Skills for Care have launched a new easy to use guide to support workforce planning for providers of adult social care.

The Taking Steps guide was launched at a national conference that shared key learning from the Association of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and Skills for Care's Integrated Local Area Workforce Strategies (InLAWS) and looked at how InLAWS can help local authorities meet each of the Putting people First milestones .

The flexible guide is designed for busy people who need help to plan their future workforce needs. The guide refers to Skills for Health's Six Step Methodology to Integrated Workforce planning to consider the current position of their business, where it needs to be in the future and how to keep workers and people who use services safe.

The audience for this guide will be diverse in scale, service area and experience of workforce planning but the materials are designed to support all workforce planners across the adult social care sector.

Conference delegates were able to pick up copies of six case studies from InLAWS field work passing on learning from innovative workforce planning initiatives across England. The case studies pass on learning from the Borough of Poole, the Black Country Partnership for Care, Halton Borough Council, Wigan Council and the London Borough of Haringey.

The conference was opened with an update of progress on developing InLAWS by Mun Thong Phung who is Chair of the national Steering Group and Director of Adult, Culture and Community Services at the London Borough of Haringey.

Neil Paterson from the Workforce Directorate at the Department of Health talked about the view from the department in relation to adult social care workforce development.

Workforce commissioning in the community was covered by Jo Cleary, who is Co-Chair of the ADASS Workforce Network and Executive Director of Adult and Community Services at the London Borough of Lambeth.

Pat Bailey, Vice President of the Social Care Association, led a session looking at how service providers would help meet future demand and essential standards.

"Skills for Care are grateful to all our partners who helped us create this easy to use and flexible guide to workforce planning which is designed to help commissioners on the frontline plan the workforces that will deliver future demand in their communities," says Skills for Care's Director of Planning Support and Performance Jan Sheldon.

"Skills for Care believe this guide will be a very useful tool in helping commissioners look at local demand and determine how many workers they will require to meet the future needs of their citizens."

To download the guide to workforce planning visit http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/guidetoworkforceplanning/

For more information InLAWS and to download the case studies visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/inlaws