Foreword

I am delighted to introduce ILF Scotland’s Corporate Parenting Plan for 2024 to 2027. This is our second Corporate Parenting Plan and as a public body of the Scottish Government, we are committed to supporting Scottish Ministers in their role as corporate parents. Our new plan outlines a number of objectives with the aim of ensuring that we continue to reach care experienced people who are eligible for our funding and build on our partnerships with other Corporate Parents.

ILF Scotland specifically supports young disabled people aged 16 to 25 through our Transition Fund. This Fund aims to help young people transitioning from school or children’s services to be more independent, to continue spending time with other people, and to be active in their communities. Since the inception of the Fund, ILF Scotland has supported over 9,000 young people and through the course of our first Corporate Parenting Plan, we have seen the number of care-experienced young people accessing the Fund double from 7% to 14%.

Additionally, we are delighted by the re-opening of our Independent Living Fund from April 2024, whereby applicants from 16 years of age with the most complex needs can apply for funding, allowing them to live the independent lives they need and deserve.

We made good progress against our 2021 to 2024 Corporate Parenting Action Plan. We will continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders including care experienced young people. We plan to better target both our fund resources towards care experienced young people who can potentially benefit from our funding to bring about transformational change.

Peter Scott OBE, CEO, ILF Scotland

Background

ILF Scotland is a Non-Departmental Public Body and a Company Limited by Guarantee, governed by a Board of Directors, appointed by and accountable to Scottish Ministers.

Vision, Mission and Values

ILF Scotland has developed its own vision, mission and values, which we use to inform our business priorities and draw on to influence the approach we take to achieve our goals, including those set out in this Corporate Parenting Plan.

Vision

All disabled people, and those with a long-term health condition, can access what they need to lead an independent life.

Mission

To support disabled people, empowering them to lead their fullest lives.

Principles

The core principle of ILF Scotland is that disabled people have the same rights, freedoms and abilities to lead the fullest lives they can, free from discrimination and on an equal basis with others.

ILF Scotland’s Delivery Plan

Our Delivery Plan 2020 to 2023 (extended to 2025) sets out how we will deliver our key business objectives:

Strategic Priority 1:
Facilitate disabled people’s rights to Independent Living

Strategic Priority 2:
Be leaders in enabling Independent Living

Strategic Priority 3:
Operate high-quality and efficient services

ILF Scotland operates two funds. The main Independent Living Fund, which provides financial awards to around 3,000 people in Scotland and Northern Ireland to help them pay for support to live independently at home, in their communities. This Fund re-opened in Scotland in 2024, having been closed to new applicants since 2010. The Fund will now be available to applicants from age 16, thereby potentially reaching care experienced young people and providing long term support.

The Transition Fund, opened in 2017, supporting young disabled people aged 16 to 21 to become more active and to participate in their communities. In November 2019, the Scottish Government extended the age range to 25 years so that more young people might benefit from the Fund. This expanded age range also aligned with the age range associated with looked after and care experienced young people.

Introduction

Overview

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 defines corporate parenting as "the formal and local partnerships between all services responsible for working together to meet the needs of looked after children, young people and care leavers".

The legislation is a key part of the Scottish Government’s strategy for making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. The Act established a new legal framework within which public services are to work together in support of children, young people and families in Scotland.

The Statutory Guidance on Corporate Parenting defines it as “An organisation’s performance of actions necessary to uphold the rights and safeguard the wellbeing of a looked after child or care leaver, and through which physical, emotional, spiritual, social and educational development is promoted.” (Scottish Government, 2015).

Our Corporate Parenting Role

The legislation names Scottish Ministers as the Corporate Parent. ILF Scotland is not a Corporate Parent in its own right but as a public body, effective from 2020, we have a duty to contribute to the success of the Scottish Government’s Corporate Parenting role. Under the legislation, Corporate Parents have a duty to children and young people aged 16 to 25.

ILF Scotland’s key function is to empower disabled people to live independently by providing support through our funds. In administering the Transition Fund, we commit to try to improve our understanding corporately of the needs of care experienced young people up to and including the age of 25, so that we might better target our service to them as well as providing the best advice and assistance we can. We do this by working with other corporate parents and care experienced young people to identify how we can improve our plans, services and processes.

Our Safeguarding Role

All services that work with children and adults are responsible for promoting, supporting and safeguarding the wellbeing of all children and adults at risk of harm and for ensuring that members of the public know who to contact if they are concerned about a child or adult at risk of harm.

ILF Scotland considers that all staff have a duty to report concerns of harm. Our policy is that if any ILF Scotland staff member becomes aware of potential or actual harm, they will act with or without the consent of the ILF Scotland applicant / recipient, or of the person affected, by providing information in the form of a referral to the relevant local authority and in line with the policy of that local authority. This will normally involve using an agreed referral form or by telephone.

Our Protection of Adults and Children policy can be found at Policy TF05 Protection of Children and Adults.

Children’s Rights

ILF Scotland aims to enable disabled people to live independent lives, and to exercise choice and control over how each recipient of the fund achieves their own independent living outcomes.

Independent living means, “Disabled people have the same freedom, choice, dignity and control as other people at home, at work, and in the community. It does not mean living by yourself or looking after yourself on your own. It means the person has rights to practical assistance and support to participate in society and live an ordinary life.” (Independent Living in Scotland Project, 2008).

We aim to adopt a human rights approach to all that we do. In particular, we seek to ensure our actions support the realisation of Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - “living independently and being included in the community”.

The UNCRC is an international human rights treaty that covers all aspects of children’s lives. It encompasses civil, political, economic and cultural rights.

The foreword of the UNCRC highlights the importance of: “recognising that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.”[1]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill was unanimously passed by the Scottish Parliament, which means that after the completion of all procedures the UNCRC will become part of Scottish Law.

As a public body, we play a role in supporting the Scottish Government to embed children’s rights and wellbeing across policy and practice. As a Corporate Parent, we must ensure our everyday decisions are grounded in these rights.

This Corporate Parenting Plan sets out how we will help to deliver Scottish Ministers’ statutory obligations as a Corporate Parent. We have taken a collaborative approach to developing our plan and have worked closely with partner agencies including the Centre for Excellence for Looked after Children in Scotland (CELCIS), the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Scotland and Who Cares? Scotland. We have asked for feedback from care experienced young people via our contact with Social Work Teams in Health & Social Care Partnerships and have involved staff from key business areas within our organisation. Our Board has contributed to the plan and fully endorses it.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about the content of this plan, you can contact us by letter, phone or email:

ILF Scotland
Denholm House
Almondvale Business Park
Almondvale Way
Livingston
EH54 6GA

Email: enquiries@ILF.scot
Phone: 0300 200 2022

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ILF Scotland’s Corporate Parenting Action Plan 2024 to 2027

Commitment 1

We will continue to develop existing relationships with other Corporate Parents to make sure that ILF Scotland remains alert to the needs of care experienced young people to inform our policy and practice.

Actions:

• We will continue to participate in Who Cares? Scotland’s Collaborative Parenting Network and attend quarterly meetings.
• We will continue to work closely with local authority social work departments to ensure staff are aware of the Transition Fund and how they might direct and support young disabled people to apply for funding.
• We will continue to communicate with key fostering agencies and with STAF (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum)

Commitment 2

We will assess the requirements of care experienced young people to ensure we meet their needs.

Actions:

• We will continue to engage with care experienced young people to increase our understanding of their needs to help us better shape our services to take account of these.
• We will consider the impact on care experienced young people as part of our Equality Impact Assessments.

Commitment 3

We will develop staff awareness of corporate parenting across our organisation.

Actions:

• All ILF Scotland staff and Board members receive training and awareness sessions that outline the principles of corporate parenting, our responsibilities, and the ILF Scotland action plan.
• New staff joining ILF Scotland have an understanding of corporate parenting by including it in our induction pack.
• To increase awareness of the difference the Transition Fund makes to care experienced young people, we will share experiences of recipients of the Fund and our work with other corporate parenting partners.

Commitment 4

We will ensure access to our services for care experienced young people.

Actions:

• We will ensure our promotion of the Transition Fund reaches care experienced young people so they are aware of the Transition Fund and what it can offer them.
• We will continue to engage with care experienced young people through events such as Care Leavers Transition days.
• We will fully support care experienced young people to successfully complete the application process.

Commitment 5

We will consider where we could improve our services and processes for care experienced young people.

Actions:

• We will engage with care experienced recipients for feedback on our services and identify areas for improvement.
• We will implement systems to identify whether applicants to the re-opened 2015 Fund are care experienced and analyse this data to assist us with future planning.
• We will work with other Corporate Parents and care experienced young people to identify how we can improve our plan, services and processes.
• We will review our corporate parenting approach and report on progress against the actions in the report annually.

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[1] UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - UNICEF UK

Foreword

I am pleased and privileged to introduce ILF Scotland’s Corporate Parenting Plan 2021-2024. The plan outlines six core commitments, with a seventh, which gives an undertaking to review our plan. We believe that these will drive genuine change within our organisation and will support care experienced young people, enhance their wellbeing and remove barriers that could prevent them from achieving their personal goals.

ILF Scotland has a safeguarding role through our work with young people in our Transition Fund. The Transition Fund provides money, for up to one year, to support young people aged 16 to 25 living with disabilities or impairments. The Transition Fund aims to help these young people transitioning from school or children’s services to be more independent and to continue spending time with other people. We estimate that around seven per cent of young people applying for the Transition Fund are care experienced. As a public body of the Scottish Government, we are committed to supporting Scottish Ministers in their role as corporate parents. We continue to develop our services and the way in which we deliver them, to contribute to improving the life chances of care experienced young people.

This is our first corporate parenting plan. It comes at a time when we are undergoing a period of significant transformational change. We have recently published our new three-year Strategy ‘Hope & Ambition’, we are embarking on the development of a new IT system, and systematically reviewing all of our policies and the way in which we deliver our services to our customers. We welcome the unique opportunity to improve the lives of young people by delivering this plan. To do this effectively, we will engage actively with care experienced young people and work collaboratively with other organisations.

This partnership work will be at the heart of our approach, as the feedback we receive will help us shape and improve our services. We will continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders including care experienced young people. As we develop our plan, we aim to better target our resources towards care experienced young people who can potentially benefit from our funding to bring about transformational change.

Peter Scott, OBE
CEO, ILF Scotland

Introduction

ILF Scotland, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, joined many other public bodies in Scotland to become a national Corporate Parent under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Part 9 (Corporate Parenting) of this Act placed legal responsibilities on Scottish Ministers to promote the wellbeing of care experienced young people.

This Corporate Parenting Plan sets out how we will help to deliver Scottish Ministers’ statutory obligations as a Corporate Parent. We have taken a collaborative approach to developing our plan and have worked closely with partner agencies including the Centre for Excellence for Looked after Children In Scotland (CELCIS), The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Scotland and Who Cares? Scotland. We have asked for feedback from care experienced young people via our contact with Social Work Teams in Health & Social Care Partnerships and have involved staff from key business areas within our organisation. Our Board has contributed to the plan and fully endorses it.

ILF Scotland Background

ILF Scotland is a Non Departmental Public Body and a Company Limited by Guarantee, governed by a Board of Directors, appointed by and accountable to Scottish Ministers.

ILF Scotland operates two funds. Following the closure of ILF UK in 2015, the Scottish Government established a new organisation, ILF Scotland, to administer funding to Scottish recipients of the ILF UK fund, which became known as the 2015 Fund. Through agreement with both Governments, ILF Scotland also administers the 2015 Fund on behalf of recipients in Northern Ireland.

The 2015 Fund provides financial awards to over 3,000 people in Scotland and Northern Ireland to help them pay for support to live independently at home, in their communities.

In 2017, working with disabled young people, ILF Scotland opened the Transition Fund for 16 to 21 year-olds, which has supported young people to become more active and to participate in their communities. Scottish Government extended the age range to 25 years in November 2019 so that more young people might benefit from the opportunity the Fund offers but also to align with the age range associated with looked after and care experienced young people.

All services that work with children and adults are responsible for promoting, supporting and safeguarding the wellbeing of all children and adults at risk of harm and for ensuring that members of the public know who to contact if they are concerned about a child or adult at risk of harm.

ILF Scotland considers that all staff have a duty to report concerns of harm. Our policy is that if any ILF Scotland staff member becomes aware of potential or actual harm, they will act with or without the consent of the ILF Scotland applicant/recipient or of the person affected by providing information in the form of a referral to the relevant Local Authority and in line with the policy of that Local Authority. This will normally involve using an agreed referral form or by telephone.

Where possible, an ILF Scotland member of staff should discuss any concerns of harm with their line manager or a member of the management team.

If ILF Scotland receives a report of harm, it will record this and follow up appropriately to ensure ILF Scotland recipients’ safety and to protect ILF Scotland funds.

Our Vision, Mission and Principles

ILF Scotland exists to support independent living for disabled people in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Independent living means, “Disabled people have the same freedom, choice, dignity and control as other people at home, at work, and in the community. It does not mean living by yourself or looking after yourself on your own. It means the person has rights to practical assistance and support to participate in society and live an ordinary life.” (Independent Living in Scotland project, 2008). ILF Scotland aims to enable disabled people to live independent lives, and to exercise choice and control over how each recipient of the fund achieves their own independent living outcomes. We aim to adopt a human rights approach to all that we do. In particular, we seek to ensure our actions support the realisation of Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - “living independently and being included in the community”.

ILF Scotland has developed its own vision, mission and values, which we use to inform our business priorities and draw on to influence the approach we take as we try to achieve our goals. These values, in particular, will influence how we achieve the aims detailed in our Corporate Parent Plan.

Vision

All disabled people, and those with a long-term health condition, can access what they need to lead an
independent life.

Mission

To support disabled people, empowering them to lead their fullest lives.

Principles

The core principle of ILF Scotland is that disabled people have the same rights, freedoms and abilities to lead the fullest lives they can, free from discrimination and on an equal basis with others.

ILF Scotland’s Delivery Plan

Our organisation has already started a programme of transformation, which involves a review of the systems and processes we use to deliver our services. We want to provide services that are easy for our customers to access and use and that can adapt to changes in policy and recipient needs.

Our Delivery Plan 2020-23 sets out how we will deliver our key business objectives:

Strategic Priority 1

Facilitate disabled people’s right to Independent Living

Strategic Priority 2

Be leaders in enabling Independent Living

Strategic Priority 3

Operate high-quality and efficient services

Corporate Parenting Overview

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 came into effect on 1 April 2015. The legislation is a key part of the Scottish Government’s strategy for making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. The Act established a new legal framework within which public services are to work together in support of children, young people and families in Scotland.

The Statutory Guidance on Corporate Parenting defines it as:

“An organisation’s performance of actions necessary to uphold the rights and safeguard the wellbeing of a looked after child or care leaver, and through which physical, emotional, spiritual, social and educational development is promoted.” (Scottish Government, 2015)

Our role

The legislation names Scottish Ministers as the Corporate Parent. ILF Scotland is not a Corporate Parent in its own right but as a public body, we should contribute to the success of the Scottish Government’s Corporate Parenting role. Our key function is to empower disabled people to live independently by providing support through our Funds.

In relation to the Transition Fund, we commit to try to improve our understanding corporately of care experienced young peoples’ needs so that we might better target our service to them as well as provide them with the best advice and assistance we can. We will do this by working with other Corporate Parents, relevant organisations and care experienced young people to identify how we can improve our plan, services and processes.

We will review our commitments to care experienced individuals and the corresponding actions and timescales in our annual review of our Corporate Parenting Plan and will provide an update to our Board, which we will publish on our website.

Contact information

If you would like more information on our organisation or our Corporate Parenting role or Plan, please
contact us by email: enquiries@ILF.scot or by phone: 0300 200 2022 or in writing at the address below:

ILF Scotland, Ground Floor, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston, EH54 6GA

ILF Scotland’s Corporate Parenting Plan 2021-24

Updated following our annual review of progress against our Corporate Parenting Actions at July 2023

Corporate Parenting responsibilities: alert, assess, promote, opportunities, access and improve

Commitment 1: We will develop relationships with other Corporate Parents and relevant organisations to make sure that ILF Scotland remains alert to the needs of care experienced young people and to inform our policy and practice.

Action: We will develop new and existing relationships with other Corporate Parents, making them aware that we are a Corporate Parent.

Target date: March 2023

Outcome: We have established a working network with other Corporate Parent organisations and will have made direct contact with a third of all LA SW Departments by the end of 2023.

Progress: ILF Scotland is now part of the ‘Who Cares?’ Scotland’s Corporate parenting network with all other corporate parents including COSLA.

Update as of December 2023: ILF Scotland continues to be part of “Who Cares” Scotland Collaborative Corporate Parenting Network, which meets quarterly.

Action: We will continue to work closely with relevant organisations and stakeholders to inform our policy and practice.

Target date: March 2023

Outcome: We are alert to matters that might affect care experienced young people through our ongoing liaison work.

Progress: We have a strong relationship with ‘Who Cares?’ Scotland, universities/colleges and social work services and have engaged specifically with CAMHS and mental welfare commission.

Update as of December 2023: We have communicated with key fostering agencies and STAF (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum). We are open to working with other bodies to share CP plans & reviews.

Commitment 2: We will assess the requirements of care experienced young people to ensure we meet their needs.

Action: We will consider care experienced young people in all ILF Scotland Equality Impact Assessments.

Target date: March 2024

Outcome: Equality Impact Assessments are considered / implemented where appropriate for all TF changes that impact on care experienced young people.

Progress: Complete

Update as of December 2023: Complete and ongoing.

Action: We will gain an understanding of care experienced young people’s needs through engagement with them and through working with other organisations that support them.

Target date: March 2024

Outcome: We consider the needs of care experienced young people and tailor our approach to best meet those needs.

Progress: We continue to work closely with ‘Who Cares?’ Scotland and form part of their collaborative working group of corporate parents.

Update as of December 2023: We have observed that many care experienced young people are in most cases in receipt of help to complete their application but we provide additional support if required.

Commitment 3: We will increase staff awareness on the subject of corporate parenting to make sure they promote benefits for care experienced young people.

Action: We will develop awareness sessions for all staff members to outline the principles of corporate parenting, our responsibilities and the ILF Scotland action plan.

Target date: March 2023

Outcome: All staff have attended awareness and training sessions.

Progress: We delivered Managers training in Q4, 2021 to 2022. Further staff training was delivered by ‘Who Cares?’ Scotland between May and October 2022. This embedded knowledge needed to support care experienced young people through applications. Refresher training is planned for 2024 to 2025.

Update as of December 2023: Refresher training is planned for 2024 to 2025. “Who Cares” Scotland have delivered Trauma Informed training over three sessions to ILF Scotland Board, Senior Management Team and front facing staff.

Action: We will ensure all new staff have an understanding of corporate parenting by including it in our induction pack.

Target date: October 2021

Outcome: All new staff are aware of ILF Scotland's corporate parenting responsibilities.

Progress: Complete

Update as of December 2023: Complete and ongoing.

Action: We will develop a communications strategy to target care experienced young people, and ensure they are aware of the TF and what we can offer them.

Target date: July 2022

Outcome: Communications strategy targets young people directly who are care experienced where appropriate and through other organisations to raise awareness.

Progress: Complete. Corporate Parenting is now included in our Communications Strategy.

Update as of December 2023: Complete. Through our communications strategy we highlighted a young care experienced person, Eireann, who is a TF recipient, with her view of how she has benefited from the fund. Eireann is also Who Cares? Scotland’s youngest Trustee – read more about her at Who Cares? Scotland’s youngest trustee Eireann on Care Experienced Week 2023 | ILF Scotland

Commitment 4: We will provide opportunities for care experienced young people.

Action: We will invite care experienced young people to be part of the ILF Scotland Young Ambassadors group.

Target date: October 2022

Outcome: We promote inclusion and participation to care experienced young people by offering membership to the TF Young Ambassadors Group.

Progress: Complete and ongoing. We are looking to create a panel of Care experienced young people to join our Young Ambassadors Group. We plan to request to be included in the ARC Scotland event planned for February 2024.

Update as of December 2023: At present, there is not a care experienced young person in this group, although we do communicate with appropriate candidates and are hopeful that this group can be represented in the future.

Action: We consistently look for opportunities to make the application process easier for care experienced young people and at how they can be assisted to make successful applications.

Target date: March 2024

Outcome: We will amend the application form to explicitly ask young people to identify as care experienced by the end of Q1 2023 and will look for opportunities to change operational procedures to make applying to the fund easier for young people by the end of Q4 2023.

Progress: Complete and we continue to review the application process to continue to evolve the most accessible version possible.

Update as of December 2023: There has been an increase in the number of care experienced young people applying to the Transition Fund with this number being 13.6% to date this year. It is however optional on the application to note this, so the number could be higher in reality. There is evidence of some applications indicating the person is care experienced when they are not. We will explore the possibility of adding an explanation of the care experienced criteria on the application portal.

Commitment 5: We will ensure access to our services for care experienced young people.

Action: We will fully support care experienced young people to successfully complete the application process.

Target date: March 2024

Outcome: We assist care experienced young people to access information about the Fund to help them to receive grants to assist their transition. We will support all care experienced young people who apply to complete their application from Q1 of 2022/23.

Progress: Ongoing through our engagement with mental health commission, local authorities, ARC Scotland, and ‘Who Cares?’ Scotland All ILF Scotland staff have been given training by ‘Who Cares?’ Scotland to ensure they are best placed to support young applicants.

Update as of December 2023: Complete and ongoing

Action: We will hold engagement events with care experienced young people and the organisations that support them to improve understanding of the Transition Fund.

Target date: March 2024

Outcome: We will target engagement specifically at care experienced young people.

Progress: Complete and ongoing

Update as of December 2023: Complete and ongoing.

Action: We will flag care experienced young people on our internal database to help monitor how many applications we receive from this group.

Target date: March 2023

Outcome: We monitor the number of applications we receive from care experienced young people and consistently build on these results.

Progress: By adding the flag on our system to gather information on care experienced applicants, we now monitor and report upon to inform out improvements in this area.

Update as of December 2023: To date in 2023 13.6% of applications received are from care experienced young people.

Commitment 6: We will consider where we could improve our services and processes for care experienced young people.

Action: We will work with other Corporate Parents and care experienced young people to identify how we can improve our plan, services and processes.

Target date: March 2024

Outcome: We seek regular opportunities to improve our plan, services and processes on an ongoing basis.

Progress: This work has been ongoing through the life cycle of this plan. We are committed to working with care experienced young people in the development of our new corporate parenting plan in 2024.

Update as of December 2023: We are aware that some care experienced young people may not realise that they can apply if they are receiving support for early life trauma and anxiety for example, rather than have a diagnosis of a disability. Full details of the eligibility criteria are available through all communication channels and at engagement events.

Commitment 7: We will review, develop and report on our Corporate Parenting Plan.

Action: We will review our plan annually and publish an update on our progress against our commitments.

Target date: March 2023

Outcome: We ensure that our plan continues to be responsive to the needs of care experienced young people.

Progress: Complete. We update and report on this plan annually.

Action: We will formally report on the progress of our plan every three years.

Target date: March 2024

Progress: Ongoing

Update as of December 2023: Ongoing

Contact information

You can contact us by letter, phone or email:
ILF Scotland
Ground Floor, Denholm House,
Almondvale Business Park,
Almondvale Way,
Livingston,
EH54 6GA

Telephone: 0300 200 2022

Email: enquiries@ILF.scot

If you need this document in an alternative format please contact us.

ILF Scotland Board Meeting
Monday 29 April 2018

Annual Operational Report ( DRAFT)
1^st April 2017 - 31^st March 2018

Contents

1.   Introduction	5
2.   Executive Summary	5
3.   Our People	7
Annex A Key Statistics	8

1. Introduction

The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of achievement and activities the reporting year between 1^st April 2017 – 31^st March 2018.

2. Operational Achievement and Activities

a.   Overview – In the last year, ILF Scotland has continued to deliver against the organisational strategy achieving a key milestone of successfully opening the Transition Fund in December 2017. Alongside this, the organisation has also been named as a Top 30 UK Employer by Working Families, the Best Public Sector Employer by Family Friendly Working Scotland and a finalist in the up and coming CIPFA UK Finance Awards. Though the successful implementation of the Scottish Living Wage has been widely welcomed, it has put further pressure on the funding available for individuals especially when other increased employment costs are factored in. We continue to work closely with colleagues in the Scottish Government and Local Authorities to mitigate against the negative impact of a combination of financial pressures on independent living outcomes.

b.   Key Operational Activities - Over this period the following key activities have taken place:

   i.   Strategic Theme 1 - The Existing Fund has been maximised for effective value:

• Completing case reviews for current recipients to develop additional capacity and availability of operational staff to support the launch of the Transition Fund.
• Self-audit for the General Data Protection Regulations and identification of 3^rd party organisation to support ILF Scotland through the process.
• Initial planning around adopting total quality management approaches with Quality Scotland, including becoming members committed to excellence.
• Extensive project work to enable the successful automatic Scottish Living Wage uplift for all eligible recipients for the first time in the history of ILF.
• Being a Cyber Catalyst organisation for the Scottish Government and preparing to meet the requirements of the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
• Full ICT internal audit successfully completed with an overall finding of “robust”.
• Further work with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Scottish Social Security Agency (SSSA) for the technical solution with ILF Scotland becoming an embedded partner.
• Working through submissions for policy changes connected to the 2015 fund.
• Completing the end of year financial accounts and strengthening financial procedures, processes and systems.
• Improving systems for the 2015 Fund.
• Full review of all HR polices, process and systems through the lens of both legislation and accessibility.
• Staff survey carried out for the second year demonstrating further progress against the strategic objectives of being an employer of choice.
• Agreed and implemented new pay structure in line with the Scottish Government system.

   ii.   Strategic Theme 2 - A New ILF scheme is successfully introduced and established in Scotland:

• The successful the launch of the Transition Fund with the main activity focusing on receiving and evaluating the new applications. Behind the scenes significant work has continued with the preparations for the new web service and re- assessment against the Digital First government standard.
• Continued engagement with professional colleagues, DPOs and key organisations involved in supporting good transitions for the Transition Fund across Scotland.
• Extensive legal and compliance work around the Transition Fund policy suite, including development of the data protection and privacy impact assessment.

   iii.   Strategic Theme 3 -   The knowledge gained through our work across all of Scotland and Northern Ireland has been shared to develop best practice:

• Online forum developed for recipients and stakeholders.
• Newsletter drafted to be sent out early in the first quarter of 2018-2019.
• Provisional work carried out to map ILF Scotland outcomes to National Outcomes for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
• Numerous engagement events/meetings held in relation to both the 2015 and Transition Fund with key stakeholders.
• New social work relationships established.
• Attendance on various strategic groups involved in the set-up of the Social Security Agency sharing our knowledge of the journey so far.
• New Google Analytics reporting suite launched.
• Award submissions completed.

c.   Main Effort - The key operational activities are outlined above, however the main effort has been to launch and run the Transition Fund alongside improving the 2015 Fund.

d.   2015 Fund Numbers - Table 1 below shows that the 2015 Fund recipient numbers have dropped from 3,119 (Scotland 2,678 & NI 528) to 2,961 over the reporting year (Scotland 2,466 & NI 496). This represents an overall decline in recipient numbers of 5% per annum (Scotland 4.9% & NI 7%) which broadly follows the trends of the previous year:

Table 1 – Recipient Numbers 2017/2018

e.   2015 Fund Operational Performance – Table 2 below shows that the operational tempo remained relatively constant overall with the main activities of visits and reports dropping by over 40% due to the launch of the Transition Fund, but offset by an increase of 55% in offers made due to the implementation of the Scottish Living Wage uplift. In addition to this, the average time from referral to offer completion has reduced by 5 days or 3% overall. This is despite a significant increase in the time spent to review and agree the package of support due to the wider challenges of incorrect benefits, reduced local authority staffing, budget cuts and upward pressures on costs.

Table 2 – Visits, Reports and Offers 2017/2018

e.   Transition Operational Performance – Table 3 below shows the operational figures since the fund opened on the 20^th December. There has been a steady growth in numbers over the months receiving a total of 126 applications. What is clear from the applications is they are definitely hitting the intended target audience for the scheme, however anecdotal evidence suggests that the message is still filtering out and potential applicants are waiting to see how the scheme progresses before putting in a submission. In terms of processing time, it is taking 50 days on average to process, evaluate and inform an applicant of a decision on their submission. This is 40% quicker than the provisional target set of 12 weeks and we believe this can be greatly reduced with various continuous improvement initiatives planned in 2018/2019. That said as we are using a paper based/downloadable application which takes on average of 12 hours to process each application. Again we believe that significant efficiencies will be gained with the launch of the online application later in 2018. Lastly, it is still early to draw any meaningful conclusions from the operational performance statistics, however they provide a useful baseline for future reporting periods and indicate a strong start to this scheme.

Table 3 – Transition Fund Operational Performance

Note: Looking at the current trends in applications withdrawn and declined, coupled with a review of the submissions in the system, the total liability for 2017/18 in financial terms is expected to be £350k.

g.   ILF Scotland Transition Fund – The ILF Scotland Transition Fund was launched to a controlled cohort of 500 people on 20^th December 2017. This saw an application form either being sent to the applicant by post or available as an online form. Of note, the opening prior to the end of the 3^rd quarter ensured that a Ministerial commitment was delivered and young disabled individuals in Scotland would have the opportunity to access this fund. ILF Scotland, Scottish Government colleagues and the Central Legal Services (CLO) from the NHS worked incredibly hard to achieve the sign off of a complete policy suite for the fund. On the technical side, the web service was tested and completed, but due to the findings from Digital First Assessment in October 2017, ILF Scotland decided it was necessary to undertake further work on this area to ensure successful implementation which is due to be completed in 2018/2019. Moving on, development of the web front end service, database portal, ICI Group 3, a new enquiries database and call logging system have all been introduced and refined in the later part of the reporting period. Additionally, significant testing has taken place and the results confirmed that the new service meets with the expectations of the core user group (i.e. young disabled people). Alongside the above, a significant amount of work was done around the governance of the fund, including the implications of GDPR , the production of a privacy impact assessment and working with the NHS Counter Fraud Team to ensure the risk of misuse of funds is minimal. In addition, the following work was carried out:

• A specific cross functional team has been set up to map out and detail how the Transition Fund will operate and how an application will be evaluated.
• A comprehensive training plan has been implemented to prepare all front line staff in receiving and approving new applications. This has focused on the policy suite, the new technology and person centred planning.
• A small group has been established to focus on quality assurance and standardisation of evaluating the new applications.
• The formal response to the Digital First Assessment findings has been made, which has seen the development of a revised project plan and operational support model for the new digital service. Part of the sustainability model integrates into our wider digital transformation and continuous improvement activities. This will also fold back learning and improvements into how the 2015 Fund is operated where opportunities are identified.

h.   Transition Fund Applications Received – The table below shows where the applications have been received to date and provides a good basis for a targeted communications campaign in the next reporting period. In terms of requests, we are being asked for a variety of things as shown by the following list:

• Driving lessons
• Horse Riding Lessons
• Activity weekends
• Technology, e.g. laptops, computers, tablets
• Gym memberships
• Music lessons/therapy
• Sports coaching
• Independent travel assistants
• PA support
• Equipment, e.g. specialist wheelchairs
• Ski Holiday
• On line course – game design
• Elliptical Trainer
• Singing Lessons
• Ski lessons
• Scottish Youth theatre summer course
• Hypnotherapy
• Finance a move from halls of residence into private rented accommodation

Table 4 – Geographic Spread of Applications

i.   Call Volumes - Call and email volumes have decreased in 2017/2018 to 8,339 (7,335 telephone and 1,004 email enquiries) from 9,332 (8,347 telephone and 895 email enquiries) in the 2016/2017. Anecdotally this is thought to be due to better communications with stakeholders coupled with more relevant information of the website. However we have launched a comprehensive analytics platform and will be rolling out more comprehensive feedback system to evidence the reasons behind future increases or decreases in call volumes. Of these, over 90% of all enquiries relate to Scotland and the main areas of query are as follows:

• Reassessment visits;
• requests for information from Assessors;
• LA calls for information – payment schedule, threshold sums, etc;
• completion of agreement forms;
• Scottish Living Wage;
• Auto pension enrolment;
• payments and payment increase requests;
• Transition fund;
• general (this includes confirmation of information not covered above, new fund enquiries and general information about the organisation).

j.   Recipients - What continues to be reinforced through all our activities and highlighted in previous reports, is the challenging time disabled people are experiencing in trying to have choice and control about decisions in their lives. The compound impact of the Scottish Living Wage, charging policies, the National Living Wage and increased employer related costs for both those that employ staff directly and use care providers, is significant and is reducing the amount of support available to individuals.

k.   Feedback - The satisfaction rating we have received from recipients regarding the service for the 2015 Fund has decreased slightly from 99% in 2016/17 (186 responses representing 9% of all offers made) to 98% in 2017/18 (58 responses representing 5% of all offers made excluding the automatic Scottish Living Wage uplift). To improve the depth of and quantity of feedback received we intend on implementing a new feedback system in 2018/2019. Feedback for the Transition Fund has not been received in during this period and this will follow in subsequent reports.

l.   Scottish Living Wage Implementation – A major project was carried out in the first quarter including the automatic uplift of approximately 2,400 eligible recipients. Over the following quarters we have continued to work through any issues as a consequence of this, with the main one being individuals being pushed to the maximum award threshold. This has meant that additional visits have been required to review packages of around 200 individuals aiming to minimise the impact of increased costs of the number of hours of support.

m.   Social Work - Despite the significant pull on resources with the development and launch of the Transition Fund on Social work teams, we have moved into our second cycle of bi-annual reviews in Scotland and NI ahead of schedule. Work carried out in this reporting period has been aligned to the three strategic themes:

   i.   Maximising the effectiveness of the 2015 fund - Our key task of review visits and rebalancing of support plans to reflect the additionality of ILF Scotland funding progressed well in most local authorities during 2017/2018, despite significant cost pressures to care packages. A plan is in place to visit specific Local Authority partners to redress the last elements of historic imbalances inherited from our antecedent UK wide public body. Northern Ireland is now rolling out Self Directed Support to its 5 Health and Social Care Trust areas and we will be working closely with them to re-enforcing additionality of ILF support. We have seen a step change in the complexity of Assessor reviews over the last year, which has seen a 30% increase in time spent in working through the issues. These are mainly grouped around: incorrect benefits due to DWP errors; mitigating the negative impact of increased employment costs; the inconsistent implementation of SDS nationally; the upward pressure on statutory partners budgets; and, increasingly, ILF recipients reaching the maximum award. We expect these issues to get more problematic with ever increasing costs and are working with the Scottish Government to look at possible solutions to ease the pressure.

   ii.   Deliver a New Fund - All assessors contributed to the opening of the Transition Fund with significant input to the implementation group and engagement events. Assessors are part of a bi-weekly evaluation panel on an on-going basis, providing professional advice and support to caseworker colleagues. The Assessor Team have embraced the practice and role changes brought by the Transition Fund, e.g. a new type of intervention in the visits to applicants and a new role supporting colleagues in evaluation of applications. The impact on 2015 fund reviews is being managed by a greater focus on throughput and increased capacity within the team.

   iii.   Share our knowledge and develop best practice - At a strategic level, the Head of Social Work is now a permanent member of Scotland’s Adult Social Care Committee and is involved in several national initiatives relevant to ILF Scotland practice. Meetings with the senior managers and equality networks of Education Scotland and Skills Development Scotland have produced new partnerships and promote better transitions at local levels in several areas. At a local level across all 37 partnerships and trusts in Scotland and Northern Ireland, ILF Scotland has delivered input to local teams and/or lead officers. This rolling programme of engagement is vital to ensure improved relationships, thus leading to better-quality outcomes for fund recipients is maintained. Following meetings with officers within the new Scottish Social Security Agency, ILF Scotland assessment models will be shared in 2018, raising and supporting their ambition of ensuring person-centred assessment is an intrinsic part of the operational model.

n.   Policy – The Policy Team has continued to focus on promoting consistency in the application of policies in decision making, whilst also ensuring decisions are tailored to individual circumstances:

• A further revision of Policy 4 has submitted in January 2018. Ministerial approval is sought to reduce the cap to £70 to be implemented this financial year, to further reduce to £42 as soon as the ILF Scotland budget can withstand the additional costs associated and to grant powers of waiver on specified circumstances associated with terminal illness, financial hardship and poverty.
• Policy 20 on maximum award has been reviewed and proposals will be submitted in January 2018 for Ministerial approval. The implementation of a reduction in Available Income charges, coupled with the implementation of SLW including other employer liabilities, such as pension auto-enrolment and inflation, has resulted in a significantly reduced value of the maximum award, with some recipients unable to cover their existing and new commitments. The result is a reduction in care or a referral to statutory services for a reassessment.
• Number of Discretionary Decisions – 63.
• Decision Reviews -1.
• Number of Complaints – 3.
• The Team have led on a Policy and Implementation Working Group to develop a suite of polices for the ILF Scotland Transition Fund. This has been a major priority and the primary focus of the policy team in this quarter. The policies have been completed and were authorised by the Minister for the Transition Fund launch in December 17.

o.   IT, Digital Transformation and Continuous Improvement – The Digital Transformation has continued on two fronts for ILF Scotland with the introduction of the new Transition Fund Web Service and our Cyber Catalyst role for Scottish Government. The back office systems have worked well to receive, process and evaluate the applications for the new fund, but the paper based approach has introduced time delays to processing which will not be an issue when the web service becomes live. The project team to deliver the technical solution has been increased and most of the work has focused on the upgrade of the infrastructure ready to deploy the new web service. Further user acceptance testing has been planned once new service is deployed and the results of this will feed into the Digital First re-assessment. At the first assessment gaps were identified in the coverage of the support provided by Scottish Government iTECS and the new technical support requirements. This has led to a review of the technical infrastructure, support contracts and staffing model required to support the management and operation of a new government standard digital service. ILF Scotland has been able to share its learning from the D1 assessment to help develop the new standard, and has been part of the small working group for Scottish Government to assist in the Cyber Resilience strategy for Scotland. This has also included advising on cloud adoption strategies and cloud migration. Overall, work in the ICT space has been significant and has developed both the infrastructure and staff model to support the launch of a new, customer focused digital service in 2018 and to be a lead Scottish cyber resilient organisation.

p.   Finance – This has been another strong year from a financial perspective with another clear external audit, further strengthening of finance systems and being shortlisted for the UK Public Sector Finance Award for Finance Team of the Year. Specific financial information is found separately in the management accounts and other key achievements or activities of note are as follows:

• Paid over 97% of invoices within 10 days.
• All payments on time with no errors.
• Finalised new debt recovery process.
• Streamlined the collection of unspent monies and overpayments.
• Financial Management - produced a 4 yearly forecast for the Award Budget for both Scotland & NI Governments.
• Submitted Annual Accounts and Reports to Companies House.

q.   Corporate Communications – Significant progress has been made in the area of corporate communications over this reporting period with a 49% increase in website views this year (25,997 in 2016/2017 compared to 51,147 in 2017/2018). There has also been a 51% increase in our online reach from 6,388 new users in 2016/2017 to 13,076 in 2017/2018. With regards to social media, the Twitter followers have increased from 719 in 2016/2017 to 1,056 in 2017/2018 and our Facebook presence has gone from 81 likes to 202. Following the opening of the Transition Fund, the Communications team have established an Instagram account and will look to develop this further as part of the strategy for 2018/2019. On a like for like basis this is a 49% increase in online activity from the previous year. The Communications Team have largely focused on the implementation of ILF Scotland’s second key strategic objective of ‘Introducing and establishing a new ILF Scheme in Scotland’ (now known as the Transition Fund). Specifically, the following activities have been undertaken and accomplished throughout the year:

• Establishing and successfully implementing a specific communications strategy for the introduction of the Transition Fund.
• Development, design and implementation of the Transition Fund Application Form.
• Development, design and implementation of supplementary Transition Fund marketing materials, including a supporting information leaflet, ‘Your Responsibilities’ guide, etc.
• Establishing accessible versions of the application form and all supplementary marketing materials, i.e. easy read, BSL, etc.
• Development, design and implementation of Transition Fund website structure and content.
• Development and implementation of social media content and online newsletter mail outs to all relevant stakeholders to promote the Fund.
• Establishing media coverage (in co-ordination with the Scottish Government) around the launch of the Transition Fund.
• Attendance at a number of engagement events to promote the Transition Fund, i.e. New College Lanarkshire Transitions event.

r.   Summary – This has been another strong year, delivering further progress against our strategic plan with the launch of the new Transition Fund and improvements to the 2015 Fund. ILF Scotland’s Business Plan for 2018/2019 articulates the detailed priorities for the coming year.

3. Our People

a.   Overview – During this year we have continued to strengthen our approach and systems relating to HR and organisational development, to ensure our employee proposition is inclusive, life friendly, market leading and skills appropriate. This also included finalising agreeing the pay structure with the Scottish Government. Of particular note ILF Scotland has became a Top 30 UK wide employer in the Working Families 2017 Benchmark and the Best Public Sector Employer at the 2018 Family Friendly Working Scotland Awards.

b.   Organisational Demography – From April 2017 to March 2018, the organisational make up consisted of 51 staff and Directors who were engaged in a combination of part-time, full-time, freelance contracts and one student placement. The current gender mix was 73:27 female: male, with 18% of staff registered disabled, 8% BME and 4% LGBT.

c.   Recruitment - Since April 2017, we have strengthened the staff team with the following appointments:

• 3 x Freelance Assessors ( now moved to employed Assessor)
• 1 x Business & Project Administrator (1.0 FTE)
• 1 x Social Work Student Placement (6 months)(1.0 FTE)- completed successfully
• 1 x IT and Systems Improvement Officer (0.5 FTE)- (1 year secondment to June 2018)
• 1 x Communications Officer
• 1 x Scottish Government Secondment (1 FTE -Business Administrator) extended indefinitely
• 1 x Specialist Caseworker and 1 x Operations Administrator (temp for 12 months to support the Transition Fund).
• 1 x Head of Policy – recruitment on-going

d.   Employment status - To foster a people friendly approach, ILF Scotland offers different contractual opportunities to all individuals employed in some capacity with the organisation. To date 1 x Assessor remains with a freelance contract, all others have been offered and accepted part/full-time employment contracts offering stability to the organisation at a time of growth and change.

e.   Retention - Staff retention has remained strong during the last year with 2 staff leaving. 1 x retirement and 1 x moved to a promoted post within the Scottish Government.

f.   Absence – Sickness rates have recently risen slightly since last year with several longer absences. The current rate is 4.6 days per person per annum which still is approximately 50% of the average public sector benchmark in the 2017 CIPD survey. To identify the appropriate support and enable colleagues to return to work more speedily, we have also carried 5 x OH Referrals in this reporting period.

g.   Disciplinary, Grievance and Performance – 7 grievances received and resolved. 5 x Pay Award. 2 x other (both withdrawn).

h.   Staff Survey – A Staff Survey Working Group completed work following the 2016 Staff Survey, implementing a quarterly internal newsletter to address the most prominent issue raised in the staff survey. The caseworkers and assessors team identified the requirement to feed in relevant practice, policy and other appropriate communicable information. The Staff Survey for 2017 has been completed, collated and distributed recently. This shows a 20% improvement across 4 key areas of achievement, control over work, location and benefits. This also shows the positive impact of ILF Scotland’s life friendly approach and inclusive culture.

i.   Supporting Activity - to enable the organisation to successfully deliver the strategy and be an employer of choice, the following activity has taken place:

• All Assessors and some Caseworkers attended CPAG Benefits training, and Child Protection Training.
• The personal development review process for 2018 is well underway for all employed staff. Staff development needs will be taken forward on a one to one basis with line managers to include up skilling through mentoring, shadowing, training, on job learning etc. The 2018 personal development review will be completed by February 2019.
• Learning & Development Policy implemented at the end of June 2017.
• The majority of staff attended Mental Health Awareness Training and Personal Resilience Training. This will be provided at regular intervals for the foreseeable future.
• 3 x Board Directors and new staff attended Disability Equality Training.
• Office staff and Board Directors attended 1 x Assessment Review with an ILF recipient to reinforce our values.
• Recognition Agreement signed between ILF Scotland and PCS Union.
• 2017 Annual Data Protection eTraining for all staff completed.
• 1 x staff member invited as part of a panel at the Working Families Conference.
• 6 x staff members attended the Social Work Scotland Conference.
• 2 x staff members attended the Fathers Network Scotland meeting to share good practice.
• 2 x staff members attended ACAS HR Courses (Effective Skills for Line Managing & Conducting Discipline and Grievance Investigations, Recruitment & Selection Training (ACAS)).
• 3 x staff members BCS Certificate in Information Security Management Principles – Course in February 2018.
• Cyber Security for Executives Training for 2 members of Audit and Risk Committee and managers on 4^th December 2017.
• COO and Executive Business Manager met with the HR, Learning & Development Manager for the Social Security Scotland Implementation Team to share set-up practices and learning from ILF Scotland.
• All staff attended a successful and informative Transition Fund Development Day at GCiL.
• All Assessors – Training on Lone Working Policy and Reliance Safety Fob.
• Assessors /Caseworkers – All staff involved in the Transition Fund undertook Person Centred Planning and signposting.
• All Assessors and Caseworkers - Child Protection Training.
• Several attendees at GDPR conferences in preparation for May 2018. 1 x staff member attending GDPR Practitioner Course.
• Review of employee proposition for 2018/19.
• Preliminary research into transferring staff on to a defined benefit scheme in 2018.
• 1 x JEGS Evaluation Training for HR Manager.
• 2 day bespoke HR training for all managers on 16/17 April.
• 2 x Server Querying Data course (SQL training).
• 1 x Prince 2 Foundation.
• 6 x Directors – Annual appraisals completed by Chair.

j.   Health and Safety – there have been no reportable incidents over the last year and the following activity has taken place:

• Annual Audit completed successfully in July- by Navigator Health & Safety
• In advance of Transition Fund launch, Lone Working Policy and Protocols set up and active from Monday 18^th December 2017 using Reliance Protect system.
• Healthy Working Lives Award– working towards Bronze and thereafter Silver in 2018.

Annex A - Key Statistics

The following table shows the key statistics for the period 1^st April 2017 to 31^st March 2018 and are aligned to standard annual financial reporting cycles as ILF Scotland is now in steady state operations. It does not include Transition Fund which is reported separately at present.

Report to Follow

Annual Corporate Report

Annual Corporate Report

Contents

1. Introduction	3
2. Executive Summary	3
3. Performance Framework	9
4. Strategic Priority 1 – Maximise the effective value of the fund	11
5. Strategic Priority 2 – Implement the New Scheme	23
6. Strategic Priority 3 – Share our knowledge to develop best practice across Scotland	27
7. Our People	20
Annex A Key Statistics	23
Annex B Proposed KPIs 2017 – 2018	30

1.  Introduction

The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of achievement and activities from April 2016 – March 2017 including specific details relating to Quarter 4 against our organisational strategy.

2.  Executive Summary

i.  Overview - Over the past 12 months ILF Scotland has become a multi-award winning public body, going from strength to strength and making significant progress in delivering the first year of the organisational strategy agreed in 2016. This is despite a backdrop of huge change in every facet of society, continued austerity, changing legislation and increasing pressure on public services. Throughout the this period we have also been conscious of continuing to support the successful delivery of the pubic commitments made by the Scottish Government in relation to ILF funding, namely that: -

• The fund will be protected for current recipients so long as they remain eligible;
• Disabled people will be at the heart of the decision making process in the new ILF Scotland, and;
• Through a process of co-production a new fund will be opened.

ii.  Main Effort - The main effort from an operational perspective was to: catch-up on the backlog of assessment visits inherited from the transfer of responsibilities from the UK wide ILF in July 2015; implement the Scottish Living Wage; and prepare for opening a new broad based independent living scheme later in 2017. This is alongside work to further strengthen of our critical foundations, improving business as usual systems and establishing ILF Scotland firmly into the fabric of public service delivery in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

iii.  Operational Performance - Current fund recipient numbers have dropped by 155 to 3119 (Scotland – 2519 & NI – 528) over 16/17. This follows the trend of around 4-5 % of recipients leaving the fund on an annual basis as was the case in 2015/16. Even though overall numbers have fallen, the tempo of operational activity around visits has increased significantly, with 1,690 visits being allocated, 1,799 reports received and 2,261 new offers made in 16/17. Some of the increase is down to the implementation of the Scottish Living Wage (SLW), where additional offers have been made, however on a like for like basis (15/16 was only a 9 months operating period), there has been an 89% increase in terms of work carried out from the previous year. As a consequence of this progress and hard work, we will have caught up on the backlog of inherited assessments from the transfer from ILF to ILF Scotland in the first quarter 17/18.

iv.  Call Volumes - Call and email volumes, have slightly increased from 6,122 in 15/16 (5,330 telephone and 792 email enquiries) to 9,332 in 16/17 (8,347 telephone and 895 email enquiries). This is a like for like increase of 14% year on year with over 85% of all enquiries relating to Scotland. The main areas of query are as follows:

• Reassessment visits;
• requests for information from Assessors;
• LA calls for information – payment schedule, threshold sums, etc.;
• completion of agreement forms;
• payments and payment increase requests;
• new fund;
• general (this includes confirmation of information not covered above, new fund enquiries and general information about the organisation).

v.  Scottish Living Wage Implementation - Due to the incredible complexity in adapting our systems and getting agreement on our approach from the Scottish Government’s ILF Scotland Sponsor Team, we are slightly behind in completing the uplift of additional funds in relation to the Scottish Living Wage. The delivery of this commitment is well under way with 95% of recipients who employ personal assistant employees being processed with a new offer relating to the increase in their award. We expect this part to be fully complete including the additional uplift from £8.25 to £8.45 by the end of April 17. Alongside that we have done all the preparatory work to provide additional funding to support recipients who use agencies and as agreement to proceed was received at the end of March, we expect this element to be completed by the end of May 17. The only individuals not uplifted, are those that would breach the maximum weekly amount as their current award is already near the upper limit. In those circumstances, we are prioritising a review to see how their package of support can be reshaped to limit a negative impact. For further information please see the risk register.

vi.  Recipients - What continues to be reinforced through all our activities and highlighted in previous reports, is the challenging time disabled people are having in trying to have choice and control about decisions in their lives. This is mainly due to the upward cost pressures centred on increases in the statutory national minimum wage and Scottish Living Wage, statutory sick pay, pension’s auto-enrolment, sleepovers and the cost of living against a backdrop of wider public

sector austerity. As a consequence of this we have invested considerable organisational focus at protecting the additionality of ILF support to enable independent living.

vii.  Feedback - Feedback about how ILF Scotland is doing has gone up slightly from 98% in 15/16 (76 responses representing 13% of all offers made) to 99% in 2016/17 (186 responses representing 9% of all offers made). Coupled with this we received 6 complaints which related to the policies inherited and represented 0.3% of all offers made.

viii.  Digital Transformation and Continuous Improvement – The final quarter of this year has seen a change in approach to our digital transformation with the focus now on developing our core ICI system to accept and process applications for the new scheme. The bulk of the work has been completed for the longer term digital transformation, including the comprehensive business requirements documents prepared with our colleagues at Digital Transformation Service (DTS) during 2016. These requirements remain valid and, in effect, we will cherry pick what we are able to from them to deliver the new scheme later this year. Depending on the success of making ICI web ready, there is the opportunity to adopt many of the transformational business requirements into ICI once the new scheme has been operationalized. This could potentially save ILF Scotland several hundred thousands of pounds for its longer term technical development towards SG2020.

ix.  New Scheme - Much of the ground work for initiating the new scheme has happened in this last quarter with the project board and implementation teams coming together. There are 6 interlinked work streams, each with a key lead, and embracing co-production where possible to add value. The critical work stream is developing the new eligibility criteria for the first phase of the new scheme and once these are known, greater progress can be made on partnership development, communication and information resources and the technical configuration. Of note, there will be an external independent evaluation following the implementation and their reporting will inform and assist the development of further phases of the scheme.

x.  Awards and Accreditation – The work carried out by the ILF Team has been recognised with various prestigious awards and through accreditation, a summary is as follows:

• Winner in the ‘Community Engagement Award’ category at the 2016 Scottish Public Sector Awards;
• Winner in the ‘Finance Team of the Year’ category at the 2017 UK Government’s Finance and Internal Audit Awards;
• Winner in the ‘David Drysdale Memorial Award’ category at the 2017 Family Friendly Working Scotland Awards;
• Finalist in the ‘Best Public Sector Organisation’ category at the 2017 Family Friendly Working Scotland Awards;
• Finalist in the ‘Policy Development Award’ category at the 2016 Scottish Public Sector Awards;
• Finalist in the ‘Campbell Christie Public Service Reform Award’ category at the 2016 Scottish Public Sector Awards;
• Gained Disability Confident Accreditation;
• Gained Living Wage Accreditation.

xi.  Finance - Overall this has been an impressive year from a finance perspective building on the results from 15/16. Management accounts and detailed internal audit recommendations for this period are covered separately from this document; however the key activities of note carried out are shown below:

• Completed 15/16 annual accounts and received a clean external audit with no qualifications;
• Further enhanced our processes to prevent fraud from both an internal and external perspective including setting up a formal partnership with NHS Counter Fraud Services;
• Delivered a comprehensive internal audit plan covering 4 internal business streams in conjunction with auditors;
• Carried out preparation for the completion of the 16/17 annual accounts and external audit.

         As a consequence of the above, we have achieved the following:

• Disbursed £51.796 million of ILF award payments in 16/17;
• Made over 41,060 payments on time with no errors;
• Paid 98% of invoices within 10 days.

Finally through robust assessment and controls we have identified 4 cases of misuse of funds, suspected fraud and provider overcharging of recipients. This represents a potential fraud risk of 0.2% on a part of funding disbursed against all cases reviewed this year which is broadly similar with 15/16.  A separate report has been presented to the Audit and Risk Committee.

xii.  Social Work – This has been an extremely busy year for the social work team with two key areas of activity – review visits and relationship building. Of particular reporting relevance has been the joint work with the policy team and the issuing of a new Policy and Practice Circular with 37 local authority or health and social care partnerships – this is now seeing a fairer and more consistent application of the suite of ILF Scotland policies on a national level across both Scotland and Northern Ireland. The key achievements are:

• Backlog of assessor review visits caught up fully in NI and only 1 -2 partnership areas outstanding in Scotland;
• Development of excellent working relationships with 37 local partnerships resulting in joint care plans which have achieved evidenced high quality outcomes for recipients “on budget” despite many cost pressures;
• Key relationship with Social Work Scotland SDS Committee and the 32 ILF Leads across Scotland giving us local knowledge and a national picture of practices which are shared quarterly;
• Greater protection of the existing fund by rebalancing of care costs (in some areas, ILF Scotland was funding more than the local authority input for over 30% of fund recipients);
• Developed a strong relationship and working practice with IRISS and hosted a national event in March 2017 focussing on eligibility criteria in social care.

xiii.  Policy – The work of the policy team alongside the social work team this year has seen much greater consistency and harmonisation across the whole suite of policies culminating in the issue of the new Policy and Practice Circular in January 2017. The key achievements for the policy team have been:

• Improved the process and system for handling discretionary decision making, decision reviews and complaints to promote consistent practice across decision makers contributing to effective value;
• 100% Compliance with response time standards for discretionary decision making, decision reviews and complaints;
• Revised the decision review policy (13) in line with advice from the SPSO removing the board of ILF Scotland from the process although we still wait formal sign off from SG, we have implemented the revised policy through necessity;
• Identified key policy areas for review through decision reviews and complaint process. Two key areas are Available Income policy and Employment support policies;
• Developed a policy review process jointly agreed with ILF Scotland operational team and SG Sponsor Team;
• Contributed to the development of policies to implement the new ILF Scheme.

xiv.  Corporate Communications – Significant progress has been made in the area of corporate communications over this reporting period with a 61% increase in website views year of 22,613 in 15/16 to 33,619 in 16/17. Twitter followers have more than doubled from 359 in 15/16 to 719 in 16/17 and our Facebook presence has gone from 20 likes to 81. On a like for like basis this is 13% increase in online activity from the previous year. Alongside this, other key activities have included;

• ILF Scotland designed and launched its new website;
• The organisation undertook a programme of external engagement and held a number of events with stakeholders, in line with its co-production work on the new fund;
• ILF Scotland’s Twitter following has more than doubled over the past year;
• The organisation’s strategy was designed and externally published (including a copy in easy read);
• ILF Scotland’s satisfaction surveys have been re-designed and developed in easy read;
• The organisation did not receive any FOI requests during the year;
• ILF Scotland established a stakeholder group in both Scotland and Northern Ireland for ILF recipients to support the improvement and development of the organisation. Four meetings were held by both groups this year.

xv.  Summary - Though we achieved a huge amount over the last quarter and year, the main priorities we will focus on next year are as follows:

• Delivering the strategy;
• Enhancing our corporate reporting and delivering our annual business plan (proposed framework for discussion at Annex B);
• Completing a broad test of our current business continuity arrangements;
• Fully implementing the plan to fulfil the Scottish Government’s (SG) commitment to the Living Wage;
• Refining the programme of recipient assessments to be more balanced over the next two year cycle;
• Introducing the new recipient impact and feedback reporting;
• Launching the new scheme;
• Capturing, developing and sharing best practice in partnership with colleagues.

3.  Performance Framework

We have designed the ILF Scotland strategy to align with both the national performance framework for Scotland www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms and the draft Performance for Governance Northern Ireland Draft Programme for Government Framework 2016-2021 (northernireland.gov.uk).

Specifically, the work of ILF Scotland contributes to the 3 Scottish National Outcomes of

• Addressing inequalities
• Our public services are high quality, continually improving, efficient and responsive to local people's needs.
• We reduce the local and global impact of our consumption and production

The 16 objectives of the strategic plan contribute either directly or indirectly to the following National Indicators. Through internal quality assurance and the use of satisfaction surveys, the intention is to now make the linkages more explicit in external reporting in 2017 – 18. Collectively they are indicators of sustainability and demonstrate positive progress in reducing inequalities and increasing participation in all aspects of Scottish and Northern Irish life.

4.  Strategic Priority 1 – Maximise the effective value of the fund

This priority is about being as effective as possible in all our process to ensure that administration overheads are kept to a minimum to maximise the effective value of the fund at all times. During the period much work has been done to identify internal process efficiencies and to reduce funding duplication and resource transfer with statutory services.

The digital transformation process, new counter fraud initiatives and redefinition of the legal contract between ILF Scotland and award recipients have been progressed this year and set the basis for further process and environmental savings going forward.

One key aspect to this priority has been the development of a new performance management framework aligned to Scottish Government National Indicators. Much consideration has been given to how business intelligence and management information reporting systems can be used to improve our practices as we move forward with the implementation of the new scheme. A draft set of proposed targets and KPIs for discussion with the Board are offered at Annex B.

Overall this priority is assessed as Green (on track) and the planned efficiencies going forward will aim to see the new scheme implementation met with no additional staffing resources.

5.  Strategic Priority 2 – Implement the New Scheme

This priority is on track and proceeding well. Further to the stakeholder engagement events during summer 2016, the groundwork has been prepared and clear recommendations made on what the new scheme will deliver. Much of the project management has been planned in the last quarter and the project board and work stream leads assembled ready to implement the recommendations during 2017.

The new scheme will follow a ‘Phase to Learn’ approach with subsequent phases based on independent external evaluation from the first phase. This project, as well as being a key strategic priority for ILF Scotland, will increase the reach and impact of support for disabled people in Scotland and help achieve Scottish National Indicators for reducing inequalities and increasing participation. Of note, the project has brought together key expert stakeholders to inform the policy development and ensure equity and rights are maximised as much as possible. As ILF Scotland has not been open to receive new applications, this will be both an interesting and challenging priority but is assessed as Green (on track) due to the preparatory work completed in this reporting period.

6.  Strategic Priority 3 – Share our knowledge to develop best practice across Scotland

The vision of ILF Scotland is to make independent living a reality for disabled people living in Scotland and Northern Ireland. On our own, we are not able to achieve this but through partnership working, collaboration and sharing best practice, our aim is to ensure all those providing support can learn from our experiences and extend their own practices.

This has been a particularly busy year for all at ILF Scotland and the key activities of review visits and relationship development with statutory services and local authorities has embedded our values and practices across Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Based on current credibility and successes, implementing the new scheme will provide much opportunity to gather more evidence and share our practices with a wider network. The overall priority is assessed as Amber as the two key objectives of learning from the new surveys and the evaluation from the new scheme have not occurred in this reporting period but are well advanced to inform the next report.

7.  Our People

a.  Overview – In the past year we have continued to strengthen our approach and systems relating to HR and organisational development, to ensure our employee proposition is inclusive, people friendly and market leading. These efforts have been externally endorsed by being a finalist in the category of ‘Best Public Sector Employer’ at the Family Friendly Scotland awards in March 17 and winning the David Drysdale Memorial Award at the same event from Fathers Network Scotland.

b.  Organisational Demography - By the year end, the organisational make up consists of 46 staff and Directors who are engaged in a combination of part-time, full-time contracts and freelance contracts. The current gender mix is 67:33 female: male, with 15% of staff registered disabled, 9% BME and 6% LGBT.

c.  Recruitment - Since April 2016, 3 x Directors have joined the Board and we have strengthened the staff team with the following appointments:

• 4 x Freelance Assessors
• 1 x Project Manager (0.81 FTE)
• 1 x Finance Director (0.28 FTE)
• 1 x Policy Officer (0.61 FTE)

d.  Employment status - To foster a people friendly approach, ILF Scotland offers different contractual opportunities to all individuals employed in some capacity with the organisations. In January 2017 4 x Assessors (3.6 FTE) changed their contract status from freelance to employed.

e.  Retention - Staff retention has been strong throughout the year, with only 1 x Freelance Assessor leaving for personal reasons and the IT & Development Manager leaving due to remuneration inequity and parity to the Scottish Government.

f.  Absence – Sickness rates have been extraordinarily low in the last 12 months, indeed since the organisation went operational in 2015. The current rate is 2.66 days per annum, which compares extremely favourably against CIPD’s 2016 sector analysis, showing public sector employees take an average of 8.5 days. If you strip out such incidences as three other episodes of extremely serious illness, there would have had around 1.5 days lost to absence in the last 12 months.

g.  Disciplinary, Grievance and Performance - No issues to report.

h.  Staff Survey – 90% of staff participated in an employee survey that was carried out at the end of 2016. The findings of this survey were published internally to all staff and Directors. It found that there was a strong sense of culture and feeling valued, with a 95+% satisfaction rate around family- and life-friendly practices.  That said it highlighted opportunities for improvement around internal communication and growing frustration at the length of time it has taken to put in place fair and equitable remuneration in comparison with the rest of the Scottish Public Sector. The imp[act of the delay in putting a pay structure in place, has been the resignation of the IT & Development Manager, which has not only incurred additional cost to bridge the gap, but also a reduction in organisational ability at a critical time. This proposal has been sitting with the Scottish Government Sponsor Team since August 16, with no formal response. Despite significant effort by the ILF Scotland Board and SMT, there has been little progress with resolving this. As a consequence of this, there is a real growing frustration and anger amongst staff who feel that they are being treated unfairly. The goodwill and trust from all staff that has been a hallmark of the organisation and a key contributor to the success, is being eroded quickly. If this is not resolved satisfactorily and quickly, it will result in staff leaving at the very least, potential increased costs, reduction of capability through a key development phase, a knock on effect to other risk areas and if these materialise, possible reputational damage to SG and NI Governments.

i.  Supporting Activity - to enable the organisation to successfully deliver the strategy and be an employer of choice, the following activity has taken place:

• Procured, implemented and trained staff to use our ‘YouManage’ HR system, which supports the smooth running of this part of the organisation
• Worked in collaboration with staff colleagues across the organisation to co-produce a simple, inclusive and individual performance management system that concentrates on developing colleagues to continuously improve. Training was carried out in in January 17 and the development reviews are currently happening and will be completed by the end of April 17.
  
  As this is the first time we have used this system, we intend on reviewing the impact of this over the coming year via our performance and staff survey.

• 1 x staff member gained CIPD qualification achieved.
• 1 x staff member enrolled to study towards CIPD Level 7 qualification.
• 2 x staff member gained Prince 2 Foundation qualification.
• 1 x staff member gained Prince 2 Agile qualification.
• 7 x staff completed 5 days Benefits Advisor Training at CPAG.
• Scottish Living Wage accreditation achieved.
• Achieved ‘Disability Confident Employer’ status.
• Developed and launched an encompassing employee handbook.
• Organisational development strategy produced.
• All staff attended Adult Protection Training at different levels if appropriate to their role.
• All office staff attended at least 1 x Assessment Review with an ILF recipient to reinforce our values.
• Company Secretary now appointed (Finance Director)
• Induction programme for new Directors designed and implemented

j.  Health and Safety - An annual audit of the organisational health and safety framework has been completed and no areas of improvement were highlighted. In the last year, we have had one minor accident where a member of staff was bitten by a recipient’s pet.

Annex A Key Statistics

The following tables show the key statistics for the period 1^st April 2016 to 31^st March 2017 and are aligned to standard annual financial reporting cycles as ILF Scotland is now in steady state operations.

a.  Table 1: Payments to ILF Scotland Recipients

b.  Table 2: ILF Scotland Recipients

c.  Table 3: Visits Allocated, Reports Received and Offers Made

d.  Table 4: Decision Review, Complaints and Panels (Appeals)

e.  Table 5: General Statistics

f.  Recipient Satisfaction Survey Results

g.  Corporate Communication Statistics

Annex B Proposed KPIs 2017 – 2018

“Our vision is for independent living to be a reality for all disabled people living in Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

In working towards this vision, we aim to be: -

• Accessible - for all those who need us however they engage with us
• Credible – providing a service that truly makes a difference to living independently, which is accurate, reliable, consistent and friendly
• High Quality – by being exemplar in what we do
• Knowledgeable – about what disabled people tell us makes the greatest difference to achieving their independent living outcomes

The proposed targets are the future state aspiration of where we want to be. The KPIs are quarterly or annual measurement tools which will indicate if we are on track, ahead or behind where we should be to achieve the targets by the end of this strategic plan. The intention would then be to use these targets and KPIs for future metric reporting and analysis. These initial draft KPIs will act as a catalyst for discussion as the framework for a development day with the directors and senior team. It is planned to agree and refine these ready for reporting in early 17/18.

Corporate Report

1st July 2015 – 31st March 2016

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Executive Summary
3. Bridging Strategy Priority 1 - Co-Production
4. Bridging Strategy Priority 2 - Our Customers
5. Bridging Strategy Priority 3 - Our People
6. Bridging Strategy Priority 4 - Our Operational Systems
7. Bridging Strategy Priority 5 - Our Finances
8. Bridging Strategy Priority 6 - Our Governance
9. Key Statistics

Annexes

1. Continuous Project Pipeline

1.  Introduction

This report shows performance against the bridging strategy from the 1st July 2015 – 31st March 2016.

2.  Executive Summary

This has been an extremely successful 9 months of steady progress since the launch of the organisation on the 1st July 2015. Indeed, all objectives set out in the bridging strategy have been achieved and in most cases well exceeded, supporting ILF Scotland in establishing itself as a robust, resilient, proactive and high performing public body.

The main effort from an operational perspective initially was to transition all recipients from DWP to ILF Scotland by ensuring all payments were made accurately, on time and to set up new business systems, policies and processes. To date ILF Scotland has made 33,230 payments totalling

£39,871k with only 3 individual errors in the first month due to incorrect information from DWP.  Since then, the focus has been on recruiting the staff team, implementing and becoming more familiar with inherited business systems and policies, completing all urgent reassessments, reducing the overdue visits and establishing relationships with key stakeholders.

What has been clear from this operational activity and continued feedback from all parties, are the significant upward cost pressures centred around employment law related issues, highlighted in the previous reports connected to current award recipients. These include increases in the statutory national minimum wage and living wage, statutory sick pay, pension’s auto-enrolment, sleepovers and the cost of living, all against a backdrop of wider public sector austerity, changes in legislation and increased obligations especially around employment of staff.

Coupled with this, as staff have worked through the full operational process, a clearer picture is emerging of the relationship between ILF and our statutory partners. Whilst it is encouraging that ILF Scotland Assessors are primarily reporting good practice from partners, despite the challenging backdrop, some significant concerns are also being highlighted. Of particular concern is the pattern of changing treatment of ILF Scotland funds by some Local Authorities/Health and Social Care Trusts, together with a lack of awareness of ILF Scotland policies among some front line Social Work staff. These issues are being addressed in collaboration with COSLA, Social Work Scotland and key partners in Northern Ireland to up skill front line staff and look at appropriate solutions to the funding challenges.

Another theme that has emerged over the course of our first nine months of operation is the challenge presented by the inherited policies, processes and systems when they have been mapped across to ILF Scotland. As a result of this the staff team have spent considerable time making continuous improvements and have an ambitious plan of essential development work scheduled for the next year (this is mapped out on the gannt chart in Annex A).

Through the reporting period we have received 5,330 telephone and 792 email enquiries totalling 6,122 enquiries. 85% of enquiries relate to Scotland and 15% to Northern Ireland, with the main themes being:

• Reassessment Visits
• Requests for information from Assessors
• LA calls for information – payment schedule, threshold sums, etc
• Completion of agreement forms
• Payments and payment increase requests
• General (this includes confirmation of information not covered above, new fund enquiries and general information about the organisation)

Other major areas of work have included establishing and bedding in corporate systems such as health and safety, HR and finance in tandem with running induction programmes for new staff and the Board of Directors.

Another major area of work, has been the strategic planning process and implementing a robust governance structure. Work is now well advanced relating to the future of ILF Scotland, with a draft co-produced strategic plan completed ready for further consultation prior to sign off. This is complimented by major progress around governance arrangements, including additional recruitment of 2 more Board members and further review to ensure ILF Scotland are future proofed.

In addition to the aforementioned work, considerable effort and progress has been made around our corporate communications. This has included:

• Significant stakeholder engagement
• Re-developing our website following feedback from recipients and award managers because in its current form, it is not as accessible as we would wish
• Updating our publications and forms to make them less complex and more accessible
• establishing a social media presence

Over the coming year we would will be increasing our online presence including the views to our website from 22,613 in 15/16, Twitter followers from 359 and Facebook presence from 20 likes.

Throughout the first 9 months ILF Scotland have been very conscious of the pubic commitments made by the Scottish Government in relation to ILF funding, namely that: -

• The fund will be protected for current recipients so long as they remain eligible;
• Disabled people will be at the heart of the decision making process in the new ILF Scotland, and;
• Through a process of co-production a new fund will be opened this financial year following the allocation of an additional £5 million by the Scottish government.

This has resulted in a real drive for ILF Scotland to strive at all times to deliver on these commitments. To that end, the CEO and Chair of Directors reported to the Minister for Sport, Health Improvement and Mental Health that there are concerns about the ability to meet the third commitment within the expected timescale. This is because developing an agreed model of co-production has taken more time than anticipated, and therefore the process of co-producing the new fund will not begin until well into 2016/17.

Once underway, there are considerable complexities to be considered before policy decisions are confirmed, and new processes and systems within ILF Scotland will need to be developed before the new fund is operational. These concerns have been discussed by the ILF Scotland Project Development Board (now disbanded), where there was consensus that it would be preferable not to rush the development of the new fund in order to minimise the potential for mistakes, and to allow sufficient time to develop the criteria for the new fund. In addition to Scottish Government, this Board consisted of representatives from Disabled Peoples Organisations, Voluntary Sector organisations, Social Work Scotland and COSLA. A new working group including all the aforementioned groups has been set up to support the co-production of the new fund.

We believe ILF Scotland is quickly gaining a reputation for professionalism and flexibility with our fund recipients and keys partners. We have utilised the strong foundations laid by ILF prior to the 1st July 2015 to develop an organisation focussed on delivering high quality outcomes to support the independent living needs of disabled people in Northern Ireland and Scotland. At the heart of this is our model of intervention i.e. person-centred professional recommendations with inclusion, trust and dignity as overarching values filtered through our specialised casework teams, meaning we can evidence that we are fairly, consistently and humanely applying complex rules and regulations.

In summary, ILF Scotland has achieved all objectives set out in the corporate plan for 2015/16. The key priorities over the coming months will be confirmed within the new organisational strategy but are expected to include: -

• development of existing operational policies in relation to equality issues and economic pressures on current fund recipients;
• strengthening our critical organisational foundations;
• further bedding in key systems;
• reviewing inherited processes and business systems with a view to improve these significantly;
• increasing the operational tempo, especially around reassessment visits;
• development of the new fund;

3.  Bridging Strategy Priority 1 Co-Production

ILF Scotland, in line with the clear direction set for us by Scottish Ministers, will strive to ensure disabled people and their representatives are at the heart of decision making in our organisation. We believe that by working from the start in co-production with disabled people (and other stakeholders) we will be best placed to maximise independent living outcomes with our customers.

4.  Bridging Strategy Priority 2

Our Customers

People who receive funds from ILF Scotland are our customers, and our job is to provide them all with excellent customer service.

5.  Bridging Strategy Priority 3 Our People

Our people are critical to our success. We aim to support all of our staff to fulfil their potential and to contribute fully to the success of ILF Scotland. We aim to ensure that every single member of our team, regardless of their specific role, understands that what they do and how they do it impacts on the lives of our customers.

6.  Bridging Strategy Priority 4 Our Operational Systems

Our operational systems are the tools we require in order to function effectively, achieve our objectives and comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations. We have inherited some systems from ILF UK, all of which require to be reviewed to ensure they meet our needs, whilst we need to develop a number of business critical systems for ourselves.

7.  Bridging Strategy Priority 5 Our Finances

Our finance function requires considerable development work to ensure effective financial planning is in place, supported by an on-going system of routine scrutiny of financial performance against plan. We aim to administer ILF Scotland as efficiently as possible, striking the optimal balance between resourcing our organisation sufficiently to achieve our objectives including excellent customer service, and minimising the proportion of the fund spent on this resourcing.

8.  Bridging Strategy Priority 6 Our Governance

We understand the importance of sound governance for our organisation, and are committed to developing effective and robust governance arrangements. Although responsibility for appointing Directors to our company board sits with Scottish Ministers, we will work with our Scottish Government colleagues to support the initial set up and longer term development of our board.

1.  Key Statistics

The following tables show the key statistics for the period 1st July 2015 – 31st March 2016.

a. Table 1: Payments to ILF Scotland Recipients

Note: the above figures show CASH paid, not accruals

b. Table 2: ILF Scotland Recipients

c. Chart 1 & 2: Visits Allocated

d. Chart 3 & 4: Reassessment Reports Received

e. Table 4: Requests for Information (THIS TABLE NEEDS CHECKING)

f. Table 5: Decision Review, Complaints and Panels (Appeals)

f. Table 6: General Statistics

Note: the above figures show CASH paid, not accruals

g. Pie Charts 1, 2 and 3: Recipient Feedback

ANNEX A – GANNT CHART SHOWING KEY CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS PIPELINE