Assistant Service Manager, Justice Social Work, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership
In the Annual Reporter for 2021-22 I provided some information on the development of Your Voice (you can CLICK THE PICTURE LINK BELOW or SCAN THE QR CODE) if you would like a refresh and I committed to share the results for the first full reporting year.
‘Your Voice’ is Glasgow Justice Social Work’s stock method of gathering feedback about the quality of the service. It sits within consultation activity in the User Voice continuum and is a starting point for the service to engage clients in the design, delivery, management and evaluation of Services.
The Care Inspectorate’s guide to support quality improvement for community Justice in Scotland outlines that understanding the capacity for organisational improvement should include the voice of those people with living experience of community justice and their views should be heard and are central to improvement planning. In addition, it highlights that the planning structures for improvement should focus on those areas of most concern and that have the most negative impact upon people accused or convicted of offences, their families or victims.
Links to the electronic survey or traditional paper surveys were sent to 845 clients over the course of the first year. The demographics of those who responded reflects the overall population and diversity within it:
- White Scottish 75.54%, Black African 3.86%, Pakistan 3.43%
- Individuals from China, Iraq, Kurdistan, Australia, Iran and Poland
- 32% stated they had a disability
- 17.6% of returns were Women
- Significant spread of locations/offices, Norfolk Street 26.18%, Pollok 19.31%, Easterhouse 17.17%, Parkhead 16.31%, Mansion Street 7.73% and Partick 7.3%
- Age: 41 or over – 50%, 31-40 – 23.53%, 26-30 10.5%, 21-25 12.61% and 16-20 3.36%
The procedural justice surveys used within the service are based upon research about the degree to which someone perceives people in authority apply processes / or make decisions about them in a fair and just manner. The research base has links to why involuntary clients comply with orders and legitimacy of criminal justice processes.
The research indicates that there are connections between how justice clients comply with authority figures in the future and willingness to obey the law. There are also strong similarities to the Justice Social work theory base about how to engage with involuntary clients and change is unlikely unless these practices are in place. The Likert Scale analysis is taken from four procedural Justice questionnaires and the reporting method is as follows:
Procedural justice speaks to four principles, often referred to as the four pillars:
- being fair in processes;
- being transparent in actions;
- providing opportunity for voice; and
- being impartial in decision making.
Sample Size: Number of clients returning the Survey.
Scope: The percentage of returns against all those who were in scope across the reporting year.
Mean Likert Score: A Scale of Strongly Agree (5), Agree (4), Neutral (3), Disagree (2) and Strongly Disagree (1) was used, in the questionaries provided to clients.
For the purposes of measurement, a Mean score was calculated by attributing a score to the scale (5,4,3,2,1) and multiplying that score with the number of responses for each answer. The sum of those calculations then being divided by the sample size.
Standard Deviation: Should always be used alongside the Mean score to interpret how far the answers disperse from the mean. The higher value of standard deviation the more dispersal has occurred and potentially the mean score becomes less reliable than when there is a low standard deviation.
The Results were in the main positive:
Three more traditional surveys were used to establish what clients thought of Community Payback (CPO) Supervision, being on a Licence / Order in Throughcare Services and their placement through Unpaid Work. Here is a selection of responses across the service which have been fed back to staff.
The areas of lower satisfaction are the focus of improvement planning in the Service.
Qualitative feedback also enhances the quantitative analysis. Here are some examples from the smart survey:
“My SRO helped me changed my life and make better decisions, the time and effort of my worker has given me has been outstanding. (Throughcare)”
“I have not been able to find suitable housing and unless I want to go to a homeless shelter there is not support available. (Throughcare)”
“Probation really changed my life. Two years ago, I saw it as a punishment but now I am eighteen months drug free, no longer in an abusive relationship, am doing voluntary work and attending college with the goal of getting into university, (CPO)”
“This has been a massive wake-up call and the support has allowed me to address many issues. (CPO)”
“I was given a rewarding job to help the community and I am happy I helped out. (Unpaid work)”
“You can train people for gaps in the job market. (Unpaid work)”
“My worker made me realise how my actions had affected those involved in the situation and was able to suggest strategies to avoid any confrontation in the future. (SDS)”
“I benefited greatly from my time with the service and my life has changed dramatically for the better. (SDS)”
The focus of Your Voice in 2023/24 is embedding client consent into practice in the City and designing and rolling out Phase two of ‘Your Voice’ for Centre based Services including Diversion from Prosecution. We hope to provide yearly updates of trends and patterns in terms of client satisfaction levels with the Service.
