Walsall Council: local authority assessment

Summary of people’s experiences

People told us they valued the help provided by the local authority, as well as the services available in their communities through health, housing, and community and voluntary sector partners. This support enabled them to live independently at home for longer, and to live their lives the way they wanted to.  

People felt Care Act assessments and reviews were completed in a timely manner, with person-centred, strengths-based conversations enabling them to have control of their care and support. However, some people had experienced inconsistencies in approach, with areas for improvement highlighted including seeking consent to share information, consideration of the support family members may need, and communication around direct payments. People also told us knowledge of community-based services to signpost people to for information and advice could be developed further. 

Unpaid carers in particular told us the support offered by the local authority could be improved. Whilst we heard positive feedback about the commissioned carers services, which included low-level support, advice, and well-being assessments, the support offered by the local authority was inconsistent. Unpaid carers told us of a lack of knowledge about the support available to them, often finding out about carers services through friends and family rather than through the assessment of the people they cared for. Unpaid carers told us it was hard to access carers assessments, direct payments and respite services.  

People gave positive examples of person-centred service provision, with their needs and wishes recorded as well as feedback on concerns. People told us they felt like they had control of their support provision, and we heard examples of positive outcomes following short-term support. For example, people requiring less or no support following reablement, and opportunities to reduce 2:1 care to once daily support following reviews and reassessment of needs. 

People told us there were enough services to meet their needs and to give them a choice about who supported them. However, we heard of shortages in support for younger people with early onset dementia, people with more complex needs, and more bespoke respite options. People also told us of a lack of quality in provision of some services and more focus required in supporting people with learning disabilities, mental health needs, and autistic people. 

Partnerships with health services were seen as effective, with good outcomes seen through reablement and rehabilitation services. However, clarity was often needed on who people should contact when intermediate services were working together, with people telling us of having to ‘share their story’ multiple times, and difficulties in contacting frontline teams. 

People and unpaid carers told us whilst hospital discharges were effective, they could happen quickly and did not always enable unpaid carers to make the necessary arrangements to support the people they cared for to return home. People felt this was a communication rather than process issue but sometimes led to inconsistencies in support provision.

People told us they felt safe living in Walsall and felt supported through safeguarding processes. Safeguarding enquiries were person-centred and included opportunities to provide feedback and identify people’s expected outcomes. Data provided by the local authority showed 90% of people were asked about their desired outcomes.  

There were mixed views about learning from feedback. Coproduction in the local authority was at an early stage and did not reflect the diversity of local communities. However, people with lived experience were consulted and included in decision making processes. Care recording systems were effective at capturing people’s voice through assessment and review processes, but support for unpaid carers did not have the same level of reflective practice. 

Summary of strengths, areas for development and next steps

Walsall Council had a clear vision for adult social care in the borough, with new and developing strategies identifying priorities and joint working arrangements with partner organisations to address local and regional health and social care inequalities. There was a focus on improving the experience of people who used care and support services, informed by data-driven decision making and corporate support for adult social care investment. 

Senior leaders at Walsall Council told us they were committed to strengths-based, holistic assessments, focusing on prevention and ‘home-first’ support to promote people’s independence and to draw on community-based support for unpaid carers and people using services. However, processes were not always embedded in practice. We heard examples of assessments which did not look at the person’s whole support needs, focusing on specific tasks rather than outcomes, and not always incorporating holistic support for family members, and carers to ensure unpaid support arrangements were robust and ensured people were living the life they wanted. 

Care Act assessments and reviews were completed in a timely manner, enabling people to plan, organise and access the support they needed to keep them safe and to live the lives they wanted. Senior leaders told us of delays in financial assessments, and occupational therapy assessments, with an improving picture emerging across 2025 as resources were focused to address these delays. 

The support available for unpaid carers was identified as an area for development, with the newly launched All-Age Carers Strategy and action plan setting out the local authority’s priorities for identifying, educating, and supporting unpaid carers across the borough as well as improving the uptake of carers assessments and direct payments. Feedback from people with lived experience of caring for their loved ones told us of inconsistencies in the approach to carers’ assessments. 

Staff and leaders told us there was a need to reach out more effectively to communities within the borough. They highlighted a lack of awareness about the support available to unpaid carers, and the need to further educate teams to enable better signposting and more effective sharing of advice and information, as part of the local authority’s commitment to holistic assessment processes and an ‘every contact counts’ approach. Partners told us of a need to improve the approach to self-directed support (including direct payments), particularly for unpaid carers. 

Walsall Council was a founding member of Walsall Together, a partnership with health, housing, and the voluntary and community sector, using Better Care Funding (BCF) to improve people’s outcomes and to promote wellbeing and equity across the borough. Staff and leaders told us how proud they were of the joint working relationships with health partners around hospital discharge, rehabilitation and reablement services. Partners shared this vision of success, with multiple examples of regional good practice and shared learning given as part of the assessment. 

In January 2025 Walsall recruited a coproduction lead as part of their approach to inclusion and continuous improvement. People with lived experience of using services were supported to work with senior leaders and frontline teams to review, redesign and implement strategic approaches to adult social care provision and to provide constructive challenge to decision making and resource allocation. 

We heard mixed feedback about how the local authority worked with providers and partners to ensure quality provision of safe and effective community services, with a recognition of sufficient supply of provider services but a need to support safety and quality improvements in the market.  Staff and leaders told us improving provider quality in Walsall was a local authority strategic priority. The local authority had explored ‘what good looked like’ with people accessing care provision and had engaged with partners to agree new quality measures. The local authority had been working on a new clearer quality framework to support providers to understand what good quality care looked like, with senior leaders aiming for completion of the new framework by September 2025. 

Walsall Council worked in collaboration with the Walsall Safeguarding Partnership and Safer Walsall Partnership to ensure people using services felt safe, and to manage safeguarding processes and concerns. Senior leaders told us higher than expected levels of safeguarding concerns had led to increased waiting times for enquiry completion. 

There were clear arrangements for oversight and scrutiny, and accountability, with the local authority prioritising effective leadership at all levels and supporting the development of an inclusive workforce committed to continuous professional development. Staff and leaders told us of good access to data dashboards and daily and weekly meetings with peers and partners to support effective decision making and to identify learning opportunities. However, people’s experience and partner feedback identified gaps in the implementation of processes and the knowledge of available support showing strategic planning was not always embedded in operational practice. Quality assurance processes were not yet embedded and were therefore not always effective in identifying areas of learning.