Adult Social Care Complaints

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I kindly request the following information on Adult Social Care support, aggregated by the Adult social care teams, for the previous three financial years, 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 for North East, South and West Devon.

Devon County Council (DCC) believes compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. This is because DCC records complaints by team, and the geographical areas used by DCC, which are dictated by the set up of the service, are nothing like the ones mentioned in the request. To comply with the request would mean deciding where in Devon to draw the boundaries of north, south, east and west, then checking hundreds of individual files to see where in Devon they might be. Even allowing only 10 minutes per file, this would well exceed the 18 hour limit.

In the interests of providing advice and assistance, we are able to provide you with the following information for the whole of Devon County Council as follows:

1. How many Fitness To Practice (FTP) concerns were raised regarding social workers under the employ of Devon County Council within the remit of Adult Social Care? 

2. Of the numbers in part 1, how many resulted in the Social Worker no longer being employed in the role by Devon County Council? 

Of those social workers referred for FTP concerns, four remain in the employment of DCC and three are no longer in the employment of DCC.  However it would not be accurate to draw any conclusion that the end of employment for those three people  occurred as a result of the FTP referral and /or and subsequent SWE/DCC investigation process.

3. Of the numbers in part 1, how many were Social Work England informed of by Devon County Council (i.e. the concern was originally raised with DCC and passed on to SWE)?

All of the FTP concerns referred by DCC in the response to question 1 above were as a result of issues raised with, or by, or investigated by, DCC.

4. Of the numbers in part 1, how many did Social Work England inform Devon County Council (i.e. the concern was originally raised with SWE and passed on to DCC)?

None of the instances referred to in question one were initiated as a result of having first been raised by SWE and communicated to DCC.

5. Of the numbers in part 3, How may concerns were raised by members of the public, as opposed to service users already known to DCC?

DCC does not hold this information because the data provided in response to question 3 cannot be differentiated on the basis of a distinction between members of the public and “service users already known to DCC”.

6. How many complaints have been received by Devon County Council regarding the Adult Social Care Service, and of those how many remain open at the time of this request? 

7. Of the complaints received in part 6, how many have been sent to external investigators retained by Devon County Council?

Please note that the investigators are not retained by DCC, but are commissioned on a case by case basis.

8. Please provide the annual yearly costs of providing Adult Social Care for Devon County Council.