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Access
The extent to which service users are able to receive the care they require. The issues involved in accessibility include travelling long distances, physical access (eg premises suitable for wheelchairs), communication (eg interpreters), and the availability of culturally appropriate services.
Useful link: Department of Health consultation paper - Fair Access to Care Services

Accommodated
Term used to describe children who are looked after by their local authority but are not subject to care orders.
See also: care order
and looked after children
Big issue: children's services
Related articles
Useful link: Stirling council - looked after children

Accountability
Relates to the ongoing debate surrounding the amount of information charities and voluntary organisations supply to their supporters and others on financial and performance matters. The debate centres around the possibility of charity league tables, which would rate performance.
See also: statement of recommended practice
Big issue: charity finance

Accounts
All operating bodies, including charities, are obliged by law to keep detailed accounts of financial expenditure and income, and to present them annually in a publicly available report. Registered charities earning less than £10,000 annually only have to present simple accounts.
See also: accountability
and charity law
Big issue: charity finance
Useful link: charity commission guide on accounts

Active Communities Directorate (ACD)
Government body located in the Home Office tasked to create a "change in culture, in which being active in your community is a usual and everyday thing". It works to create local infrastructures for people to become more involved, including improving opportunities for volunteering, training and mentoring. The ACD is the main government contact point for the voluntary sector.
See also: volunteer
Big issue: volunteering
Useful link: active communities unit - what's it all about?

Acute services
Medical and surgical treatment provided mainly in hospitals. Acute trusts are management units in charge of hospitals providing these services.
See also: secondary care
Big issue: NHS quality and performance
Related articles
Useful link: audit commission - acute hospital portfolio

Adoption
This is the process by which all parental rights and responsibilities for a child are permanently transferred to an adoptive parent by a court. As a result the child legally becomes part of the adoptive family. Adoption has significant emotional, psychological and social consequences for the child, the adoptive parents and the birth parents. Introduced in England and Wales in 1926, it is now the preferred option of long-term care for children unlikely to ever return to their birth families.
Big issue: adoption and fostering
Useful link: Department of Health - adoption

Advocacy
Advocates support and argue the case for a service user or help them to put across their point of view. They are usually employed in social care to support disadvantaged groups such as the mentally ill and the disabled.
Related articles

Aftercare
This refers to the follow-up care provided to former residents of care homes and to ex-prisoners and former psychiatric patients.
Related articles
Useful link: National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders

Agenda for Change
Agenda for Change is the blueprint for the radical overhaul of the NHS pay system, and is an integral part of the government's drive to modernise Britain's public services. The proposals include creating a new, job-evaluated, pay structure covering all health service posts, based on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. It will also establish common conditions for all NHS staff, merging hundreds of separate scales and grades into three national pay spines - one for doctors and dentists, one for nurses and midwives, and one for all other NHS employees, including administrative, clerical and ancillary staff.
Big issue: NHS staff
Related articles
Useful link: Department of Health - NHS pay review body reports

Aggregate external finance
The total amount of money central government gives local government. Made up of the revenue support grant, business rates and ringfenced grants. Local authorities top this up with the council tax.
Big issue: public finances
Related articles
Useful link: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - local government finance settlements

Aids
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome. When a person's immune system is damaged and they become susceptible to infections such as pneumonia, this is often said to be an incidence of Aids. Doctors often refer to this state as "late stage HIV infection".
See also: HIV
Big issue: public health
Related articles
Useful link: Aids Education Global Information System

Allocated case
A case that has been made the responsibility of a named social worker or other key worker until the case is closed, transferred or managed in another way so that the named worker is no longer responsible for it.
Related articles
Useful link: National Institute of Social Workers

Almo
See arm's length management organisations

Almshouse
A residential home, usually for older people or the homeless, providing accommodation for the poor and needy. Almshouses are often charities in their own right, or are owned and run by other charities as part of their operations. There are around 1,750 almshouse charities providing more than 30,000 dwellings across all parts of the country.
Related articles
Useful link: the Almshouse Association

Americorps
A popular initiative of former US president Bill Clinton, launched in 1993, to encourage disadvantaged young people to do a years voluntary work in return for financial help towards further education. The chancellor Gordon Brown is planning to introduce a similar initiative in the UK.
Big issue: volunteering
Useful link: Americorps - who we are

Antipsychotics
Drugs prescribed to treat people with a wide range of mental health problems but particularly schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis such as manic depression. The drugs mainly include tranquillisers, such as valium, but also lithium compounds used to treat manic and acute depression. Some people take antipsychotics orally, as a syrup or tablet, but some of the drugs are also available in injections. Although antipsychotic medication helps many people to control the symptoms of mental illness it can produce side effects ranging from mildly unpleasant to severe and potentially debilitating.
Big issue: mental health
Related articles
Useful link: schitzophrenia.co.uk - antipsychotics

Antisocial behaviour order (Asbo)
An injunction made by councils, police or housing associations against any one over 10 years old causing harassment, alarm or distress to a household or a neighbourhood. Breaching the order is treated as a criminal offence and carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Related articles
Useful link: Home Office - Crime and Disorder Act guidance

Approved development programme (ADP)
The amount of public money available each year for housing associations to spend on new homes. The fund, which is worth around £1bn a year, is allocated by the housing corporation to housing associations whose bids have been successful.
See also: social housing grant
Related articles
Useful link: housing corporation - how it invests in housing associations

Approved social worker (ASW)
ASWs are qualified social workers in England and Wales trained to carry out a range of statutory duties in mental health services. They were established in the 1980s partly in response to the loss of specialisation following the creation of social services departments and the introduction of generic social work training.
Big issue: social care staff
Related articles
Useful link: Gateshead council - approved social workers

Architecture centres
Local centres aimed at encouraging public participation in planning and design, using initiatives such as community projects, exhibitions and seminars. Several have been opened since the government's influential urban taskforce recommended the establishment of an architecture centre in every major town.
Big issue: urban design
Related articles
Useful link: Architecture Foundation - mission

Area based initiatives
Government schemes for reviving deprived communities aimed at tackling all the problems in a neighbourhood rather than one or two aspects. The idea is to address physical, economic and social decline in the round rather than in isolation.
Related articles
Useful link: Regional Coordination Unit

Area committee
Can be set up by a council to devolve decision making powers to, or promote discussion at, a more local level. Area committees can cover an electoral ward or collection of wards, and are usually made up of the councillors that represent those wards. Often dismissed as talking shops with no real power.
Related articles
Useful link: London borough of Redbridge - area committees

Arm's length management organisations (Almos)
One of the government's three preferred options for hiving off council homes under its decent homes programme. Under an almo the homes are still local authority owned, but they are run at arm's length from council control. To set up an almo councils must show that the idea is backed by a majority of tenants. To encourage the initiative almos that perform well receive millions of pounds of extra government cash for repairing homes.
see also: large scale voluntary transfers
Q&A: arm's length management organisations
Related articles
Useful link: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - leaflet

Asbo
See antisocial behaviour order

Assertive outreach
An approach to working with severely mentally ill adults who do not effectively engage with traditional mental health services. Staff work with service users in their own environment - at home or in a cafe, a park or the street - rather than through appointments at an office or hospital.
Big issue: mental health
Related articles
Useful link: Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health - about assertive outreach

Assessment
(1) Measuring the circumstances of an individual, family, group or community against one or more benchmarks in preparation for making a diagnosis or plan of action.
(2) Inquiring into the financial resources of an individual or family to determine whether they should make a contribution towards a service.
Useful link: Wolverhampton city council - what is an assessment

Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF)
National organisation for grant-making trusts and foundations of all types. Offers good practice information, legal information and a public voice.
Big issue: charity finance
Useful link: ACF

Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo)
Membership body for heads of voluntary organisations and charities. Supports charity leaders, promotes standards in voluntary and charity work and enables expertise sharing in charity management. Also has a campaigning function.
Big issue: charity management
Useful link: Acevo membership statement

Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (Acses)
Represents legal and administrative managers in England and Wales.
Related articles
Useful link: Acses

Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS)
This is the professional body for local authority directors of social services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was set up in 1971 following the implementation of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 and superseded the Associations of Children's, Mental Health and Welfare Officers.
Big issue: social care staff
Related articles
Useful link: ADSS

Association of Directors of Social Work (ADSW)
This is the professional organisation for senior local authority managers in social work departments in Scotland and was established in 1969.
Big issue: social care staff
Related articles
Useful link: ADSW

Association of London Government (ALG)
Umbrella body that represents the capital's 33 councils. Also distributes nearly £30m a year to cross-London voluntary groups and manages the Freedom pass, which allows more than a million older people to travel for free on the capital's public transport network.
Big issue: governing London
Related articles
Useful link: ALG

Assured tenancy
The most common form of tenancy offered by housing associations. It allows housing associations to increase their rents to market levels if they get into financial trouble. Assured tenants have less legal protection than council tenants who are given secure tenancies.
See also: secure tenancy
Related articles
Useful link: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - assured tenancy guide for tenants

Attendance allowance
A welfare benefit available to people over the age of 65 who require a high level of care from another person because of disability or illness.
Big issue: long-term care
Related articles
Useful link: former Department of Social Security website - about the attendance allowance

Audit commission
Quango responsible for ensuring that public money is well spent. In charge of local government's best value inspection regime and responsible for auditing the finances of councils and NHS organisations.
Big issue: best value and inspection
Useful link: audit commission

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