Social care services and policies and procedures
Case reference FOI2025/02049
Received 15 October 2025
Published 28 November 2025
Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request copies of the following: To deliver social care services in your region:
* How many subcontractors do you have?
* How long have each of these subcontractors been working with you?
* What policies and procedures do you require each of your social care providers to hold?
* How often do you require social care providers that work with you to update their policies and procedures?
* UPDATE: q3 and 4 includes all social care providers including sub contractors
Response
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request copies of the following:
To deliver social care services in your region:
* How many subcontractors do you have?
A: We have no subcontractors to deliver social care across Children and Young People Services.
Adults Services have 1.
* How long have each of these subcontractors been working with you?
A: We have no subcontractors to deliver social care across Children and Young People Services.
Adults Services current contract, where part delivery is subcontracted, was initiated in November 2024
* What policies and procedures do you require each of your social care providers to hold?
A: Children’s Services ensure that they work with safe and compliant providers and has robust processes embedded to ensure quality assurance and accreditation of the quality being delivered by social care providers. They require providers to ensure that they have policies in place, including but not limited to, safer recruitment, safeguarding, health and safety, insurances etc. They work closely with regional colleagues to share intelligence on services being delivered and hold providers to account when they are not delivering the standards of care we expect for Herefordshire families. The specific requirement will be in line with the service to be delivered, the requirement for registration and procurement route used. As such it is not possible to give a generic answer to this question.
Adults Services have provided the following:
Safeguarding adult’s policy
Medicines policy
Controlled drugs policy
Standard operating procedure
Nutrition, food and drink policy
Infection control policy
Complaints procedure
Whistleblowing procedure
Anti-slavery and human trafficking policies and procedures
Anti-bullying policy
Anti-bribery policy
Health and safety policy
Recruitment policy
Data protection and GDPR policy
Retention and destruction policy
* How often do you require social care providers that work with you to update their policies and procedures?
A: Childrens Services expect providers to be reviewing their policies and procedures at minimum annually and they ensure that their policies and procedures are updated in line with best practice.
Adults Services contracts have slight variations, although generally most have annual requirement to update policies and procedures.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.