Adult care services ready to move over to social enterprise

Councillor Jean Hornby, Cabinet Member for Adult Care at Rochdale Borough Council

A number of adult care services currently provided by Rochdale Council will move over to a new social enterprise called possAbilities at the beginning of April.

The following services are set to transfer:

• Supported living
• Respite care
• Shared lives/supported placements
• Day support
• Rochdale employment service

Current council staff will move over to the new social enterprise, which will be based primarily at the Cherwell Centre, as well as other locations in the borough.

Residents who currently access the services have all been informed and will not notice any day-to-day changes. All phone numbers will stay the same except the contacts for the employment service, which service users have been made aware of.

The council will monitor the work of the enterprise to ensure it is meeting the highest standards, alongside the care quality commission, the national regulator.

As a community interest company, possAbilities will be able to access grants not available to local authorities to develop new services.

Service users and their families will also be represented on the company’s board, so will have a say in decision making, as will the staff.

PossAbilities will also be able to seek out new business and develop new services as their constitution states that any profit made will be ploughed back into services.

The move is expected to save the council around £500,000 a year.

Councillor Jean Hornby, Cabinet Member for Adult Care at Rochdale Borough Council said: “This is a new way of working for adult care which we are really excited about. The social enterprise will have the flexibility to innovate in a way that local authorities can’t and, most importantly, it will ensure we can continue to deliver critical services despite the huge financial challenges we face. We’ve got a very talented and experienced pool of staff moving over who I believe are well equipped to make this new venture a great success.”

Rachel Law, Managing Director of PossAbilities, said: “In the short term, nothing will change for the people who use our services. They will continue to receive the same high level of care from the same staff and that continuity is very important for our residents and their families. Longer term, we have lots of exciting plans which will improve the services we offer including the extension of the shared lives service which gives service users the chance to live with a family in a home environment.”