From April 2010 Multi-Agency Allocation Groups (MAAGs) have been formed in Essex to allocate resources for vulnerable children and young people where two or more services are needed in addition to the referring service.
This leaflet is for professionals and aims to outline what MAAGs are, and how to access support from MAAG.
MAAG in Essex is linked to the integrated working initiatives which were introduced as part of Every Child Matters (2004). MAAG is accessed via a
Common Assessment Framework (CAF). Following MAAG support is coordinated by a Lead Professional.
MAAG is a meeting of the managers of professionals from different services, who support children and young people from a particular geographical area.
There is a separate MAAG in each district council area of Essex, and most meet every week.
MAAG considers cases and allocates resources to meet the needs outlined on the CAF. MAAG will also consider who
Want to find out more information on integrated working?
Within Essex look at the integrated working website for all relevant documents and also training dates is best to be the Lead Professional and records this. A record of the MAAG decision is sent to those who have been allocated work and the original copy of www.ecclms.co.uk/goecclms.asp the CAF is sent to the Lead Professional.
The Lead Professional is asked to convene a Team Around the Child meeting with the family, young person and the professionals who will be offering support.
Lead Professionals are asked to send copies of the delivery and review plans to the MAAG office to make sure that services agreed are provided for children and young people, and to monitor the effectiveness of MAAG.

Who attends MAAG?
Representatives from organisations supporting children and young people attend MAAG. These representatives are managers, or senior staff at a level that enables them to allocate resources from their agency.
Those who attend any MAAG will be a blend of core and outer core members, and differ slightly across areas. Core members are expected to attend all meeting and are agencies such as Locality Children and Adolescent Mental
Health service (CAMHS), Assessment and Family Support (social care) and health visitor and school nurse teams. Outer core members attend MAAG for particular cases where they have knowledge and expertise. Outer Core members are invited by the MAAG manager and only attend when invited.
Outer core members may be organisations such as Children with Disabilities
Teams, local private and voluntary groups, or housing. Figure 1 below show likely core and outer core members of MAAG.
Likely Core Group Members
Housing
Likely Outer Core Group
Members
Pre School
Services
Specialist
Teacher
Team
Education
Welfare
Child &
Adolescent
Mental Health
Tier 2
Integrated
Youth
Services
Family
Centres
Education
Children with
Disabilities
Team
Children
Support
Services inc. behaviour
Child &
Leisure
Services
Adolescent
Mental Health
Tier 3
Youth
Offending
Service
Child, Young
Person and
Family
Extended services
0-19
School
Nurse and
Health
Visitor
Managers
Educational
Psychology
Assessment and Family
Support
Children’s
Centres
Police
Drug &
Alcohol
Services
Community
Paediatricians
Voluntary
Services
Schools

Who is eligible for support from MAAG:
MAAGs allocate services to children and young people aged 0-19 (or 25 where there is a learning difficulty or disability) and their families where there are additional needs. MAAGs consider any cases that require a multi-agency intervention. This means a response from two or more agencies, in addition to the agency completing the assessment. Children and young people can have needs up to and including level 3 as described in the guidance
“Thresholds of Need and Criteria for Intervention” available from www.ecclms.co.uk/goecclms.asp
.
MAAGs also consider transition packages of support to enable children and young people with level 4 needs, for example those who have been or are
Looked After or are in hospital and those with complex needs, to be supported in their local community.
Consent:
Consent should be regularly reviewed – for MAAG does not accept cases where consent is longer than three months old.
For children, consent should be given from someone with parental responsibility. This means that usually grand parents, foster carers and step parents cannot give consent.
Assessors are expected to tell families who attends MAAG and that information will be sought and shared with these agencies. This agreement should be recorded on the CAF. If a family does not want information shared with particular agencies this can also be put on the CAF and the agencies will not be involved in the MAAG process.
MAAGs do not consider cases where the assessed needs can be met by a single agency referral.
Current data from MAAG shows that the most prevalent reason for request for assistance to be turned down is where only one agency is needed. If you are not sure whether you need a single agency or multiagency response, please feel free to call your local MAAG office.
Step 1 Sending a case to MAAG:
Any agency or organisation can send a case to
MAAG having assessed the needs by using the
CAF. The CAF should be logged with CAFPoint (full information on CAFPoint is available on www.ecclms.co.uk/goecclms.asp
. Assessors must ensure they follow appropriate information sharing guidance to obtain consent from families for their needs to be discussed and responded to at the
MAAG.
It is recommended that CAFs are posted to the MAAG office using recorded delivery or the secure internal ECC mail. Recorded delivery is secure for confidential information and traceable in cases where CAFs are not received.
E-mail is currently not adequately secure between partner organisations, and
MAAG offices are not able to accept faxes.
Social care assessments:
Step 2 Screening:
Once received all cases are screened by the
Initial and Core Assessments from social services are accepted by MAAG. They must be accompanied by the signed
MAAG Manager. This involves carefully reading through the CAF, accessing information on consent section of the CAF, and agreed relevant other sections of the CAF. cases from ECC databases, and checking with

partners to see if they are providing a service.
At this stage CAFs may be returned if there are difficulties. This could be if consent is not present or not up to date. Single agency requests are also returned to the original assessor.
If the MAAG Manager feels the choice of agency is obvious a discussion should take place with the assessor and an agreement reached about approaching the relevant agency.
Step 3 The MAAG meeting:
For appropriate cases the MAAG Manager schedules a
What happens if there are needs that cannot be met by MAAG:
If there is unmet need in a case MAAG managers are making notes of this, and feeding into commissioners to inform future commissioning decisions.
If there is an urgent unmet need, the MAAG manager may be able to spot purchase a service. discussion at a MAAG meeting. At this time the MAAG
Manager will ensure that the CAF is/has been appropriately logged on CAFPoint.
In most districts, the MAAG Manager convenes and chairs a weekly meeting. The MAAG Manager will ensure the agenda and background information is sent to attendees ahead of the meeting, and that each case has a timed slot on the agenda.
Time allowed is usually 10 to 20 minutes. The MAAG
Manager will invite relevant outer core members to the meeting.
The meeting commences with the reading of the confidentiality statement, to which members are asked to subscribe. The
MAAG is guided by the MAAG Manager as to which agencies are best placed to provide the child/family with a service, but ultimately it will be agreed by the
MAAG members. The MAAG agrees which agency should appoint the Lead
Professional. Agencies assigned to provide all services for the child, young person or family provide the name of the worker at the meeting or as soon as possible following the meeting.
Decisions of the meeting are recorded on a decision sheet.
Step 4: After the MAAG
After the MAAG meeting, the decision sheet is sent to the assessor who submitted the case, and those named as providing a service. The Lead
Professional is sent the decision sheet, the original CAF and a pack of information to help them with the role of Lead Professional.
The Lead Professional sets up a Team Around the Child (TAC) meeting with the family/child/young person and the professionals named on the decision sheet. The purposes of the TAC meetings are to discuss the services offered with the family and child/young person, agree lead professional arrangements and complete a more detailed delivery plan. At the TAC meeting, the Lead
Professional can also talk to the family/young person about sharing the CAF with professionals involved in offering services. If the family/young person agrees the CAF can be shared with other professionals. To make sure that momentum is sustained with work with children and young people, we expect

Team Around the Child Meetings – handy hints:

Talk to the family about who you are inviting. Are they happy with this? Nothing worse than walking into a room and not knowing who to expect.

The first meeting can take some time to set up, so why not set dates for one or two subsequent meetings at the first one?

If it is not possible to get everyone at the meeting, think about who is most important to involve.
 There is a “decision and review record” on the CAF that you can use to record the TAC meeting.
Why not get this completed by hand?

If you are chairing, why not ask another professional to take the notes? that TAC meeting should happen as soon as possible after the MAAG meeting.
In most cases there is an expectation that reviews should happen following a TAC. The review and delivery plan can be used to record such reviews.
There is a checklist at the end of this document to help professionals with the review process.
Lead Professionals are asked to send copies of reviews to the MAAG office. These are submitted so that the impact of MAAG can be tracked, and ensure that any difficulties with the services, allocated at
MAAG, delivering are addressed.
For any multi-agency approaches to be effective in meeting the needs of children and young people, coordination is necessary. For this reason, the Lead
Professional role is intrinsic to the MAAG process. This section will address some of the most common questions about Lead Professional role and
MAAG.
The Lead Professional role relating to MAAG involves the following steps:
1. Facilitate a meeting (Team Around the Child or TAC) with the family, young person and the professionals named on the decision record from
MAAG
2. Arrange future dates and time of meetings
3. Agree with the parents / young person which services recommended by
MAAG they are happy to work with
4. Pass on the CAF to relevant agencies with agreement (see step 3)
5. Ensure that actions from TACs are recorded (we recommend using the
Delivery Plan and Review sent out following a MAAG)
6. Pass records of meetings ( Delivery Plan and Review) to the MAAG office
Who can be a Lead Professional?
Any professional working with a child or
Want to find out more information on being a young person can be the Lead
Lead Professional?
Professional. Young people and families should be involved in deciding who their Within Essex look at the integrated working
Lead Professional is, and this should be website for all relevant documents and also training discussed at the first TAC meeting. When dates www.ecclms.co.uk/goecclms.asp a professional writes a CAF, they are designated the Lead Professional. The
Lead Professional role can and does change over time. Within any local area, the Lead Professional role should be shared among the local agencies.

In many instances the referring agency is asked to be the Lead Professional for cases which come to MAAG. This is because many families / young people have developed enough trust with that professional to complete the
CAF. In many cases, it makes sense for the professional who wrote the CAF to be the Lead Professional, as to ask someone that the family / young person does not know risks alienating them and undermining the support on offer.
West Essex (Harlow, Epping Forest and Uttlesford)
MAAG Manager
West Essex Locality Commissioning Hub
Goodman House
Station Approach
Harlow
CM20 2ET
01279 404681
Mid Essex (Chelmsford, Maldon and Braintree)
MAAG Manager
Mid Essex Locality Commissioning Hub
The Meadgate Centre
Mascalls Way
CM2 7NS
01245 245932
North East Essex (Colchester and Tendring)
MAAG Manager
North East Essex Locality Commissioning Hub
Willowbrook Primary School
Barnardiston Road
Colchester
CO4 0DT
01206 797421
South Essex (Basildon, Brentwood, Rochford and Castle Point)
MAAG Manager
South Essex Locality Commissioning Hub
The Demountable
The Knares
Basildon
Essex
SS16 5RX
01268 548651
Essex County Council takes the lead in Multi Agency Allocation Groups (MAAGs) working with the partners from Local Children’s Commissioning and Delivery
Boards . Partners include private and voluntary organisations, children’s centres,
National Health Services, district councils, the police, education and social services. We do not have space to list all the partners for more details contact your local MAAG office by contacting Children and Young People Services 0845 603
7627.

Is the CAF signed by the assessor and some one with parental responsibility, or a young person who is
“Gillick competent”?
Is the CAF up-to-date – this means written or updated within the last three months?
Does the CAF need a multi agency response? If only one agency is required please send to that single agency.
Has the CAF been registered with CAF Point?
Send the CAF to your local MAAG office recorded delivery, or by hand. Do not fax, e-mail or send in the normal post.


We recommend using the Delivery Plan and Review paperwork. This is sent out to all lead professionals and available from the Every Child
Matters website. Do you have a copy?
Is the next review date written on the plan?
Is the name of the child and date of birth entered on the plan?
Are the presenting issues from original MAAG clearly referred to on the delivery plan and review?
If the Lead Professional has changed, is this recorded on the plan and with CAF Point?
Send Reviews in by post or by hand – recorded delivery is not required