Leadership Board - Fifth meeting: MHWB Strategy and Delivery Plan Progress Report

Actions Determined to be ‘Off Track’ or ‘Delivery Date Missed with Risk’

Ref: 4

Action: As part of the development of the Social Work Workforce Joint Improvement Plan (and linked National Social Work Agency workstream) there are plans to prioritise looking at MHO Workforce Capacity. This will include a gap analysis to inform planning, measuring demand and vacancies and to set future direction.

Lead: SG & COSLA

Reason for RAG: Discussed with colleages in Social Work and agreed that this can be marked as off track as it is now moving towards developing a Mental Health Officer (MHO) workforce action plan.

• Paused improvement plan work. Risk that this work would not be progressed during timescale averted as the COSLA-SG 'JSST' Group has taken ownership.

Mitigating Actions: The workforce lead within the partnership will take this work forward with the intention plans will be published in 2026

Ref: 18

Action: A MHO Workforce Capacity Oversight group has been set up with partners in social work to help address the shortfall in MHO capacity caused by increased service demand, as well as recruitment and retention challenges. The Group meetings have been paused awaiting completion of mapping exercise being led by Office of the Chief Social Work Adviser (OCSWA), COSLA and Social Work Scotland (SWS) officials.

Lead: SG & COSLA

Reason for RAG: Whilst the group has been established and a mapping exercise undertaken, significant progress has not been made in addressing shortfalls. Risk is indicated due to the continued risk conferred by having insufficient MHOs and it currently remains unclear exactly how this will be resolved. However, it is noted that this is a long- term systemic issue, that could not realistically have been resolved over the lifespan of the plan.

Mitigating Actions: Since the beginning of the plan there have been several developments relevant to supporting MHO work. This includes the agreement of the National Social Work Agency (NSWA) under which it is anticipated MHO workforce concerns will be considered. How this connects to any existing work on MHOs may be informed by the mapping work the capacity group are undertaken. This work should support the issue being addressed in the longer-term.

Beyond the MHO Capacity Group work relevant work has also been progressed for example 400k that has been given to 5 partnerships (February) to enhance MHO workforce capacity as part of the delayed discharge improvement work and, through the Joint Social Services Task Force (JSST), work has been commissioned through Iriss (Improving Lives – Social Service Workforce) to look at the how learning and improvement from the Highland MHO recruitment model in partnership with Robert Gordon University can be utilised in other parts of Scotland.