the Partnership's strategic commissioning plan. More information on Localities can be found in the relevant guidance document.

The Performance Report Regulations require that each performance report includes a description of the arrangements made in relation to consulting and involving localities, an assessment of how these arrangements have contributed to the provision of services and the proportion of the Partnership's total budget that was spent in relation to each locality.

In line with the Performance Report Regulations, a comparison of the proportion of spend should be included for both the year which the report covers, and the 5 preceding years, or for all previous reporting years, if this is less than 5 years.

Inspection of Services

5.15 The Performance Reporting Regulations require the performance report to include details of any inspections carried out relating to the functions delegated to the Partnership, by any of the following scrutiny bodies, including joint inspections, in the course of the year:

• Healthcare Improvement Scotland
• Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (The Care Inspectorate)
• Audit Scotland
• Accounts Commission
• Scottish Housing Regulator

5.16 This must include any recommendation which the body has made alongside the actions taken by the Partnership to implement the recommendation.

5.17 Where appropriate, information may be provided via a link where the inspection reports and action plans can be found through their usual routes of publication.

Integration Joint Monitoring Committee Recommendations

5.18 For Partnerships who have adopted a lead agency model, should the Integration Joint Monitoring Committee have made any recommendations in the course of the year as to how integration functions should be carried out, then the Performance report must include a list of these, and how the Partnership is responding to each recommendation.

Review of Strategic Commissioning Plan

5.19 Should the Partnership decide to review its Strategic Commissioning Plan during the reporting year, the Performance report must include a statement as to why the review was carried out, whether this resulted in any changes to the plan, and if changes were made, a description of what these were.