Joint inspection of services to protect children and young
people in the East Ayrshire Council area
11 March 2010
The inspection of services to protect children1 in the East Ayrshire
Council area was carried out in October and November 2009.
We looked at the services provided by health, the police, the
council and the Children’s Reporter. We also looked at the
services provided by voluntary and independent organisations.
Our report describes how good they are at protecting children
and keeping them safe. To find this out we read a sample of
children’s files which were held by these services. We talked to a
number of children and their parents and carers to listen to their
views about the services they had received. We also spoke to
staff in these services who worked with children, parents and
carers and to senior managers who were responsible for these
staff and the services they provided.
What we found and tell you about in this report is based on a
sample of children and families. We cannot promise that this will
be the same for every child in the area who might need help.
A team of inspectors gathered all the information and helped to
write this report. These inspectors have experience of working
across the range of services involved in protecting children.
Inspection teams include professional staff who work in council
areas elsewhere in Scotland.
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When we refer to children in this report we mean children and young people
under the age of 18 years.
Contents
1. The area
2. Particular strengths that make a difference to children and families
3. Examples of good practice
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
6. How good is leadership and direction?
7. How are services improving?
8. What happens next?
1. The area
East Ayrshire is situated in the West of Scotland. It covers an area of
1,262 square kilometres. The main population centres are in
Kilmarnock and Cumnock. East Ayrshire has a population of 120,000
with 20.7% under the age of 18 years compared to the Scottish
average of 20.5%.
The number of children referred to the council for child protection
enquiries increased between 2006 and 2009. The level of referrals is
higher than for Scotland as a whole. The proportion of children on the
Child Protection Register (CPR) in East Ayrshire is 3.8 per 1,000,
which is higher than the national average of 2.7 per 1,000.
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2. Particular strengths that made a difference to children and
families
•
Providing support early to prevent difficulties arising or increasing.
•
Staff working well together to keep children safe.
•
Trusting relationships with staff.
•
Commitment by staff to reviewing their work to improve services.
•
Strengthened leadership and management of children’s social work
services.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Staff effectively supporting parents to develop their confidence and
skills in caring for pre-school aged children.
•
Services and opportunities which make a positive difference to the
lives of young carers affected by parental substance misuse.
•
Improved well-being of young people living in residential children’s
homes through taking part in leisure activities.
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
Staff across services provide children with a range of helpful
opportunities to participate in personal safety programmes. Children
are supported well to use the Internet safely in schools. This work
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should be developed further to help them use the Internet and mobile
phones safely at home and in the community. Some vulnerable
children benefit from skilful one-to-one work to help keep themselves
safe. Staff provide very effective support to vulnerable children and
families to prevent difficulties arising or increasing. Some families
benefit from intensive support arranged to suit their particular
circumstances. Home carers, who visit children at risk in the evenings
and at weekends, are increasingly helping parents learn practical skills
to better meet their children’s needs. Staff working with children in
their early years are successfully improving relationships between
parents and children. A few children and families do not get the help
they need as soon as problems arise. Children and families affected
by domestic abuse are benefiting from an earlier and more appropriate
response. Wide-ranging support for young carers is increasing their
opportunities to enjoy life and succeed. Services are delivered flexibly
so that children and families living in rural communities get the help
they need.
Staff are alert and act promptly to report concerns about children’s
safety and welfare. Immediate action taken by social workers to help
children has improved significantly. More effective joint-working is
improving the action taken in response to concerns about vulnerable
unborn babies.
Police and social workers use legal measures effectively to protect
children and remove them to places of safety when necessary.
Immediate checks on the suitability of relatives to look after children is
taking place more routinely. Essential information is provided to foster
carers more promptly. Police and social workers should consistently
seek medical advice to ensure that immediate health risks to children
are fully considered. Some children and families are not kept well
enough informed about what is taking place during investigations.
Staff work well together to meet children’s needs and to identify
services to help them. The health needs of school-age children on the
Child Protection Register (CPR) are not always identified or met well.
More children are benefiting from ongoing support when their names
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are removed from the CPR. A range of services assist in meeting the
longer term needs of some children and families. Staff do not always
make other arrangements when the support given to parents does not
lead to improvement. As a result some children continue to
experience neglect for too long. A sports coach is improving the life
chances of young people living in residential children’s homes by
supporting their involvement in leisure activities. Staff recognise that
support for relatives who have children in their care needs further
development. Further actions to keep children safe should be taken
when supervised arrangements for contact with parents are not met.
Improvement is being made in the length of time taken to place
children in permanent new families. Specialist help supports some
children’s recovery from abuse and neglect. Counselling services are
not readily available for children who have been sexually abused.
Some children wait too long for mental health services. These
services require to be delivered in a more flexible way to meet their
needs.
The Child Protection Committee (CPC) is alert to the needs of groups
of children who may be at particular risk. Staff respond effectively to
young people who run away and are taking steps to prevent delays in
reporting children missing from education. Staff increasingly identify
young people who need support with their sexual identity. Work is
being done to raise staff awareness of children being brought into, or
moved around, the country illegally who may be at risk of harm.
Children benefit from trusting and positive relationships with staff.
Very young vulnerable children are carefully observed and staff are
alert to any changes in their well-being. Staff communicate clearly
with parents about what they are expected to do to improve the care of
their children. Staff involve children looked after away from home well
in decision-making meetings about their lives. Children on the CPR
are not as well supported in having their views represented and heard
at decision-making meetings. Independent support workers help some
parents participate meaningfully in child protection meetings, but they
are not available for children.
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5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
Social workers in Initial Response Teams identify and assess risks to
children effectively. However, risk assessments provided by the
out-of-hours social work service remain variable. Police, housing,
health, social work and education staff meet regularly to share
information about children as soon as concerns come to their
attention. They are finding more effective ways of getting the right
help to children when they need it. Staff share information about sex
offenders and put effective arrangements in place to keep children
safe.
Overall, the quality of assessments of risks and needs is still too
variable. Staff skills in assessing risks are being developed further
through training. There are recent examples of thorough assessments
resulting in better decision-making for children. Records of significant
events in a child’s life should be used more effectively to support risk
assessment. Further improvement is required in providing social work
reports for the Children’s Reporter on time. Case conferences have
independent chairpersons who provide helpful challenge to staff. The
use of a standard format is helping staff to make more effective plans
to reduce risks to children, but actions in these plans are often not
specific enough to ensure children get all the help they need. Plans do
not always state the improvements to be made to children’s lives.
Team managers check social workers’ case records and discuss the
impact of their work more regularly. They do not always follow-up
identified issues.
Suitable arrangements are in place to carry out child protection
medical examinations when they are needed. More requires to be
done to gather, share and record relevant health information
consistently when there are concerns about children at risk of abuse
and neglect.
Chief Officers and the CPC are strongly committed to improving
outcomes for children. They are strengthening their coordination of
reviews of services to ensure these lead to improvements in children’s
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safety and well-being. Staff look closely together at systems and
processes and plan how to make them better. However, these plans
are not always specific enough to check on progress and confirm what
benefits to children have been achieved. The CPC is starting to
consult with children and families so that their experiences influence
change and improvement.
6. How good is leadership and direction?
Chief Officers continue to share a strong vision which clearly directs
the work of services. Communication between the CPC and front line
staff is improving. Staff are encouraged to develop new ways of
improving local services. Community planning partners have agreed
plans to prioritise improving outcomes for looked after children.
Strengthened leadership and management of children’s social work
services are effectively supporting staff to change and improve
practice. Chief Officers are exploring ways to further improve child
protection services through sharing resources. A council solicitor
provides expert advice to staff across services which is improving the
effectiveness of joint decision-making to protect children and meet
their needs. New voluntary sector services to help children affected by
alcohol abuse are being funded through the Alcohol and Drug
Partnership. Within and across services teamwork is strong.
7. How are services improving?
Progress in a number of developments is detailed in the annual report
on the Integrated Children’s Services Plan. The CPC Annual Report
identifies improvements in procedures and processes to protect
children. More information could be provided in these reports on
outcomes for children in need of protection. Action Plans from
significant case reviews would benefit from more specific actions to
ensure necessary changes can be made.
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Some service reviews have led to improvements in their effectiveness.
Risks to unborn babies have been significantly reduced through earlier
support to vulnerable pregnant mothers. Children affected by
domestic abuse are getting support at an earlier stage.
The CPC produced an action plan in response to the areas for
improvement identified from the previous inspection of services to
protect children. Some children have recently had their needs better
met through improved assessment and planning processes. Social
workers’ practice is improving as a result of more regular review and
support of their work.
8. What happens next?
We are confident that the services will be able to make the
necessary improvements in light of the inspection findings. As a
result, we will make no more visits in connection with this
inspection. Our link inspector will maintain contact with services to
support improvements.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with services in
the East Ayrshire Council area.
•
Consistently involve health staff in the early stages of planning the
response to child protection concerns.
•
Further strengthen child protection plans to identify and monitor
improvement in children’s health and well-being.
•
Continue to review work jointly, focusing more on improved
outcomes for children.
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Quality indicators help services and inspectors to judge what is good
and what needs to be improved in the work to protect children and
meet their needs. You can find these quality indicators in the HMIE
publication How well do we protect children and meet their needs?
Following the inspection of each local authority area, the Scottish
Government gathers evaluations of four important quality indicators to
keep track of how well services across Scotland are doing to protect
children and meet their needs.
Here are the evaluations for the East Ayrshire Council area.
Children are listened to and respected
Children are helped to keep safe
Response to immediate concerns
Meeting needs and reducing long term harm
very good
very good
good
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work within the local
authority area.
Self-evaluation
Improvements in performance
good
satisfactory
Managing Inspector: Emma McWilliam
March 2010
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To find out more about inspections or get an electronic copy of this
report go to www.hmie.gov.uk. Please contact the Business
Management and Communications Team (BMCT) if you wish to
enquire about our arrangements for translated or other appropriate
versions.
If you wish to comment about any of our inspections, contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively you should write in
the first instance to BMCT, HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm
House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure is available from our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can write to our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our
complaints procedure, you can raise your complaint with the Scottish
Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent
and has powers to investigate complaints about Government
departments and agencies. You should write to SPSO, Freepost
EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377 7330,
fax 0800 377 7331 or e-mail: ask@spso.org.uk. More information
about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website
at www.spso.org.uk.
This report uses the following word scale to make clear
judgements made by inspectors.
excellent
very good
good
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas for
improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
Crown Copyright 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education