Vision and Strategic Context
‘In Somerset, we want people to live healthy and independent lives, supported by thriving and connected communities, with timely and easy access to high quality and efficient support when they need it’.
Social care is an essential part of the fabric of our society. At its best, it enables and transforms lives. It supports people to live the lives they want to lead, where they want to live them. There is enormous potential for social care to help people stay healthy, happy and independent through scaling up our preventative, person-centred, strengths-based approaches. This is what we hope to harness and achieve through our strategies and activity.
However, it is a challenging time for local government. Years of austerity and growing demand has reduced the spending power and financial flexibility of all councils. The national cost-of-living crisis is hitting the council and partner organisations just as it is our residents. The cost of delivering services has dramatically increased due to rising energy costs, rising interest rates and increasing numbers of people who need our support.
The council is legally required to balance the budget: there is no overdraft facility that we can use. In recent years Somerset’s councils have built up financial reserves but we cannot spend these monies all at once and risk leaving the savings account empty when there will undoubtedly be new challenges ahead. This means that we are going to have to be incredibly careful with taxpayers’ money. We will have less to spend as our challenges grow and at the same time the challenges our residents face daily also grow.
This will require us to be more creative about the way we support people. We need to work with partners in a wide range of organisations with similar goals to look broadly at the ways we currently use our expertise and money to see if, in collaboration with our communities, we can do something better. We will challenge the ways that we have historically delivered services and listen carefully in order to understand what works for those who use our services and what doesn’t.
There is a clear ‘golden thread’ across key health and care strategies in Somerset, including the Council Plan, that of the Integrated Care System and our own Adult Social Care strategy, demonstrating a shared commitment to:
- Improving people’s health and wellbeing;
- Focusing on prevention and early intervention;
- Investing in our communities and neighbourhoods;
- Promoting people’s independence whilst ensuring easy access to high quality support when required;
- Reducing inequalities and improving outcomes for those with more complex needs; and
- Supporting the wider health and care workforce.
