11 - 2025-09-17 IJB - Supporting Resilience
North Lanarkshire Council · 17 September 2025
Back to Health and Social Care Integration Joint Board — 17 September 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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1 REPORT Item No: 11 SUBJECT: Supporting Resilience Across our Communities TO: Integration Joint Board Lead Officer for Report: Morag Dendy, Head of Performance, Planning, and Quality Assurance Author(s) of Report Maria Barry, Senior Manager Quality Assurance DATE: 17 September 2025 1. PURPOSE OF REPORT This paper is coming to the IJB for: For approval ☐ For endorsement ☒ To note ☐ 2. ROUTE TO THE BOARD This paper has been: Prepared By: ☐ Reviewed By: ☐ Endorsed By: ☒ North Lanarkshire Council’s Adult Care and Social Work Committee.
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2 3. RECOMMENDATIONS 3.1 It is recommended that the Integration Joint Board endorse the ongoing work to support resilient communities. 4. VARIATIONS TO DIRECTIONS? 5. BACKGROUND/SUMMARY OF KEY ISSUES 5.1 We have an ongoing commitment to supporting resilience across our communities, unpaid carers and supported people. We have made significant efforts in developing and enhancing partnership working. We have commissioned community and voluntary sector organisations (CVS) to further this. These organisations have a key role in enabling and delivering a resilience-based approach, and in providing the supportive infrastructure that facilitates it. 5.2 Our local approach continues to be based on promoting resilience through independence, self-help, enablement, choice, and control, using an assets and strengths-based approach. 5.3 We also seek to ensure that a preventative approach is embedded, and that anticipatory and emergency planning has been considered. 5.4 The overall intent is that communities, unpaid carers and supported people are resilient, and can influence and shape decisions - from individual care planning to strategic decision making. 5.5 Our shared approach, involving lived experience, business intelligence and professional knowledge and expertise is a whole system approach to getting it right for everyone. Our approach incorporates the Scottish Government’s pathfinder work promoting a multi-agency approach to designing and delivering public services that focus on people’s needs, to make sure services work well for everyone who uses them. Background 5.6 In defining resilience as: the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties, or as supporting individuals to overcome adversity and build resilience: there is recognition that engagement and participation activity is essential in helping define and inform what matters to people, and what support they may need to help withstand or overcome difficulty. Yes ☐ No ☒ N/A ☐
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3 5.6.1 Accordingly, supporting resilience involves: supporting engagement and participation, the provision of information, advice, signposting, or campaigning, help people to help themselves, providing support as a means of prevention or early intervention, facilitating anticipatory or emergency planning, thus lessening impact on statutory services. 5.7 This approach also helps meet statutory obligations set out in: The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 (which increased carers rights and enshrined these in law.) The Social Care (Self Directed Support) Scotland Act 2013 (which gave people requiring support significantly greater choice and control around how they chose to be supported and the way in which support is delivered.) The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 (which aimed to empower communities by giving them more control over local decisions, land, and resources, enhancing their ability to influence public services.) The Equality Act 2010 (specifically the public sector equality duty, where Scottish public authorities must have due regard to the need to: eliminate unlawful discrimination; advance equality of opportunity; foster good relations.) The Community Wealth Building Bill (aimed at ensuring that wealth is generated, retained, and circulated within communities) (Scottish Govt, March 2025) 5.8 Members will recall previously agreeing investment in CVS organisations at the Adult Care and Social Work Committee on 12 November 2024. These organisations, identified through procurement, has ensured that robust arrangements are in place to further the resilience of communities. Engagement and participation of communities, unpaid carers and supported people is well supported. 5.9 Five organisations were identified, through Tender, to support unpaid carers: Action For Children Young Carers Support Project Alzheimer’s Scotland (support around dementia related caring) Lanarkshire Carers (direct carer support, and Adult Carer Support plans Getting Better together (post discharge support) North Lanarkshire Carers Together (carer engagement, participation, and campaigning 5.10 A consortium led by North Lanarkshire Disability Forum (NLDF) and involving Lanarkshire Links and Voice of Experience was the successful bidder in the tender aimed at furthering the intent set out in the Engagement and Participation Strategy 2024- 2027.
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4 5.11 Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire (VANL) continue as the third sector interface across North Lanarkshire and manage the Community Solutions programme. Community Solutions has a focus on local activity, through the Community and Voluntary Sector (CVS), aimed at pro-active early interventions and preventative approaches, which in turn promote self-help, independence, choice, and control, and reduce demand and need for statutory service involvement. 5.12 Engagement and participation activity continues to support the development of plans and strategies, inform investment and contribute to supporting resilience, positively impacting on improving equity, reducing reliance and demand on statutory sector provision, and improving health outcomes across North Lanarkshire. 5.13 Alongside this, community hubs, in line with the Council’s approved strategy and programme of work function as a gateway, signposting (where appropriate) offering preventative approaches and facilitating early intervention and targeted approaches, based on local needs. 5.14 This report appraises Members on the current position, sets out anticipated challenges, and the suggested next steps and actions to ensure that there is equity of opportunity across the authority area. The report also appraises Members on the progress made on meeting the strategic intent set out in the: Engagement and Participation Strategy 2024-2027 North Lanarkshire Carers Strategy 2024 – 2027. 5.14.1 Both these strategies support a culture of engagement and participation with the people of North Lanarkshire and seek to ensure that this is embedded in all aspects of health and social care. The intent was to: • Improve communication and increase connections. • Increase awareness of what matters. • Build capacity for early intervention and prevention. Current Position. 5.15 Each of the commissioned organisations is working in partnership with council services, partners and communities, utilising engagement and participation activity to shape the delivery of a range of needs-based support, information, advice services and activities. 5.16 Carer focused initiatives are in place, including arrangements around Adult Carer Support Plans (ACSP) through Lanarkshire Carers, and Young Carer Statements, through Action for Children. There is a well-developed Carer Breaks service and an innovative Carer Breather programme, offering carers time away from the caring routine. Alongside existing engagement and participation opportunities, the first of a number of carers sounding boards has
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5 been established by NLCT, with a focus on parent carers, with other sounding boards to follow. 5.17 These are intended to ensure that the focus continues to be on what matters to carers. NLCT also facilitates and manages a much wider Carer Support Network (CSN) involving a diverse range of carer focused organisations. CSN raises awareness of caring related issues, community initiatives, offers a supportive network to carer focused practitioners, and opportunities to share information on best practice. Assurance and oversight are provided through a Carers Oversight Group, which involves representatives from UHSCNL, the commissioned carer organisations and Education and Families. A representative from Health has been identified and will join the group for future meetings. 5.18 Meaningful participation through mechanisms such as the Carer Forum(s), carer representation on the Integration Joint Board (IJB), collaboration with the wider Carer Support Network and through the range of funded Carer Breather and Time for Me organisations and groups, as well as the Public Partnership Forum, ensure that people, including carers, are supported to engage early, access the right information, and influence change. 5.19 Through awards made from a Growth Pot provided by UHSCNL, and managed by NLDF, significantly broadened reach has been achieved, and the voice of previously unheard communities has been amplified. Recipients of Growth Pot funding to date have included organisations facilitating engagement with Global Minority Ethnic communities, library projects, biodiversity and greenspace, food and fuel poverty, benefits advice, displaced communities, and age-related support organisations. 5.20 The Community Solutions Governance Group agreed to consult on a new funding model to allocate thematic funds to Community and Voluntary Sector (CVS) organisations. The intention was that funding was more dynamic and responsive to changing themes and priorities, on an annual basis, including the priorities of the Community Solutions Strategy and Investment Plan, the UHSCNL Strategic Commissioning Plan, Programme of Work, and public health priorities. Funding of £512,000 was disbursed and twenty projects were funded, covering each of the fund’s priority activities. 5.21 Paid support is delivered through in-house services, framework support provider organisations, or through a Direct Payment. Information on these arrangements is reported separately to committee. The majority of community- based support is facilitated through self-help and unpaid care, and within our approach to supporting resilience, UHSCNL continues to develop or enhance place-based initiatives. Two specific examples that serve to enhance community\place-based support are Neighbourhood Networks and Community Connectors. Neighbourhood Networks utilise a peer support approach which focuses on the development of natural networks with an emphasis on helping people achieve outcomes whilst reducing dependence on paid support. Its roots are in early intervention, prevention, and the development of communities in line with the principles first outlined in the Christie Report. Neighbourhood
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6 Networks has been delivering services in North Lanarkshire since 2003 and has adapted and flexed to meet local need over the past two decades. More recently, Community Connectors have been employed, managed by NLDF, to ensure that people, who may otherwise have had to access statutory supports can be connected, or re-connected to local community opportunities. 5.22 We have an effective and impactful engagement, participation, and support (if required) landscape in place through commissioned organisations, augmented by wider CVS organisations, to help promote and develop resilience across communities, carers, and supported people. This is further evidenced by the range and strength of involvement of people from these areas, whether around individual planning, policy, service design, or involvement in tender evaluation. Lived experience has become an increasingly influential and important element of the three-way partnership across business intelligence, professional knowledge, experience, and skill, allied to lived experience. 5.23 We can be confident that an infrastructure is in place to support and promote resilience, and effective early intervention, when required. Preventative, and anticipatory approaches are in place across communities, carers, and supported people, thus alleviating pressure and demand that would otherwise fall to statutory provision, for people aligned to services, whether statutory, or through CVS. 5.24 We are also confident that our approach assists with the requirements set out in the Community Wealth Building Bill (Scottish Govt, March 2025) aimed at ensuring that wealth is generated, retained, and circulated within communities. As an anchor organization, North Lanarkshire Council helps ensure that local employability options, consumer spend, and economic development can be prioritised and supported. This can be achieved by ensuring that local people continue to be consumers, citizens, and users of local services being helped to help themselves and if support is required, are supported by local people, local communities, and local organisations. Challenges 5.25 The landscape set out above helps promote and support resilience for those people currently known to services, whether statutory services, or CVS. Our investment further upstream demonstrates a strong return, irrespective of whether spending to save, deferred spend, or spend avoidance - all three hold true. 5.26 However, the National State of Caring, published March 2025, presents a concerning picture. Locally, NLCT were asked to engage with carers in our area, to get a sense of the local picture around caring, but also with a focus on resilience, inclusion, and any impacts of economic deprivation. Findings demonstrated that the local experience is more positive than the national picture but highlighted that we still have much to do.
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7 5.27 There is, therefore, a wider consideration around supporting resilience. There are many carers and supported people not currently aligned to any services. Demographic information from a range of sources, such as the national census, local carer engagement sessions and other means, all demonstrate the scale of challenge. North Lanarkshire has an ageing population, including unpaid carers, and estimates suggest that three in every four people will have an unpaid caring role at some point in their lives. Doing more of the same as we do now is not a sustainable approach to service delivery. The demographic challenge means that we need to broaden reach- to reach people that are not aligned to services and to identify any unmet need - through whole system efforts. Next Steps 5.28 The challenge we face is how to ensure that people and communities can, and do, make advance plans; to ensure that the needs of people currently unknown to services, do not become service reliant, but can instead continue to live as independently as possible, with the appropriate community infrastructure in place to facilitate and enable that, through the optimal combination of self-help, preventative approaches, and anticipatory planning. 5.29 It is often the case that people only first present to services when already in crisis, with the costs in financial terms, resources and most importantly, in human terms, then being significant. Often, crisis can be avoided, through the implementation of preventative or anticipatory actions or future planning. However, when the person, or situation, first presents when already in crisis, such opportunities are lost, as the window of opportunity for introducing, options such as enabling approaches, assistive technology, or advance planning, has passed. 5.30 Accordingly, there is a need to ensure that even earlier planning takes place across communities, carers and supported people, as well as across partner organisations. Promoting self-planning, thinking ahead and sustaining resilience will be key elements of our approach. Our aim is to not only get it right for everyone known to services, but to try and ensure that people do not need to become known to services, or, if or when they do, that advance plans, rather than crisis-lead responses, set out what should happen. 5.31 Our aim is also to ensure equitable provision across the authority area and redress any current service provision imbalance in an appropriate and sustainable way. We want to ensure that we maintain our focus on Getting it Right for Everyone, through prevention, early intervention and anticipatory planning, allied to tackling inequality, in a fair, equitable and sustainable way and to ensure that there is no postcode inequality in service provision. Action to rebalance support and services to reflect this will be progressed. Partnership work in this area has already commenced, following the shared VANL thematic review. 5.32 Wider service approaches such as income maximisation, assistive technology, community hubs, aging well initiatives and other work streams all have a continuing role to play in promoting and sustaining independence, self-help, and self-reliance and is supporting community wealth - to support resilient
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8 communities. UHSCNL and partner organisations all have a role and remit in promoting and supporting wider self-planning and individual approaches and solutions to the challenges described above. This will be the priority and area of focus moving forwards. 5.33 We will report to Committee in due course on progressing next steps. 6. CONCLUSIONS This report seeks to draw together a number of key strands of work to demonstrate the overall intent that communities, unpaid carers and supported people are resilient, and can influence and shape decisions, from individual care planning to strategic decision making. Through this shared approach, involving lived experience, business intelligence and professional knowledge and expertise a whole system approach to getting it right for everyone is realised. 7. IMPLICATIONS 7.1 NATIONAL OUTCOMES Link(s) to National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes People are able to look after and improve their own health and wellbeing and live in good health for longer ☐ People, including those with disabilities or long-term conditions, or who are frail, are able to live, as far as reasonable practicable, independently and at home or in a homely setting in their community ☐ People who use Health and Social Care Services have positive experiences of those services, and have dignity respected ☐ Health and Social Care Services are centred on helping to maintain or improve the quality of life of people who use those services ☐ Health and Social Care Services contribute to reducing health inequalities ☐ People who use Health and Social Care Services are safe from harm ☐ People who work in Health and Social Care Services feel engaged with the work they do and are supported to continuously improve the information, support, care and treatment they provide ☐ Resources are used effectively and efficiently in the provision of Health and Social Care Services ☐ 7.2 ASSOCIATED MEASURE(S) 7.2.1 The measures of success have not fundamentally changed since previous reporting. 7.2.2 All care groups and communities are engaged, included, and represented to the extent they wish to be.
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9 7.2.3 Creation of better opportunities for under-represented and seldom heard people to participate and have their voices heard. 7.2.4 Improved opportunities to co-produce and co-design services, our Strategic Commissioning Plan and associated Programmes of Work and a better route to consult and seek feedback. 7.2.5 Provision of sector, locality and thematic forums that can be influenced and shaped by the engagement and participation activity set out above are delivered on an equitable basis, across the authority area. 7.3 FINANCIAL This paper has been reviewed by Finance: 7.4 RISK ASSESSMENT/RISK MANAGEMENT Relevant Risk Register Details Current Risk Level Risk Owner Choose an item. 7.5 ENGAGEMENT & PARTICPATION Please tick the engagement and participation objectives that link(s) with this piece of work and provide further details regarding the engagement and participation that was undertaken. Objectives Further Details ☐ Involve stakeholders in the development work aimed at achieving the national outcomes ☐ Provide stakeholders with information on how to get involved ☐ Ensure a diverse range of engagement and participation and opportunities are in place to suit different needs ☐ Measure how well we involve community stakeholders in the planning, design and delivery of our services Yes ☐ No ☐ N/A ☐
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10 ☐ Provide regular feedback on how stakeholder engagement and participation is shaping and influencing service development and delivery ☐ Provide support to enable stakeholder representatives to participate meaningfully and confidently at meetings ☐ Develop participation guidelines to ensure a common understanding and set of expectations for both stakeholders and partnership staff ☐ Support engagement planning and participation in localities, taking account of other engagement activity and local plans across the Community Planning Partnership 7.6 INEQUALITIES & FAIRER SCOTLAND DUTY EQIA Completed & Fairer Scotland Impact Assessment Form Completed and attached to report: EQIA added to website: 8. BACKGROUND PAPERS 9. APPENDICES Please include a glossary of terms if not already included. N/A Yes ☐ No ☐ N/A ☐ Yes / Date added ☐ No ☐ N/A ☐
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11 Morag Dendy CHIEF ACCOUNTABLE OFFICER (or Depute) Members seeking further information about any aspect of this report, please contact the following.
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12 Direction from North Lanarkshire Integration Joint Board (IJB) 1 Reference Number 2 Report Title 3 Date direction issued by IJB 4 Date from which direction takes effect 5 Direction to: 6 Does this direction supersede, revise or revoke a previous direction – if yes, include reference number(s) 7 Functions covered by direction 8 Full text of direction 9 Budget allocated by Integration Joint Board to carry out direction 10 Performance Management / Governance arrangements 11 Date direction will be reviewed
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