Joint inspection of services to protect children and young
people in the Orkney Islands Council area.
26 November 2009
The inspection of services to protect children1 in the Orkney
Islands Council area was carried out in August and
September 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 Orkney Islands lie to the north of the Scottish mainland and are
made up of around 70 islands, some of which are uninhabited. They
cover an area of 990 square kilometres. The two main populated
communities are in Kirkwall and Stromness. The Council area has a
population of 19,890, with 20.3% under the age of 18 years
compared to the Scottish average of 20.2%.
The number of children referred to the Council for child protection
enquiries increased and then decreased to the same level between
2006 and 2009. The proportion of children on the Child Protection
Register (CPR) in the Orkney Islands Council area is 1.1 per 1,000
which is lower than the Scottish average of 2.9 per 1,000.
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2. Particular strengths that make a difference to children and
families
•
Helping those who are experiencing difficulties at an early stage.
•
Staff listening to them and taking account of their views.
•
Staff working hard to build trust with them and being able to help
them better as a result.
3. Examples of good practice
•
The RESPECT programme which is raising awareness among
children of domestic abuse.
•
The Triple P Project which is increasing the confidence and skills
of parents to protect and care for their children.
•
The work of the Child Protection Committee (CPC) in looking
closely at, and improving, how staff protect children.
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
Vulnerable children are able to identify someone to talk to if they need
help or are worried about something. Staff from Women’s Aid Orkney
are very good at helping children affected by domestic abuse to talk
about their experiences and learn how to keep themselves safe.
Children’s awareness of domestic abuse, bullying and how to keep
safe is raised through their involvement in the RESPECT programme.
Children are given helpful advice by staff in school and at the Camoran
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Resource Centre about their safety when using the Internet. A few
children who experience abuse and neglect have not always been
given the particular help they need to be aware of dangers and keep
themselves safe. Children and families generally receive effective
help and support quickly and for as long as they need it. The Triple P
Project provides a wide range of very effective services which improve
parents’ skills and confidence in caring for their children. As a result,
their children are safer and have improved life chances. Services are
developing better coordinated support to meet the individual needs of
vulnerable children at an early stage. More needs to be done to
ensure that all staff are clear about their role in planning and providing
this support.
On most occasions staff recognise when children are at risk and take
prompt and effective action when specific concerns are raised. When
carrying out investigations, police officers and social workers explain
carefully to children and families what action they are taking and why.
Children and families are provided with helpful advice and support
while this is happening.
Children who are at immediate or significant risk of harm are kept safe
by the early actions taken by staff. Appropriate legal measures are
used when necessary to keep children safe. When it is not safe for
children to stay at home appropriate checks on the suitability of friends
or relatives are not always completed before children are placed with
them.
Overall, staff are good at meeting the needs of children affected by
abuse or neglect. Staff from different services meet regularly to
organise the help they provide. Most children’s lives improve as a
result of the help they receive. Staff, including educational
psychologists and speech and language therapists, give valuable
support to children who need their help. Children not able to stay at
home are looked after well by foster carers and residential staff at the
Camoran Resource Centre. This allows more children to grow up in
their local community closer to family and friends. The needs of some
children are not met well because certain areas of their health or
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development are not considered or assessed appropriately. An
increase in mental health staff is beginning to ensure that appropriate
support is available for children who need it. Specialist psychiatric
help is not available for all children who need it to help them recover
from their experiences of abuse or neglect.
Police and social work staff respond quickly and effectively to make
sure children are safe if they run away from home. A shared plan of
action to ensure the needs of young runaways are assessed and met
in all cases has yet to be developed. Appropriate systems are in place
to trace children who go missing from education. Staff within the
education service are working to ensure that all schools have a reliable
system to alert parents and carers quickly if children are absent.
Members of the Child Protection Committee (CPC) have considered
how help and support will be provided to children who may have been
brought into, or moved around, the country illegally and are at risk of
harm.
Children and families are benefiting from very effective communication
with staff who know them well and listen to their views. Children
attending child protection meetings are prepared very well by staff.
Children and parents with communication difficulties receive very
effective support to express their views and feelings. Looked after
children are helped to raise issues which concern them at a Having
Your Say group. Trusting relationships with children and families help
staff provide high levels of support to improve their lives. The role and
responsibilities of advocacy workers in supporting children and families
are unclear. The help they offer also needs to be explained better to
those children and families with whom they work.
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
Information-sharing is improving, but is still inconsistent between some
services and in some areas. Some local doctors are reluctant to share
relevant information, particularly about children’s parents. Staff work
well together to share information about sex offenders who may pose
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a risk to children. In most services recording of information has
improved, particularly by social work staff. Health staff are not always
involved in discussions or planning meetings with other staff when joint
assessments of risks and needs are made. Staff involved in making
these assessments do not always have access to important health
information. However, there are some good examples of effective
assessment of risk and needs. New style plans are being introduced
which are successfully helping staff and parents focus more clearly on
achieving good outcomes for children in the shorter and longer-term.
Senior managers from different services have identified staff training
priorities. Training for most staff is being provided more effectively.
Some health staff require additional training to assess children’s needs
more effectively.
Managers are highly committed to strengthening services to protect
children by taking a close look at their work and planning
improvements. Services do this well, individually and together. Social
work managers are reviewing the work of individual workers much
more effectively. A regular audit of children’s case records by a
sub-group of the CPC is identifying strengths and weakness in
services. A process for reviewing the learning from particular cases
has been introduced successfully. Managers follow national
guidelines when carrying out significant case reviews. What they learn
from these reviews is reported back to the CPC and other staff.
Services now need to involve frontline staff more fully in evaluating
their work and improving practice.
Decisions about medical examinations do not always involve a
paediatrician. These decisions are usually taken by police and social
work staff. Staff rely on the advice of family doctors and school nurses
when more specialist advice is required. As a result, the wider health
needs of children are sometimes overlooked.
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6. How good is leadership and direction?
Senior managers across services have established a successfully
shared vision for child safety and protection. They work well together
to plan and develop their services. Reports on the progress they are
making are regularly monitored and reviewed. They are strong in
ensuring that children and families are treated equally and fairly. The
membership of the CPC and Chief Officer’s Group (COG) has been
reviewed and strengthened. The COG give clear guidance to the
CPC. The CPC provide effective leadership and direction to staff.
Staff across services generally work well together and with staff in the
voluntary organisations. In the health service, there have been recent
changes at a senior management level and children’s services are
becoming a higher priority. Managers now need to provide stronger
leadership and direction to make further improvements in services for
vulnerable children. Arrangements to enable children in Orkney to get
specialist psychology and psychiatry services in Aberdeen when they
need it have been agreed recently. These need to be implemented
without delay.
7. How are services improving?
Senior managers are working hard to develop integrated children’s
services. The Integrated Children’s Services Plan (ICSP) outlines
clear improvement priorities, including those to help keep children safe
and healthy. Young people have been involved in developing it. The
plan is regularly monitored and reviewed and is helping to improve
outcomes for vulnerable children and families.
The regular reviews of children’s case records identify areas for
development. As a result, improvements have been made, including
increased attendance by staff at decision-making meetings. Some
family doctors are also attending these meetings and submitting
reports more often. Improvements in involving children and families in
key decision-making meetings and seeking their views are being
made. The findings of significant case reviews have been shared with
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chief officers at CPC development sessions. These reviews include
learning from a significant case in another area. A manager in health
has just been identified to coordinate health involvement in
information-sharing and decision-making meetings more effectively.
Following the previous child protection inspection a number of areas
for improvement were identified. The CPC developed an action plan
and has made good progress in a number of these areas. The CPC is
now receiving better information on performance.
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 improvement.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with services in
the Orkney Islands Council area.
•
Continue to develop approaches to providing better coordinated
support to meet the individual needs of vulnerable children at an
early stage.
•
Ensure health staff are trained and supported to become more
fully and effectively involved in key child protection processes.
•
Involve front-line staff more in evaluating and improving the
effectiveness of services.
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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
publications 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 Orkney Islands 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
good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work within the local
authority area.
Self-evaluation
Improvements in performance
good
good
Kevin Mitchell
Inspector
November 2009
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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 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education