Joint inspection of services to protect children and young
people in the City of Edinburgh Council area.
14 January 2010
The inspection of services to protect children1 in the City of
Edinburgh council area was carried out during September and
October 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
The City of Edinburgh council is situated in east of Scotland. It covers
an area of 264 square kilometres. It is the capital city of Scotland.
The City of Edinburgh council has a population of 471,650 with 17.1%
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 significantly between 2006 and 2008. The level of
referral is considerably higher than that for Scotland as a whole. The
proportion of children on the Child Protection Register (CPR) at the
City of Edinburgh council is 4.1 per 1000 which is higher than that for
Scotland as a whole.
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2. Particular strengths that make a difference to children and
families
•
Children have trusting relationships with their key worker.
•
Improved joint training has increased staff confidence in identifying
children who need help.
•
Improved procedures and practice ensure that prompt action is
taken to protect children.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Edinburgh Connect, a specialist mental health team for children
looked after away from home which provide prompt support to both
children and the staff looking after them.
•
Growing Confidence is a training programme for staff, children and
their parents which promotes positive mental health and well-being
in children.
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
Many children and families get very useful help and support from a
range of services. This keeps them safe and helps them improve their
lives. However, support is not always available early enough to help
some children and families. Sometimes services only begin to help
families when circumstances place children at increased risk of harm.
Some services are removed too quickly. Young children usually get
good support from staff in children and family centres and nurseries
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but it is not always available for as long as they need it. Older children
do not always get the support they need early enough. School staff
help children to keep themselves safe, including how to use the
internet safely. Some children get good individual support from social
workers to help keep themselves safe but it is not available to all
children who need it.
There is a high level of awareness amongst staff of the need to share
any concerns they have about the safety or welfare of children. They
recognise when children are at risk and share their concerns quickly
with their own managers and with police and social work staff. Police
and social work staff respond promptly and effectively. Staff explain to
children and families what is happening and support them well during
investigations.
When children are at significant risk of harm social workers and police
officers usually act quickly to ensure their safety by placing them with
relatives, friends or foster carers. Delays in placing a few older
children are closely monitored by senior managers and additional
support provided. Checks on the suitability of friends or relatives are
usually carried out before the children are placed with them. Staff
consider and use legal measures appropriately to protect children who
are at significant risk of harm.
Children are helped by a range of staff working together. The health of
young children is a high priority for health visitors and staff working in
children and family centres. Vulnerable children of school age are not
always known to or helped by school nurses. Their wider health needs
are not always identified or met. Children on the CPR are supported
well by their social worker. However, other vulnerable children do not
always have a named worker to help them. Despite an increasing
number of foster places, there is still a shortage of places for older
children. Children with mental health difficulties needing support wait
several months to get the specialised help they need. When parents
have difficulties, including mental health, substance misuse or
domestic abuse problems children’s needs are sometimes overlooked.
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Managers are aware of the risks to particular children and are working
together to put arrangements in place to keep them safe. Effective
systems are in place to track children missing from education. A joint
approach helps to ensure the safety of children who run away from
home. The Child Protection Committee (CPC) has produced attractive
information leaflets explaining what to do if there are concerns about
children who are brought into or moved around the country illegally.
Most children and families feel that their key workers know them well,
listen to them and understand their problems. Children and families
have regular contact with their key workers. This has improved
communication and helped build trusting relationships. However,
sometimes staff work hard with parents but do not take enough time to
communicate and build relationships with children who need help.
Children and families who need support with communication are
helped by specialist services, including interpreters. Parents and
carers are encouraged to attend child protection meetings. Their
views are listened to at these meetings and they are involved in the
decisions taken. Children rarely attend child protection meetings and
their views are not always heard. Few children on the CPR get help to
express their views from someone independent.
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
Some staff consider risks to children and identify their needs well.
Social workers are beginning to record assessments in a more
standardised way. Some find the new paperwork difficult to use.
Managers across services are introducing a more joined up way to
assess and plan to meet children’s needs. This work is at an early
stage.
Once identified, some children are helped by effective planning to
meet their short term needs. Some plans are well laid out with
responsibilities for both staff and parents identified clearly. Progress is
reviewed regularly through well attended meetings. However, a few
children did not have a written plan. Children who are looked after
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away from home have their plans reviewed regularly. However,
children looked after at home or with family members do not always
get their plan reviewed on a regular basis.
When children require a medical examination, following allegations of
abuse or neglect, they are seen quickly by a suitably qualified doctor.
Staff working with sex offenders share information and consider risks
to children well.
Services are committed to reviewing their work to improve outcomes
for children. A multi-agency quality assurance group has been
established which monitors performance well. This group is now
considering ways to assess the quality of the work carried out with
children and families. Health visitors and social workers have looked
closely at their records to seek improvements. Police officers have
checked on the quality of their reports submitted for child protection
meetings. Staff in children and family centres have looked at how well
they work as a team and have made some improvements as a result
of this work. Services had only just stared to look closely at their joint
work to protect children. They had involved some staff but had not
involved children and families. Managers have plans to review case
files together.
6. How good is leadership and direction?
Chief Officers across services have a clear vision for children and
young people. They want to improve the life chances for all children,
especially children needing protection from harm. A Chief Officer’s
Group (COG) is now firmly established and members are fully aware
of their collective responsibility to protect children. They provide
leadership, support and challenge to the CPC. A Child Protection
Improvement Board has been set up in the council to check that
improvements and progress are being made. Successful changes
have been made in the council to improve leadership of social work
services. Social workers are supported by their managers and
supervisors when working in difficult circumstances. Communication
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has improved between health staff and their managers. Social work
resources have been increased to improve staffing levels to help meet
need. These have been targeted effectively towards children at
highest risk, but consideration now needs to be given to improving
services to help families much earlier.
7. How are services improving?
The Integrated Children and Young People’s Plan has clear aims
about what it wants to achieve. However, these do not focus clearly
enough on the quality of service that children and families should
expect. The CPC is monitoring performance effectively through the
Quality Assurance Sub-group. A comprehensive improvement plan
has been developed, however actions in the plan are not always
based on self-evaluation. The improvement plan is closely monitored
and findings discussed at the CPC and COG.
Staff have reviewed services provided to children looked after away
from home. As a result several improvements are planned. The
Domestic Abuse Pathfinder was evaluated effectively which resulted in
a clear statement of strengths and areas for improvement. An action
plan which addressed improvements to the project was developed.
Edinburgh Connect involve children in evaluating their work. Services
are seeking better ways to gather the views of children and families
who attend child protection meetings.
Following the last inspection managers have worked hard together to
make significant improvements to protect children. Better monitoring
of performance has led to improvements across services. Improved
access to appropriate training courses has made staff more confident
when identifying children who need help and how to respond
appropriately to concerns. Services need to continue to take forward a
more joined up approach to identifying children’s needs and put in
place shared plans to meet those needs.
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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
monitor improvements.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with services in
the City of Edinburgh council area.
•
Ensure children and families get support from services at an early
stage before concerns become more serious.
•
Increase the involvement of children in decisions about their lives.
•
Continue to develop a more joined up approach to identify risks to
children and plan to meet their needs.
•
Strengthen joint self-evaluation to improve 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 these in the City of Edinburgh 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
satisfactory
satisfactory
satisfactory
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work within the City of
Edinburgh council area.
Self-evaluation
Improvements in performance
satisfactory
satisfactory
Fiona McManus
Managing Inspector:
January 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