Progress reports:

• Leadership progress report - December 2011
• Leadership progress report - September 2011

There is a direct link between good performance in social services and effective leadership.  Developing leadership at all levels in the social services sector is important if services are to overcome future challenges.

Since April 2010, at the request of Scottish Government, the Scottish Social Services Council and the four Scottish Social Services Learning Networks have been taking forward the strategic direction for leadership in Scotland's social services.

Stirling University and their partners were commissioned by the SSSC to undertake an analysis of existing leadership activity in Scotland's social services and the development needs of the workforce at all levels in relation to leadership.  The Learning Networks undertook research into the leadership communities to find out how they could further develop these.  These pieces of work are now complete and available for you to download: 

• Leading Together
• Leading Together - linked reports 

This research will help to create a clear vision for leadership in social services in Scotland that shaped by the views of the sector.  The SSSC will seek to develop leadership at all levels of the workforce, with citizen leadership as an integral part of this vision. 

To achieve this the SSSC will:

• develop a set of leadership capabilities for the whole of the sector
• identify the knowledge, skills, values, qualifications (where appropriate) and leadership capabilities needed to develop leadership at all levels in a set of leadership ‘packages' for people who use services and their carers, practitioners, managers etc.
• promote organisational cultures that encourage and support leadership at all levels by further developing the organisational capabilities in the Continuous Learning Framework
• further develop leadership communities and action learning sets with clear focus and direction
• promote more systematic identification of leadership development needs taking account of individual and organisational needs
• bring together existing leadership tools and resources, make explicit the links between them and signpost them clearly
• encourage collaborative leadership development  across the public, private and voluntary sectors within social services, across agency boundaries with health, education, justice etc. and at all levels of the workforce
• build in evaluation of the impact of national initiatives from the beginning and encourage employers to evaluate impact locally.

The SSSC and the four learning networks hosted a series of events across Scotland in November 2010 which were used to communicate the key findings of the research and outline the proposed way forward. If you were unable to attend and would like further information, the films and presentation from the Dundee event should provide you with an overview of what was discussed.

If you would like more information or to be involved in the work to take this vision and key actions forward please contact either:

Jess Alexander
Education and Workforce Development Adviser
Scottish Social Services Council
Telephone: 01382 207334
Email: jess.alexander@sssc.uk.com