City of York Council: local authority assessment

Local authority rating and score

• City of York Council
  Requires improvement

Quality statement scores

• Assessing needs
  Score: 1
• Supporting people to lead healthier lives
  Score: 2
• Equity in experience and outcomes
  Score: 2
• Care provision, integration and continuity
  Score: 1
• Partnerships and communities
  Score: 2
• Safe pathways, systems and transitions
  Score: 1
• Safeguarding
  Score: 1
• Governance, management and sustainability
  Score: 2
• Learning, improvement and innovation
  Score: 2

Summary of people's experiences

People were mostly positive about the staff that supported their assessment and care and support planning. They described staff as helpful, kind and considerate. However, people told us there was a need to repeat conversations as they could be transferred to or contacted by multiple staff. There was mixed feedback and findings from people and unpaid carers about the quality of assessments and care planning that took place. Some people told us the local authority focused on ‘budgets’ over person centred care.

Most people told us they knew how to contact the local authority, but they did not have copies of their care and support plans. More needed to be done to evidence effective contingency processes around people’s experiences and ensure consistency of preparedness for possible interruptions within people’s individual care and support.

Local area coordinators linked people to their local communities specific to the persons preferences. They worked with local charities, food banks, health social prescribers and police in relation to community safety to signpost and ensure people were connected to the right services at the right time. People told us about the benefit of them working with local area coordinators. This approach helped people receive the right support at the right time and encouraged conversations about what a good life looked like for people.

People gave mixed feedback about the effectiveness of the local authority’s processes for assessing and charging adults for care and support. Some people were unhappy about delays around decision making and poor communication of the contributions they needed to pay, with some being charged incorrectly and needing to be resolved through formal complaints. Whereas some people told us about the ease of the process and described it as timely, clear, transparent and consistently applied.

People and unpaid carers could access information and advice in person, by phone and online. However, some people told us accessing information and advice in person or by the phone could be challenging and the online options were not always up to date and could be difficult to navigate and understand. The local authority addressed inequity around digital exclusion through their ‘Digital Friendly York’ partnership and strategy. The partnership of organisations supported people in York to get online and learn skills using the internet and its benefits. People could be offered reused devices and learning free of charge.

People told us there was more to do to understand the experiences and specific needs of people. For example, people who were transgender with a diagnosis of autism and, or mental health needs.

Most people from seldom heard groups told us they didn’t feel listened to, and the local authority did not engage with them in ways that worked for them. For example, a group of people from the LGBTQIA+ community and people with learning disabilities were ‘worried’ and ‘feared’ the lack of understanding in York.

Some people with sensory needs, people with learning disabilities and autistic people told us their preferred inclusion and accessibility arrangements were not always followed. People told us there was more to do to include people who were not able to access online services, recognising some general information in easy read and audio was available but online only and they did not know where to access physical copies.

Specialist aids and equipment to support the independence of people who had sight loss, hearing loss or dual loss could be provided to people following an assessment by a commissioned service separate to a person’s care act assessment or review. People told us there were challenges with this including waits, criteria was not always clear, and support and care planning was not joined up. The local authority had gathered some peoples experiences with sensory support needs and found a need for better promotion of sensory support services to ensure they reach out to all people. Some people with a sensory impairment were not aware of the range of support available or how they could access or use it.

People told us in terms of involvement with senior leaders, in general they usually worked to meet with existing groups and their advocates at places and times to suit and offered accessibility such as language and BSL translators where applicable. However, an example was given around accessibility for people with learning disabilities who were invited to engage via a questionnaire that they said was not easy to understand due to confusing language. People felt that this particular consultation exercise was not effectively accessible. In response to this, staff had made acted on feedback and were improving ways to ensure consultation was accessible and inclusive as possible utilising audio CD, braille, and easy read depending on each persons preferred way of communication.

People and unpaid carers told us about their care and support and the quality of services in York. Some people told us they had no concerns about the care they received, we heard how services supported people to remain as independent as possible and made people feel safe. In contrast, we heard how timings of care could be cut short or be unreliable, meeting peoples specific needs could be challenging and training needed to be improved. The local authority had gathered feedback about people’s experiences, in one survey almost two thirds of people were ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ satisfied with their care and support.

People told us about the benefit of having stable arrangements for care and support and how this had a positive impact on their wellbeing. However, people and unpaid carers told us how the local authority’s current processes ended peoples care if they had a stay in hospital which caused distress and longer stays in hospital when some declined to change to a new provider.

There had been no learning disability partnership board for a number of years, but action had been taken to create a new model with the first meeting held in May 2025 (one month before the CQC site visit). As a result, people who were invited to attend told us they did not feel listened to, felt the local authority representative did not understand the meaning of partnership with people and there was a lack of leadership around learning disability agenda. People wanted to be involved in the planning of bringing together a partnership board and shaping future strategy and plans. In contrast, there were many examples where local people participated in voicing their opinions. This included an older people's assembly, self-advocacy forum, disability rights forum, ‘connecting our city’ partnership, and citizen groups. Some people had been involved in workforce interviewing, strategy, and contract tenders around topics such as drug and alcohol use, homelessness, mental health, carers and visual and hearing needs.

People told us they didn’t feel the local authority learnt from feedback and there was a lack of communication to gather direct feedback about their experiences of care and support which could inform improvement activity and decision making at all levels. The local authority had started a pilot to gain more widespread feedback within teams with results finding not all people were aware they could give feedback including complaints. Senior leaders and staff were taking action, and the new Principal Social Work position would be leading on coproduction and quality assurance in adult social care to bring together systematic learning and evidencing any success of this once in post.

Summary of strengths, areas for development and next steps

The corporate ‘One City For All’ plan (2023 to 2027) set an ambition to increase opportunities for everyone living in the city of York to live healthy and fulfilling lives. The Chief Operating Officer (COO)supported the Director of Adult Social Services (DASS) creating links between Adult Social Care and the rest of the council and was supportive of partnership working with NHS partners. Children’s services in York had recently been rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted following an improvement journey. The adult social care directorate was keen to keen to take the learning from children’s services and apply it in adult social care. There was an adult social care ambition board led by the COO, transparent improvement and risk plans and dedicated transformation resource to take them to the next level of improvement. The DASS started in 2024 and was steering the transformation required with adult social care to deliver good outcomes for local people and was restructuring the department to support them in delivering in adult social care coproduced vision and strategy.

Strategically there was a lot of activity, but workforce issues had delayed improvement. There had been a lack of consistent senior leadership in York over the last few years both within senior leadership in adult social care and politically. The absence of a Principal Social Worker for 8 months had left gaps in practice oversight and evidencing learning which needed to be improved. There was a need to focus on key priorities such as reducing waiting lists, building a stable workforce, ensuring effective and reliable data to support decision making and evidence that changes were sustainable.

A new Assurance Forum was embedded, and there were multiple projects underway. However, at the time of the CQC assessment there was a lack of coordinated strategy. There was a draft adult social care strategy that was going through consultation, but more to do to ensure all strategies were effectively monitored and having a positive impact on peoples outcomes.

There were gaps in market shaping and commissioning to meet local needs. The self-funding population in the City of York was a competitor in the care provider market due to the large number of people who paid privately for their care. There were significant gaps in provision, there was little evidence of progress around the Market Position Statement and Commissioning Strategy that concluded this year, and workforce issues meant this was unlikely to change very quickly. There had been some progress but not enough particularly according to providers who did not feel involved. Strategic relationships with care providers and health and integrated care system leaders continued to evolve to improve working together. However, working relationships with partners were not always positive. There were developing foundations in place with partners to strengthen relationships. The DASS was addressing many issues and had been very involved on leading and understanding where improvements were needed but this was work in progress and had not yet delivered the changes required.

Systems and practice did not reflect effective management of safeguarding and potentially left people at risk. There was more to do to ensure front door processes were effective to respond to people’s needs and provide senior leaders assurances needed. Processes had begun to improve, for example duty staff were starting to work more closely with call handlers. There were ambitions for improved strategic direction particularly around how the local authority gathered and acted on feedback, learning and a need to embed coproduction with people with care and support needs to deliver Care Act responsibilities.

Staff told us where they received feedback, this was discussed in team meetings to share learning. Although there was more to do, staff were committed to serving people in the City of York, there was an ethos of wanting to learn through people, staff, partners feedback and analysis so that Care Act duties could consistently be delivered safely and effectively. The DASS had the passion, commitment, expertise and energy to deliver what was required but there was more to do to collectively within the senior leadership team to deliver and embed developments, learning and ensure staff, people and partners were an integral part of changes.