Regulating Adult Social Care (RASC)

Advisory Group of Experts (AGE)

The AGE was established as a way of accessing expertise for the RASC Research Project. It includes directors, policy advisors and frontline inspectors from the two main social care regulatory bodies, the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and the General Social Care Council (GSCC); managers and frontline staff from a number of English local authority social services departments; managers of voluntary and private organizations that provide care services for adults; representatives from service user and carer groups; senior academic researchers in adult social care; and other adult social care experts as appropriate. Also four members of our other advisory group, the Advisory Panel of Service Users and Carers (AGSUC) will sit on AGE to provide continuity and facilitate information flow between the panels.

The AGE will meet formally at strategic points during the project (at the end of each main phase), but the research team will maintain contact with members between these meetings by letter, telephone and e-mail when it is felt that members can advise on key methodological and substantive matters (for example, issues of access and comprehensiveness and on the interim, summary and final research reports).