A wnaiff Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet ddatganiad am aelodaeth y grŵp a sefydlwyd i werthuso Deddf Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol a Llesiant (Cymru) 2014?
The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (the Act) is intended to transform social services in Wales by improving the well-being of people who need caring support and carers who need support. I am committed to ensuring that the evaluation of the Act is inclusive and undertaken in partnership with the sector and crucially, service users and carers.
A Stakeholder Evaluation Group has been established which includes a range of stakeholders from organisations such as Carers Wales, Children in Wales, Learning Disability Wales and the Wales Co-operative. Local Government and Welsh Government are also represented. I am really pleased at how the Group has played a leading role in shaping the evaluation process so far, working together to produce an evaluation plan which is anticipated to be published in the autumn and the specification for the formal evaluation which is published on Sell2Wales:
https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JUN256870
The Stakeholder Evaluation Group will continue to be involved throughout the life of the evaluation in order to ensure the views and experiences of stakeholders are maintained. The Group will advise the contractors on key elements of the evaluation, such as recruitment of participants, sampling, questionnaire and/or interview schedule content and review reports produced by the contractors.
Ensuring the voices of service users and carers are listened to is a highly important aspect of the evaluation to ensure that we truly understand the impact the Act is having. Service users and carers are a substantial part of the evaluation including a complimentary project which focuses on service user and carer experience of social care, named Measuring the Mountain. This project uses a community-based approach across the whole of Wales to help inform the impact and effectiveness of the Act has and has two main phases:
· A pan-Wales citizen-led research project which will exploit the use of SenseMaker technology, to evaluate stories collected across Wales. The focus will be ‘what matters’ to citizens in relation to social services.
· The establishment of a Citizen’s Voice panel using Citizen Jury methodology, to capture deep insight and reflection through deliberative inquiry and discussion.
It is anticipated that findings from this piece of work will be published early next year.