Opening the door to independent living
12
We also continue to invest in training –
both for staff and people who use our
services. All staff receive regular
training relevant to their roles, and we
currently have a rolling programme of
support planning training to ensure all
staff continue to offer person centred
support to individuals. We are also in
the process of launching an online
training portal for staff that will
increase the opportunities for learning
within the local office environment. We
have had some excellent feedback
this year from people receiving a
direct payment who have accessed
our Recruitment Tips and Good
Employer Workshop courses. These
provide a communal environment for
people to develop their skills alongside
other direct payment recipients. We
have also just launched our
Personalisation for Personal
Assistants training, which aims to
inform personal assistants about
direct payments, person centred
support and working towards
outcomes with their employer.
Making our menu of services easier to
understand and more accessible to as
wide a range of people as possible
has meant our additional services,
such as payroll, third party supported
accounts and appointeeships,
continue to offer an invaluable service
to individuals across the country. Our
payroll bureau currently supports
6,189 people to meet their HMRC
responsibilities as employers, while
providing payslips to 18,567
employees. That means over 100,000
payslips have been produced in the
past 12 months. Based on feedback
from people using the payroll bureau,
the efficiency and hard work of the
staff team working there is greatly
appreciated
Our Third Party Supported Account
service (TPSA) has enabled a wide
range of individuals who require
additional support in managing their
care funding access direct payments
and personal budgets. We currently
support 1,247 people with this service.
Additionally, our appointeeship service
– managing the daily finances of
vulnerable adults – has grown from 3
people last year to 30 people currently
receiving support. Many thanks to the
finance team and the locally based
staff who work hard on these service
options to ensure more and more
people remain living independently in
their own homes and communities.
In the 2010-2011 financial year, our
growing number of contracts and
improved menu of services has meant
we have supported more individuals
than ever before. In total, our staff
team have worked with over 12,000
people, in many cases ensuring that
innovative solutions to daily care
needs are set up so that people can
access activities, education,
employment and social events in their
local communities. We will be sharing
many of these success stories with
you at our winter roadshows in 2011,
as well as on our revamped website
and social media forums.