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Care Focus Somerset Ltd is a non-profit company limited by guarantee. Registered in England No. 05664850. Suite 4, The Courtyard, Higher, Comeytrowe Farm, Comeytrowe, Taunton, Somerset, TA4 1EQ.

Workforce

Our challenge is to integrate workforce planning and development across the independent, voluntary and statutory social care sectors in Somerset.

This means ensuring that the right numbers of people are in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills and behaviours, doing the right activities, thus enabling Somerset to deliver the highest possible care services to its users.

Why Bother?

Is workforce planning worth the effort? To answer this, ask yourself the following:

  1. How much does your business depend upon people to provide a service?
  2. What proportion of your budget goes on staff wages and staff related costs like recruitment and training?

    If the answer to either question is at least 'quite a lot' then it makes sense to plan rather than merely hope that your workforce will continue to meet your needs in the future.

What you can gain

by workforce planning

  1. It helps support your bids for funding training;
  2. It improves morale;
  3. It improves staff retention;
  4. It helps you meet national standards like National Minimum Standards or Investors in People;
  5. It saves time, money and stress by giving you control of ongoing workforce problems;
  6. It helps you achieve your business plans.

national minimum data set

for social care

Skills for Care launched the National Minimum Date Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) at the National Social Services Conference in Birmingham on October 20th 2006.

This nationwide workforce information tool gathers detailed data from employers, providing an overview of the whole social care sector for the first time. Skills for Care will ask employers for their service and workforce information. For many small employers the NMDS - SC will be used as an internal record of services, staff, skills and qualifications.

For employers and other stakeholders, the benefits of the NMDS-SC are numerous. The NMDS-SC will:

  1. Benchmark services with other organisations
  2. Identify staff skills, needs and achievements
  3. Enable managers to create a staff development and training plan that meets the needs of the organisation and which reflects the National Minimum Standards
  4. Facilitate effective workforce planning for both the current and future social care workforce
  5. Provide personal development planning for individual staff
  6. Identify recruitment and retention issues and enable employers to develop succession-planning strategies
  7. Enable staff to develop skills and competences in line with regulation and good social care practice
  8. Identify skill shortages
  9. Provide anonymous information for Skills for Care to become the authoritative voice on the skills of the workforce and to attract resources to support the social care skills agenda
  10. Enable planners and funders to target areas of investment when considering economic and educational capacity issues.
  11. AQAA Workforce Report - Saves you from filling in the workforce section of your AQAA form

    Care Focus is promoting and supporting the completion of NMDS-SC in Somerset. For more information on this national project, please visit: www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk

    Please contact us if you need help in completing the NMDS-SC or call the dedicated helpline on 0845 873 0129.