I will speak to amendment 19 and echo some of the excellent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed).
Amendment 19 would reinstate the Care Quality Commission’s duty to inspect the commissioning of adult social care services by local authorities. The case for the amendment is very simple: the quality of commissioning has a huge impact on the quality of care that people receive. It is extremely important that our adult social care system includes checks to ensure that commissioning is of a high standard. At present, this is not the case.
The current model of sector-led improvement introduced by this Government in 2010 leaves it to local authority peer reviews to identify failure. In practice, this means that neighbouring authorities that already work in close collaboration inspect each other, but only when a neighbouring authority volunteers for inspection. Of course, local authorities that are confident in their commissioning practices are happy to volunteer themselves for scrutiny, but what about those that do not volunteer? It is surely those authorities that we should be most concerned about, yet under the current system they are not subject to proper oversight. Worryingly, the majority
of authorities have not been assessed under the peer review scheme. In total, 127 local authorities have not had their commissioning reviewed since 2010. We would not allow this type of reckless leniency with any other service that looks after our most vulnerable. I am certain that it should not continue.
It is clear that when it comes to inspecting local authorities’ commissioning practices, some uniformity and impartiality are needed. The CQC is best positioned to carry out that duty. Certainly, the chief executive of the CQC thinks so, commenting that he has not
“spoken to any national provider association who doesn’t think councils should be inspected”
and believes that
“the removal of that power from CQC was seen as a retrograde step”.
When this proposal was raised in Committee, the Minister insisted that it was unnecessary. He argued that CQC inspection of providers could identify patterns of poor commissioning that would be grounds for a special review.