Introduction
1. The inspection
2. Continuous improvement
3. Progress towards meeting the main points for action
4. Conclusion
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Introduction
The Joint Inspection of Children’s Services and Inspection of Social Work Services
(Scotland) Act 2006 , together with the associated regulations and Code of Practice, provide the legislative framework for the conduct of joint inspections of the provision of services to children. Inspections are conducted within a published framework of quality indicators, ‘How well are children and young people protected and their needs met?
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Inspection teams include Associate Assessors who are members of staff from services and agencies providing services to children and young people in other
Scottish local authority areas.
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‘ How well are children and young people protected and their needs met?
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’ Self-evaluation using quality indicators, HM Inspectorate of Education 2005 .
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1. The inspection
HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) published a report on the joint inspection of services to protect children and young people in the Scottish Borders Council area in
March 2007. Working together, services within the Scottish Borders Council area prepared an action plan indicating how they would address the main points for action identified in the original HMIE inspection report.
Inspectors revisited the Scottish Borders Council area in January 2009 to assess the extent to which services were continuing to improve the quality of their work to protect children and young people, and to evaluate progress made in responding to the main points for action in the initial report.
2. Continuous improvement
Services in Scottish Borders had continued to work effectively in partnership to improve structures and services for children, young people and families.
Important steps had been taken to reform children’s services and develop more joint work between services to support children, their families and carers. Structures to provide local area-based services had been set up, including Children’s
Multi-Agency Teams (CMATS). These were resulting in improved early intervention and preventative work.
The Critical Services Oversight Group (CSOG) and the Child Protection Committee
(CPC) had continued to raise public awareness of child protection issues through effective provision of information. Child protection guidelines had been reviewed and improved, and were now available online. The role of the CPC had continued to strengthen through subgroups which enabled staff from across services to share practice and influence developments. The Council had agreed funding for new accommodation for the Child Protection Unit which would provide considerably enhanced facilities for children and families whilst improving links with the Adult
Protection service.
Services had further developed their role as corporate parents. The Corporate
Parenting Strategy Group included two young people. A
Children’s Champion had been appointed. Services demonstrated a very strong commitment to involving children, young people and families in decision-making.
Services had yet to fully establish effective systems for gathering, analysing and making use of performance information to influence continuous improvement. This was limited by the level of administrative support currently available to assist the work of the Child Protection Lead Officer and the CPC. More formalised systems, using Information Technology, would improve information sharing and communication.
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3. Progress towards meeting the main points for action
The initial inspection report published in March 2007 identified four main points for action.
3.1 Further develop effective systems for seeking the views of children, young people and families on the impact of services and their participation in the planning and improvement of services.
Services had made very good progress towards meeting this point for action.
All services were continuing to improve the participation of children, young people and families in decision-making. A Participation Officer has been appointed and a participation strategy introduced. The Participation Officer had a coordinating role providing a more planned and consistent approach to consultation. An elected member had been appointed as a Children’s Champion. Positive steps, including the distribution of postcards and visits to schools, had been taken to raise awareness of her role among young people.
A range of processes for seeking the views of service users was in place across services. A DVD had been produced to highlight the importance of listening to the views of young people and will be used in staff training. Materials for assessing the effectiveness of Pupil Councils were being piloted in four schools.
Parenting Handbooks had been produced for early years, primary and secondary school age children and young people. Staff were consulting with parents on their usefulness. A poster campaign included very effective engagement with groups of young people, including children who had been victims of abuse. Teachers, youth workers, school nurses, social workers and other support staff worked well with groups of young people to seek their views on a selection of posters. This exercise was also used by staff to raise awareness of child protection issues with children and young people and to build trusting relationships. Plans were being developed to review the impact on raising awareness of children and young people.
A variety of effective forums and representative groups had continued to develop.
The Young People’s Health Forum had a positive impact on improving services for young people and raising their awareness of health issues. Participants had produced an effective DVD to raise awareness of mental health issues. Looked after children and young carers were provided with good opportunities to express their views. These included the inclusion of two young people on the Corporate
Parenting Strategy Group. Plans were underway to establish five local consultation forums which would link to the area-based structure. These will link directly to other forums, including the Young People’s Health Forum, and provide a means of taking issues forward to a national level through Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament.
Staff working with children, young people and families had made very good progress to ensure their views were sought routinely as part of child protection procedures.
Their views were recorded in the Child Protection Case Conference (CPCC) protection plan. CPCC chairs included the views of young people and parents in minutes. Initial Referral Discussion (IRD) forms and education files now included
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sections for recording the views of children and young people. The effectiveness of
Have Your Say forms had been reviewed and Viewpoint , which provide an electronic tool for gathering the views of young people, was being tried out.
Sure Start programmes engaged with parents very effectively and had embedded the involvement of parents in decision-making in all aspects of their practice.
3.2 Ensure that the longer term needs of children, young people and their families and those assessed as being at lower risk are met.
Good progress had been made by services towards meeting this point for action.
Services to meet the needs of children and families in both child protection cases and child welfare cases had improved. New developments included the establishment of CMATs in each of the five local areas. These brought together locality social workers, home/school link staff, community mental health staff and police integration officers to focus on preventative and early intervention work. They encouraged the involvement of other school, social work, health and voluntary sector staff. CMATs had a reduced capacity as some staff were allocated part-time and other full-time staff were asked to take on crisis cases. This resulted in a lack of continuity in provision. Initiatives to support women and children affected by domestic abuse had recently been established. A multi-disciplinary Sure Start team supported vulnerable mothers well from early in pregnancy to delivery and afterwards.
A dedicated domestic abuse trainer had recently been appointed to enhance multi-agency staff skills. Social work had introduced guidance, with associated training, to improve the development of care plans. These had contributed significantly to improved needs assessment and care planning. Multi-agency training had been provided to equip staff to work with parents of older children.
Revised procedures for meeting the health needs of looked after children had been set up, including early health assessment and regular reviews.
Children 1st continued to provide counselling and family group meetings. However, services for young carers did not fully meet the needs of these young people. A service for parents affected by drug misuse was about to be re-launched to include support for alcohol misusing parents. The network of family support centres, with associated outreach teams, continued to contribute significantly to meeting children’s needs.
A number of service developments were in the early stages of implementation or about to be established. The introduction of an Integrated Assessment Framework
(IAF) with multi-agency care planning and care management has started to provide earlier identification of needs and more effective intervention. Implementing the
Transforming Chi ldren’s Services Plan, will help to further improve services to families. A number of other new services are being introduced, including a befriending and mentoring service, and a schools/social work service for children with additional support needs.
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3.3 Improve arrangements for sharing information, particularly between staff in social work and education
Good progress has been made in improving arrangements for sharing information.
Effective communication, information sharing and partnership work was fundamental to the vision and strategic direction of all services. Very positive steps had been taken to develop further partnership working between services. All services demonstrated a clear commitment to strengthen the locality approach to further integrate services. Co-location of staff and multi-agency teams in local areas had led to improved communication and better information sharing. General
Practitioners were becoming increasingly involved in child protection processes.
The delay in progressing and developing Information Technology solutions was a potential barrier to further improving existing information sharing.
All services were working to progress the IAF. Staff were positive about the benefits of working together to develop this approach. Joint training in IAF had resulted in a greater staff understanding of their roles and responsibilities for sharing information.
The police had strengthened systems which gathered and shared information on domestic violence. There were examples of very good communication and information sharing in early intervention. The pre-birth case discussion chaired by health staff had led to improved information sharing arrangements and planning. A child protection reviewing officer attended Multi-Agency Public Protection
Arrangement (MAPPA) meetings on behalf of children
’s services, and passed relevant information to colleagues.
Communication and information sharing between social work and education staff had also improved. CMATs had resulted in area based social workers becoming more involved in working with school staff through, for example, contributing to Joint
Assessment Teams. The home link workers, played a significant role in information sharing.
3.4 Improve procedures for self-evaluation and performance monitoring and making more effective use of management information to continuously improve services.
Satisfactory progress had been made towards meeting this point for action.
The CPC had completed a self-evaluation of the effectiveness of child protection procedures. It had not focused sufficiently on measuring outcomes for children and their families. The sub-groups of the CPC all monitored and reviewed child protection practice. Open debate and challenge helped influence improvement in practice across services. The sub-groups actively encouraged staff to raise concerns about the management of cases.
The Quality Sub-group of the CPC was responsible for improving the provision of management information and monitoring the quality of areas of provision. The group had employed an independent advocacy worker to gather the views of parents who had been involved in child protection processes. The Review
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Sub-group of the CPC reviewed circumstances around all child deaths. They also ensured appropriate action was taken following complaints. Although this group was fairly recently established, it had begun to have a positive impact on practice across services. The CPC monitored attendance at Case Conferences and took steps to address any gaps.
Police, education, social work and health staff had established systems for auditing case files. A comprehensive review of community nursing records was carried out by peer review and the results were well-documented. However, managers were not involved in analysing the findings or ensuring improvements were implemented. Education staff had reviewed a number of files, but it was unclear who was responsible for ensuring actions for improvement had been progressed.
All services had undertaken several audits and reviews and these were becoming embedded in practice. Findings were reported to the CPC, with regular updates on the progress of reviews reported to CSOG. Although many audits and reviews of practice were happening, they were not sufficiently coordinated or shared across services. As a result, it was not always clear who was responsible for ensuring recommendations from audits and reviews were implemented, monitored and reviewed.
Basic management information on child protection activity from across services was provided to the CPC and CSOG. However, this information was not always analysed effectively. Managers were exploring what additional management information was available from across services, but had not agreed what set of information should be collected.
4. Conclusion
Services had responded positively to the main points for action identified in the inspection report published in March 2007. The CPC continued to develop and provide an effective forum for services to review progress and share practice.
Senior Managers continued to develop structures for integrating service delivery and improve partnership working across services at all levels. Staff demonstrated an enthusiastic approach to continuing to develop and provide quality services for children, young people and families. Services were in a very good position to build on improvements, but needed to implement a more coordinated approach to gathering and analysing performance information, develop a clearer focus on outcomes and continue to improve information sharing.
As a result of this very good performance, HMIE will make no further visits in relation to the inspection report of March 2007.
Anne Gibson
HM Inspector
April 2009
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How can you contact us?
If you would like an additional copy of this report
Copies of this report have been sent to the Chief Executives of the local authority and Health Board, Chief Constable, Authority and Principal Reporter, Members of the Scottish Parliament, and other relevant individuals and agencies. Subject to availability, further copies may be obtained free of charge from HM Inspectorate of
Education, First Floor, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale
Way, Livingston EH54 6GA or by telephoning 01506 600262. Copies are also available on our website www.hmie.gov.uk.
If you wish to comment about this inspection
Should you wish to comment on any aspect of this inspection you should write in the first instance to Neil McKechnie, HM Chief Inspector at HM Inspectorate of
Education, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure
If you have a concern about this report, you should write in the first instance to our
Complaints Manager, HMIE Business Management Unit, Second Floor, Denholm
House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way, Livingston EH54 6GA. You can also e-mail HMIEcomplaints@hmie.gsi.gov.uk. A copy of our complaints procedure is available from this office, by telephoning 01506 600200 or from our website at www.hmie.gov.uk.
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 Service
Ombudsman. The SPSO is fully independent and has powers to investigate complaints about Government departments and agencies. You should write to the
SPSO, Freepost EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377
7330 (fax 0800 377 7331) or e-mail enquiries to ask@spso.org.uk. More information about the Ombud sman’s office can be obtained from the website: www.spso.org.uk.
Crown Copyright 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education
This report may be reproduced in whole or in part, except for commercial purposes or in connection with a prospectus or advertisement, provided that the source and date thereof are stated.
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