Care and Education

A critical area for Somerset Council, we have already overseen improvement in the results of Council maintained schools, reductions in the number of outstanding adult social care assessments alongside positive feedback from stakeholders rating adult services as good or excellent.

We have also worked very hard to change how we engaged with the wider education sector recognising that relationships were weak on Vesting Day. Our joint work with the Integrated Care Board covers a significant range of topics and by sharing our Executive Director of Public Health who is now a Director in the ICB we have made great strides in developing a systemwide neighbourhood offer and ensured that population health is at the core of the Integrated Care Board strategy.  

The new Council has made significant investments in understanding the diversity and equalities needs of the organisation and Somerset as a place. We have undertaken a peer review and commission community cohesion work within the voluntary and community sector to try and bring communities together. Our frontline services in this area are particularly strong and we have supported a wide number of displaced people to resettle in Somerset.

As part of forging closer relationships with our partners and communities we have launched the Somerset Board which is the single high-level strategic partnership board for health, care and wellbeing for the county. It is where our Improving Care Partnership and Health and Wellbeing Board for Somerset come together.

We work in collaboration with NHS Somerset Integrated Care Board and our partners in the voluntary and community sector to support people to live healthy independent lives in thriving communities.

We’ve also established the Blueprint for Connect Somerset (2024 to 2030) and the Somerset Children and Young People's Plan (2024 to 2030) together explain our partnership approach to Early Help across Adults’ and Children’s Services, including the system wide development of Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INT – coterminous with PCNs) with colleagues from across the Integrated Care System (ICS).