The Scaled Approach and YRO:
quality assurance work
Quality data and information:
The management role
Data – content and quality
Why are data important?
● Data are the building blocks of information
● Information informs decision-making
● Decision-making impacts lives and services
Therefore
● Data must be complete, accurate and timely
Data and the Scaled Approach and
YRO
Key data that tell you about the effectiveness of the Scaled Approach
Asset and Asset Risk of Serious
Harm
● Completeness
Reports
● Quality
● Quality
● Management oversight
● Congruence between sentence proposals and outcomes
Plans
● Quality
● Implementation
● Review
Disproportionality ● Any discriminatory effects (for example greater proportion
of girls assessed as needing intensive level of intervention)
Feedback
● From young people, parents and carers
● From other key stakeholders
The renewed focus on quality
assurance
The situation now…
Sentence
Represents offence
seriousness and
proportionality
Asset and
Asset – Risk
of Serious Harm
Number
of contacts
Nature of
intervention
What will change with the Scaled
Approach…
Sentence
Represents offence
seriousness and
proportionality
Number
of contacts
Asset and
Asset – Risk
of Serious Harm
Nature of
intervention
What does this mean?
YOT assessments will have a much greater
impact upon the level and nature of
intervention than previously
Consequent responsibility to ensure the
quality of assessments, reports and plans
Quality Assurance principles
Quality assurance
This section covers:
● The three components of quality assurance
● Responsibilities for quality assurance
● When quality assurance should be used
● What additional quality assurance is needed for the Scaled
Approach and the YRO:
 Asset
 reports
 intervention plans
● Tools for local adaptation
● Quality assurance pitfalls to avoid
What is quality assurance?
Testing products and outputs (for example
reports and assessments)
Measuring effectiveness of products and outputs
Analysing themes and driving continual improvement
Testing products and outputs
This process seeks to measure the document itself
Ensure
completeness
● Basic personal data, e.g. ethnicity / age
Ensure timeliness
● Asset completed before reports
(or process)
● Asset – Risk of Serious Harm completed where required
● All relevant fields completed
● National standards adhered to
● Management countersignatures where necessary
● Case transfer and closure process
Ensure accuracy
(or quality)
● Young people define their ethnicity
● Range of sources consulted
● Quality of assessments, reports and plans
Measuring effectiveness of
products and outputs
This measures the effectiveness of the document
Asset and
● Disproportionality rates
Asset – Risk of
● Feedback from young people and stakeholders
Serious Harm
● Feedback from YOT risk management forums
Reports
● Congruence rates (including disproportionality)
● Sentencer confidence
● Feedback from young people
● Feedback from other stakeholders
Plans
● Achievement of planned interventions
● Feedback from young people and stakeholders
Analysing themes and driving
continual improvement
Collation, analysis and application of learning of the data gathered:
Individual and
service training
needs analysis
● Asset, reports and planning quality information
Performance
reporting
● Asset, reports and planning quality information
Stakeholder
engagement
● Feedback from young people and stakeholders
Service
improvement
plans
● Asset, reports and planning quality information
● Collated lessons from staff supervision
● Feedback from young people and stakeholders
● Feedback from young people and stakeholders
● Collated lessons from staff supervision
●Feedback from young people and stakeholders
Whose job is quality assurance?
Gatekeeping
Completeness
Peers and
Senior practitioners and quality
Individual QA
Completeness and
quality
Practitioners and admin
Operational
managers
Dip sampling
Completeness and
quality
Themes and issues
Service and
performance
managers
Collation and
analysis
Service and
individual
improvement
When should quality assurance be
used?
As often as necessary!
Based on:
• How important the product is
• Who the audience is
• What the quality is currently
• The resources required to measure quality
What are the implications for my
YOT’s quality assurance tools
used with the Scaled Approach
and the YRO?
Asset – suggested areas for quality
assurance
The Scaled Approach renews focus on the importance of Asset so will
require quality assurance of:
The range and quality of sources of information including the views of the
young person
How well the dynamic factors are evidenced and scored
Whether the static factors are correct
The quality of vulnerability management plans and risk management plans
Any disproportionality in relation to scoring or quality of content
How well safeguarding needs have been evidenced and analysed
Whether professional over-ride has been used to alter levels of intervention
Whether management oversight and sign off has been used appropriately
Regular review
Reports – suggested areas for quality
assurance
Reports will draw on the evidence base from Asset so pay attention to:
Whether the quality controller has seen the Asset and Asset – Risk of
Serious Harm
Whether Asset and Asset – Risk of Serious Harm have been completed and
quality assured
The level of analysis (as opposed to description)
Whether the likelihood of reoffending is clear and unambiguous
Whether the risk of serious harm is clear and unambiguous (where relevant)
Whether there is a clear link between assessed risks and the level of
intervention
Whether there is a clear link between assessed risks and needs and the
report proposal
Plans – suggested areas for quality
assurance
Plans will need to link directly with identified risks and needs contained
in Asset so pay attention to:
The quality of interventions to address identified likelihood of reoffending
including barriers to engagement
The quality of interventions to address identified risk of serious harm (if
relevant) including barriers to engagement
The quality of interventions to address identified welfare or safeguarding
needs including barriers to engagement
Whether statutory and non-statutory contacts are clearly explained
Whether the young person and their parents or carers have contributed to
and signed the plan
Quality assurance pitfalls
● Quality checking your own reports and assessments and plans
● Quality check by “non-critical friend”
● Lack of key information (for example no Asset with reports)
● “We’re too busy”
● Managers do not “interrogate” systems (for example dip sampling)
● Managers do not provide regular support and supervision
● Quality assurance goes nowhere and feeds nothing
Possible next steps
What do managers need to do?
● Provide unambiguous guidance around YOT recording practice
● Maintain an improvement approach and overview of Asset quality
● Recommend key actions to management team to maintain or improve
performance
● Agree how information and changes are communicated to staff
● Report to management team at agreed intervals on issues that support or
impede progress
● Monitor the impact of agreed changes
● Provide information and data to support communications with partners
and the court
● Ensure line manager/superviser is kept appraised of all activity in this
area including workload implications