Social care - self-directed support: framework of standards - May 2024

Self-directed Support Framework of Standards: Glossary

Advocacy: Advocacy is about speaking up for and standing alongside individuals or groups, and not being unduly influenced by the views of others. Fundamentally it is about everyone having the right to a voice: addressing barriers and imbalances of power, and ensuring that an individual’s human rights are recognised, respected, and secured.

Assessment: The initial purpose of the assessment is to identify the person’s needs with a view to determining how the person can best be supported and whether the authority has an obligation to meet those needs. Assessment is an intervention as set out in Section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, Section 23 of the Childrens (Scotland) Act 1995, Sections 6 and 12 of Carers (Scotland) Act 2016.

Authority: Where the term authority is used, it is meant to include all organisations that have duties and powers described in the standards. It includes local authorities (or local councils) and Integration Authorities such as Health and Social Care Partnerships, NHS Boards and Integration Joint Boards.

Carers (including young carers): Some carers provide care and support to family members, friends and neighbours. The people they care for may be affected by disability, physical or mental ill-health, frailty or substance use. A carer does not need to be living with the person they care for. Other types of carers can include kinship or foster carers.

Children’s Services Planning Partnerships: Children's Services Planning Partnerships (CSPPs) are key to delivering ambitions for children, young people and families, bringing together all those organisations that have a part to play in improving outcomes. CSPPs were established through the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (Part 3). Children's Services Plans set out how partnerships will work together collaboratively to improve outcomes for children and young people in their area.

Choice and control: Self-directed Support helps supported people and carers to make informed choices about their support and to have choice and control over how that support is arranged, managed and delivered. Self-directed Support applies across all ages and user groups, including unpaid carers and children. For children and young people, this may include the parents or carers having choice and control, but decisions should be made in discussion with children and young people.

Commissioning: Commissioning refers to activities involved in assessing and forecasting needs, linking of investment to agreed outcomes and consideration of the options available. It also describes activities being taken to plan the nature, range and quality of future services and the steps that are taken by the relevant authorities and health boards working in partnership to put their plans in place. Joint commissioning is where these actions are undertaken by two or more agencies working together.

Ethical commissioning has a person-centred care first/human rights approach at its core, ensuring that strategies focus on high quality care.

Community Brokerage: Community brokerage is a model of independent support that helps people to direct their own social care support. The purpose is to help people and carers who may need support to make informed decisions about the help they need and how best it can be delivered. It is provided by a range of brokerage, independent support, and disabled people’s organisations across Scotland. It focuses on making the best use of what is available in the community to help people but also assists people who require more formal support arrangements through any of the four Self-directed Support options via their local health and social care partnership.

Community Planning Partnerships: There are thirty-two Community Planning Partnerships (CPP) across Scotland, one for each council area, which come together to take part in community planning. Each Community Planning Partnership focuses on where partners' collective efforts and resources can add the most value to their local communities, with particular emphasis on reducing inequality.

Community social work: This approach to social work seeks to work preventively, alongside people within the communities where they live, to address shared underlying problems as well as individual issues in their lives.

Co-production: Co-production occurs when a person influences the support and services received (by them or by others), or when groups of people get together to influence the way that services are designed, commissioned and delivered.

Delegated authority: A local authority will set out the level of assessment and personal budget that can be approved by different levels of worker and manager. This forms part of worker or professional autonomy.

Early help or intervention: Early help and early intervention are forms of support aimed at improving outcomes or preventing escalating need or risk. Because of this they are also sometimes referred to as prevention or preventative services.

Eligibility: Eligibility criteria are used by local authorities to deploy resources in a transparent way that ensures that those resources are targeted to adults in greatest need. A national framework for eligibility criteria for social care for older people was agreed by the Scottish Government and COSLA in 2009. This framework is used by local authorities to determine whether an adult assessed as needing social care support requires resources to be provided to meet those needs. It is currently being reviewed.

Equity / equitable: Equity refers to fairness and justice and recognises that we do not all start from the same place. This requires identifying and overcoming intentional and unintentional barriers arising from bias or systemic structures. Something that is equitable is fair and reasonable in a way that gives equal treatment to everyone.

Family support: Family support helps families to access a broad array of supports and services, including formal supports (such as paid respite care), informal supports (such as parent-to-parent connections) and a community system of services which promote the well-being of families and their children with additional needs.

GIRFEC: Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) is Scottish Government’s commitment to provide all children, young people and their families with the right support at the right time. This is so that every child and young person in Scotland can reach their full potential.

GIRFE: Getting it right for everyone (GIRFE) is Scottish Government’s proposed multi-agency approach to health and social care support and services from young adulthood to end of life care.

Good conversations: Good conversations are when social work practitioners and other professionals build relationships with people through time by listening well, building trust, being respectful of the person and honest about processes and decisions. Good conversations can help build relationships between social workers, supported people, families and unpaid carers, and help keep people at the centre of assessment, support planning and review practice and processes. Through good conversations, people are informed of their rights and responsibilities, and what to realistically expect from the Self-directed Support process. Having a good conversation is recognised as an intervention in its own right, and should not be mechanistic or transactional.

Health and Social Care Partnerships: Health and Social Care Partnerships were established under the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 which came into force on April 1, 2016. A Health and Social Care Partnership is one type of Integration Authority under the Act . All Partnerships are responsible for adult social care, adult primary care and unscheduled adult hospital care. Some are also responsible for children’s services, homelessness and criminal justice social work.

Human Rights Act 1998: This sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that everyone in the UK is entitled to. It incorporates the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic British law. The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK in October 2000. The Self-directed Support (Scotland) Act 2013 Act states that local authorities must take reasonable steps to facilitate a human rights-based approach.

Inclusive communication: Inclusive communication means sharing information in a way that everyone involved understands. For service providers, it means making sure that you recognise that people understand any information provided and are able to express themselves in different ways. For people who use services, it means getting information and expressing themselves in ways that meet their needs. Inclusive communication relates to all modes of communication.

Independent living: Independent living means people having freedom, choice, dignity, and control, and fulfilling their rights to participate in society and live a full life. It does not mean living by yourself or fending for yourself.

Independent Living Fund Scotland: Independent Living Fund Scotland (ILFS) provides funding and support to help disabled people in Scotland and Northern Ireland live independently. Whilst the funding that Independent Living Fund Scotland disseminates is separate from social care budgets, their values and principles align well with Self-directed Support. The ILF is reopening in 2024.

Independent support organisation: An independent support organisation (ISO) provides independent, impartial information, support and advocacy for supported people and carers, to help them make informed decisions about their social care support. They provide people with information on Self-directed Support and help them to exercise choice and control over their social care arrangements. An example of an ISO is a centre for independent living.

Independent support and advocacy worker: Independent support and advocacy workers can assist the supported person to understand and realise their rights, and can help ensure that support plans are co-produced with the supported person and others they wish to involve, including families and carers. Independent support and advocacy workers can help mediate when there are difficulties or differences of opinion.

Indicative budget: An indicative budget is a figurative amount calculated immediately following the assessment. It estimates the amount of money it may take to meet a person's eligible needs and is based on information gathered during the assessment process. Section 4 of the 2013 Act refers to a ‘relevant amount’ and defines this as the “amount that the local authority considers is a reasonable estimate of the cost of securing the provision of support for the supported person.” An indicative budget will change when the actual cost of the support plan is calculated.

Intersectionality: Intersectionality acknowledges that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression, and we must consider everything and anything that can result in people being marginalised such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, mental health, and neurodiversity.

Leadership/leaders: Leaders exist at all levels of an organisation, and include frontline managers, middle and senior managers. There are different models of leadership in social work and social care. In integration authorities, leadership is often distributed, or devolved across a wide group of leaders. This may mean that a manager in social work has an NHS background and may have little working knowledge or experience of Self-directed Support. Leadership in Self-directed Support needs to be adaptive to emerging demands and able to respond agilely and flexibly.

Natural networks: An individual or family’s natural networks builds on supports available to them via family, friends and community and in their locality. It promotes inclusion, person/family centred planning, and assets and rights-based approaches. The plan for paid-for support should be built around a person’s natural network so that it is supported and cherished.

Other professionals: Where the term ‘other professionals’ is used, it covers the wide range of professions involved in a person’s care and support, including social care workers and providers, health professionals, advocates and independent support workers.

Personal Assistant: People in receipt of Self-directed Support Option 1 (Direct Payment) or Independent Living Fund budgets can employ Personal Assistants to provide the specific support they need to be an active citizen and be included in their communities.

Personal outcomes: Personal outcomes are defined by the person as experiences and qualities of life that are important to them. Personal outcomes are developed by engaging with individuals using services and carers about what is important to them in life, and why.

People: Where the term ‘people’ is used, it is meant to include all those for whom Self-directed Support is relevant i.e. children, young people, supported people, families and carers, including young carers.

Plans (including support plans): Effective plans should demonstrate a shared understanding and agreement of how personal outcomes will be achieved and which resources will be used to achieve them. Plans should be written or communicated in a format that makes sense to the person and should describe arrangements for what should happen if things go wrong and what would happen in a crisis. Types of plan include a Child’s Plan, Supported Person’s Plan, Adult Carer’s Support Plan or a Young Carer’s Statement.

Procurement: Procurement is the funding route to secure social care service provision. The Statutory Guidance accompanying the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 sets out guidance for effective commissioning and procurement processes, including the putting in place of procurement plans providing specific detail to direct those responsible for contracting services.

Relationship-based practice: Relationships are the means through which social work practitioners and other professionals work collaboratively with individuals and families to establish a shared understanding of what needs to be done to support and protect the wellbeing of children and adults.

Review: Reviews give the social work practitioner, other professionals, and the adult, child, young person, carer and family an opportunity to discuss what is working well in their support plan and what may need to be changed. A significant change to a supported person‘s needs or a request for a further assessment should prompt a review. In addition, the supported person or the authority can also request a review of the choice of options under the 2013 Act.

Risk enablement: Risk enablement is the process of exploring the nature of risk, whose risk it is to hold and the risks of inaction as well as action. Risks can be viewed as opportunities for personal growth and enrichment.

SDS: SDS is a commonly used abbreviation for Self-directed Support. We have chosen to use the full term so that readers remain aware of the intention of the 2013 Act to bring personalisation into practice. It should also be noted that the abbreviation can also stand for other policies in other contexts (i.e. Structured Deferred Sentences) and organisations (i.e. Skills Development Scotland).

Social Care (Self-directed Support)(Scotland) Act 2013: The 2013 Act is the law that tells local authorities what they must do to give access to Self-directed Support in a way that supports people's rights to choice, dignity and being able to take part in the life of their communities.

Skills-based training: Skills-based training goes beyond the processes and mechanisms of Self-directed Support options and budgets by developing practitioners’ skills in relationship-based practice.

Social work practitioner: Social work practitioners are workers in social work teams or multi-disciplinary teams that carry out social work duties and activities, including registered social workers, family support workers, and social work paraprofessionals.

Strategic Planning Groups: Each Integration Authority must have a Strategic Planning Group, responsible for developing three-year plans that state how services will work together to improve health and wellbeing. Strategic Planning Groups include representation from health and local authorities, as well as people with lived experience of using services, support providers, health and social care staff and housing.

Substitute decision-making: Substitute decision-making is a means of making decisions on behalf of people in relation to welfare and finance. It is based on the ethical principle of respect for autonomy. Substitute decision-making on behalf of an adult should only happen where there are the appropriate legal powers.

Supported decision-making: Supported decision-making has no formal definition, and different people use it differently. It can refer to any process in which an individual is provided with as much support as they need to make a decision for themselves or to express their will and preferences within the context of substitute decision-making (for example, guardianship or compulsory treatment for mental disorder). In both cases, the purpose of supported decision-making is to ensure that the individual’s will and preferences are central to and are fully respected in decisions which concern them.

Support planning: A collaborative process involving supported people and authorities to agree personal outcomes and how these will be achieved. A support plan says how people will spend their budget to get the life they want. The plan is agreed between the individuals involved and the local authority.

Transitions: Transitions of care involve people across their lifespan moving across the boundaries of existing care provision, for example the transition to adult services, a change in a person’s health or mobility, or a move to a new residential area or type of housing. To make sure that transitions are successful, organisations need to connect and collaborate with other services to provide a seamless transfer process.

Unmet need: Where it is not possible to meet all of the needs that have been identified as part of a co-produced support plan, these should be captured and reflected into the strategic commissioning process.