Carried out in partnership with SWIA (Social Work Inspection Agency) and City of Edinburgh, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire Councils, the pilot took place between October 2009 and January 2010.
During this period, the PSIF Partnership worked with SWIA and the local authorities to pilot the use of PSIF to undertake a self-evaluation in social work services, using the SWIA PIM (Performance Improvement Model) as guidance.
Prior to the pilot, the PSIF Partnership and SWIA agreed that there were fundamentally common objectives for PSIF and PIM. A mapping exercise, carried out in 2009 also demonstrated the potential of PSIF as a widely-adopted corporate self-evaluation framework to be used for self-evaluation of social work services.
With the engagement of SWIA Link Inspectors, the pilot project tested the mapping in a service environment. The evaluation findings from the experience of the three councils involved are most encouraging.
The exercise has proven PSIF to be an effective vehicle for the self-evaluation of social work services. It also confirmed that some refinements around assessment and care management, risk and commissioning within the framework will lead to its applicability within social work services being further improved. SWIA and the PSIF partnership have agreed to undertake this refinement of the supporting guidance for social work services using PSIF.
Mark McAteer, Chair of the PSIF Operational Board, said: "The PSIF Partnership welcomes the excellent work that has been undertaken in partnership with SWIA and City of Edinburgh, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire Councils to pilot PSIF in Social Work services.
"The pilot has demonstrated the applicability of PSIF as a framework for self-evaluating Social Work services and the Partnership looks forward to continuing to work with SWIA to develop the important link between self-evaluation and proportionate scrutiny."
Alexis Jay, SWIA's Chief Social Work Inspector, said: "I welcome the publishing of the evaluation report. In particular, I am pleased that it confirms the positive contribution that SWIA' s own self-evaluation guide and our link inspectors can make to councils who use the PSIF to evaluate and improve the quality of their social work services."
The evaluation report is now available to download.
