SCIE’s Impact Report 2025/26: Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council

Case study

One of these projects is SCIE’s CQC improvement support to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council faced a significant moment in its adult social care improvement journey when the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated it as Requires Improvement in how well it is meeting its responsibilities to ensure people have access to adult social care and support under the Care Act (2014) in July 2025. A key finding was that the council ‘recognised they were not currently undertaking co-production and development in this area was in its early stages’. To support this, SCIE was commissioned to deliver a rapid-improvement project that addressed gaps while laying the foundation for sustainable, long-term change. 

Challenge

Although the council had a strong commitment to co-production, there was a lack of shared understanding of what good co-production looks like in practice.

Council leaders recognised the need for a shared understanding and a framework that could support consistent practice aligned with CQC expectations. This need formed the basis of SCIE’s partnership with the council.

SCIE’s approach

Understanding the local picture

The project began with SCIE conducting an evidence review of the council’s co-production strategies, plans, performance data, existing engagement activity, and stakeholder feedback. This confirmed a strong commitment to co-production, with carers and partners already influencing services through established forums, partnership boards and joint commissioning arrangements. However, the review also identified variation in practice across adult social care, with some teams working in partnership with people with lived experience while others relied on consultation or engagement activity.  Understandings of co-production was not consistent and some groups such as hidden carers, people in full-time work and residents with limited digital access, were less involved. These findings ensured all recommendations were rooted in the local context and targeted areas where consistency and inclusion could be strengthened.

Mapping stakeholders and strengthening collaboration

SCIE worked with council leads to identify relevant stakeholders essential to shaping and championing co‑production, including people with lived experience, unpaid carers, families, frontline teams, managers, commissioners, and partners across the sector. This highlighted key voices and where they were missing or underrepresented.

From this, we developed a communication and engagement plan to support ongoing collaboration with residents, partners, and adult social care colleagues.

Co-designing the vision and approach

We co-designed and delivered a series of workshops that brought stakeholders together to explore what co-production means locally. Activities included gathering lived experience insights, case studies, mind mapping, group discussion, and shared reflection. The sessions helped develop:

• a shared vision for co‑production
• lived experience-led principles
• clarity around roles and responsibilities
• collective agreement on what success should look like.

Participants highlighted the value of hearing from a diverse mix of professionals and people with lived experience. One participant shared:

“It’s been very informative hearing from a range of professionals and people with lived experience, sharing ideas of best practice to make co-production a core value and not an afterthought.”

This collaborative approach reflects wider evidence on the importance of early and meaningful involvement of people with lived experience in shaping services. SCIE’s ‘Shaping change together: co-producing innovation in social care’ report explores this in detail and highlights the importance of trust, shared ownership and acting on people’s contributions.

Creating a tailored co-production knowledge base

A major output was a tailored co-production knowledge base—an accessible resource hub with templates, tools, best practice examples and CQC-aligned guidance. This served as a single point of reference to support consistent co-production across adult social care, helping colleagues understand expectations and apply them in everyday practice.

Impact

The project helped establish the foundations for a more consistent, resident‑led approach to co‑production across adult social care and collaboratively we achieved:

• greater confidence and shared understanding of co-production
• clearer, more coordinated approach to engagement with residents, people with lived experience and carers
• improved relationships with residents, people with lived experience and carers
• identification of co-production champions
• establishment of a co-production group 
• a robust framework aligned with CQC expectations.

Residents expressed renewed confidence in their voices influencing future adult social care planning. In the final workshop, several people with lived experience committed to co‑facilitating upcoming workshops and contributing directly to the development of the Adult Social Care Strategy. The council also provided positive reflections on the project: 

“Working in partnership with SCIE has helped us strengthen co-production in Redcar and Cleveland. Together, we created strong foundations to fully embed our co-production culture.  SCIE’s expertise supported us to develop a co-created vision, guiding principles and formalise a co-production steering group. We are proud to work in equal partnership with people with lived experience to make decisions together and create services that work for everyone.” – Adult Social Care Inspection and Improvement Lead.

Next steps

With the project now concluded, the council will take forward and embed the work by:

• using the co-production knowledge base as a core resource for adult social care
• supporting the newly established co-production group to lead and shape activity
• co-designing and finalising the Adult Social Care Strategy with people with lived experience.

These steps will support the council to sustain co-production as a central part of their improvement journey, drawing on SCIE’s lived experience-led approach, practical resources and guidance to embed consistent, CQC-aligned practice.

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