HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
CHILDREN’S SERVICES AND CORPORATE PARENTING CABINET PANEL
WEDNESDAY, 9 MARCH 2011 AT 10.00 A.M.
Quarterly Performance Monitor (Safeguarding and Specialist Services)
Report of the Director of Children, Schools and Families
Author: Wendy Evans, Performance & Improvement Manager
Tel: 01992 556720
Executive Member: Jane Pitman (Executive Member for Children’s Services)
1. Purpose of report
1.1 To present the Panel with quarterly performance data and updates on key projects pertaining to Safeguarding and Specialist Services.
2. Recommendation
2.1 The Children’s Services and Corporate Parenting Panel is asked to note progress made on key indicators and comment on any areas of concern and/or interest.
2.2 It is recommended that Panel receive the Performance Monitor on a six-monthly basis.
3. Performance Indicators
3.1 An analysis of the key quarterly performance indicators is attached at Appendix A. Our top ten key performance indicators are marked with a *
3.2 Performance is generally satisfactory in this period. A number of indicators have dipped over the winter period, which is consistent with previous years.
3.3 Of the 10 key indicators, only 2 are not showing an improvement in performance from last years figures:
Ø % CLA adopted rolling year
Ø %CLA with 3 or more placements
Management action is in place to address this and performance is improving in both areas and is being closely monitored.
4. Projects and performance clinics
4.1 There are currently three projects being monitored on a monthly basis by the CSF Board along with one performance clinic. A performance clinic focuses on a key problem area and an action plan is developed to address the issue. The projects and their RAG rating are identified below.
Project / RatingAiming High for Disabled Children / On course
Children’s Services Transformation / On course
CLA Commissioning / On course
Performance Clinics
CLU Review / On course
4.2 Aiming High for Disabled Children
4.2.1 The objective of this project is to jointly deliver with health a transformed short breaks service in Hertfordshire by April 2011. This will increase the quality, quantity and range of provision of short breaks for children with Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities (LDD), specifically for children and young people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and/or challenging behaviour and children with complex health needs. A separate report on the progress of this programme is being reported to this panel.
4.3 Children’s Services Transformation
4.3.1 The purpose of this project is to reframe Children’s Services in Hertfordshire in light of the new national policy priorities of the Coalition Government and the experience of a decade of operation as a single Children, Schools and Families Department. The aim is to continue to improve outcomes for all children and young people in Hertfordshire, particularly the most vulnerable, and to do so at a lower overall cost. In future, to improve outcomes at lower cost, the policy priorities and associated resources should be directed at:
Ø Improving educational achievement for all
Ø improving early intervention and prevention through children’s centres and schools, so that barriers to learning are reduced and parenting capacity is improved
Ø supporting and intervening with families facing complex challenges, including action to reduce the impact of family poverty and
Ø ensuring that children at risk of significant harm and neglect are kept safe.
4.3.2 The programme is on track.
Ø 3 projects have been completed and achieved their objectives
Ø 3 other projects will now merge into a single project
Ø 3 new projects have been added to the programme:
- Theme 14 - Transforming customer services
- Theme 15 - Parental contribution policy for children’s services
- Theme 16 - Engagement with health
Ø £4.86 million in savings have been realised to date
4.4 CLA (Children Looked After) Commissioning
4.4.1 This project has a wide range of objectives including:
Ø To improve the fostering ‘Invest to Save’ programme to increase the range of foster placement options, particularly for teenagers and children with more complex needs;
Ø undertake a review of current residential placements and commissioning arrangements to ensure that provision is cost effective;
Ø increase the availability of long-term provision for CLA through adoption;
Ø Identify and co-ordinate all initiatives for commissioning a range of semi-independent accommodation for 16+ and care leavers;
Ø negotiate with independent providers to achieve a reduction in costs;
Ø extend the role of the Central Placement Service to become an Access to Resources Team supporting HARP and
Ø increase current provision of emergency and crisis accommodation.
4.4.2 Progress includes:
Ø Work to reduce the cost of independent sector placements by 2% with 40% of providers is continuing. Initial responses from the independent foster care market, residential homes and residential schools markets suggests that the majority of providers that have responded so far will accept 0% standstill position for 2011/12. Whilst this is positive in maintaining costs at current levels it does indicate achieving the target is going to be challenging.
Ø The new capacity for emergency/short term placements at the Adolescent Resource Centre (ARC) in Welwyn Garden City is now operational.
Ø Building work has concluded at the 4 mainstream homes to increase capacity in each home from 6 to 7 beds, however, a visit is still awaited from Ofsted regarding change of registration.
Ø The development of a new Brokerage Team has been delayed until July to bring the consultation on this service in line with the wider review of Specialist and Safeguarding Services. The additional time will be used to undertake a Lean Review of the existing arrangements.
4.5 CLU (Childcare Litigation Unit) Review
4.5.1 The Childcare Litigation Unit (CLU) provides legal support to CSF in relation to care proceedings and adoption. There is currently a projected budget overspend of £1.4m for the 2010/11 financial year. Whilst this is a demand led service, there is an urgent need to identify immediate action to reduce this as well as establish processes to enable forecasting and controlled management of the budget in the future. As such, the performance clinic had three primary objectives:
Ø Establish an appropriate budget that is effectively monitored and controlled
Ø provide streamlined childcare litigation processes that are efficient and followed by staff and
Ø ensure that HCC appropriately procures external legal advice and support for court proceedings.
4.5.2 Progress includes:
Ø All the significant providers of legal counsel have signed up to a single fee structure which is now operational. However, as a second less advantageous fee structure was developed to gain the sign up of the top four counsel providers (over 50% of our external business), savings are unlikely to be as significant as first hoped.
Ø The recommended list of experts has now been updated to ensure we use experts of appropriate quality.
Ø Development of the service specification will be undertaken in March
Ø A CLU performance monitor has been agreed and will be used to report performance to CSF Board .
5. Conclusions
5.1 Performance has been satisfactory in this period. It is important to note that a number of indicators have been affected by seasonal conditions. Many service leads attributed adverse weather conditions, high referral rates and staff absence to a decline in performance. This dip in performance is consistent with previous years.
5.2 It is also important to note that despite the satisfactory performance in this reporting period Hertfordshire is still performing better than comparator local authorities.
5.3 Reporting of performance to Children’s Services and Corporate Parenting Panel will continue on a half yearly basis based on the 6 priorities that have been identified for Safeguarding and Specialist Services for the next year:
1. Improve the quality and maintain the timeliness of assessments with a focus on:
Ø chronologies
Ø risk assessment
Ø decision making
Ø child and family contribution
Ø equality and diversity issues
2. Ensure the quality of care planning is good and children are only looked after when necessary, ensuring that care plans reflect any religious, cultural, ethnicity and/or disability needs.
3. Children in care are in the right placements
4. Greater management oversight, particularly in the areas of:
Ø Decision making
Ø performance and
Ø staff development
5. Better recognise, understand and meet the needs of the communities we serve by ensuring:
Ø Robust recording of E&D information across all services
Ø any action to respond to this put in place
6. Improve outcomes for children and young people at transition:
Ø Needs more appropriately met for our 16+ CLA population
Ø Embed a comprehensive and robust transition process for our disabled children and young people
Ø Health and emotional wellbeing needs met
Ø Improve timeliness of young people coming in and out of care
6. Financial implications
6.1 There are no financial implications directly associated with this report.
7. Appendices
7.1 Appendix A – summary of indicators
7.2 Appendix B – indicator graphs
Appendix A – Summary of indicators
Children and Families
Children and Families: Jenny ColesIndicator / Period / Targ. / Mar ‘10 / Prev. 3 pds / Actual / RAG / Dir. / Comments
*NI 59: % Initial assessments approved in Time / Jan ‘11
(M) / 82 / 75.2 / Dec: 81.7 / 79.6 / OC / ò / Despite a ‘slippage’ rating and a reduced performance this month, as the previous three periods show, this indicator has performed consistently well. Performance fell slightly this month because of a reported lack of capacity in the relevant teams due to seasonal holidays, two staff members leaving and an unanticipated level of sickness.
Nov: 86.5
Oct: 84.9
*NI 60: % Core Assessments Approved in Time / Jan ‘11
(M) / 82 / 72.4 / Dec: 75.8 / 65.5 / S / ò / Performance has dropped significantly this month. This is due to a higher number of complex, time-intensive child protection referrals absorbing a large amount of staff time. This has in turn led to written reports being less timely this month. Actions to address this are in place and are being monitored closely; performance is expected to improve next month.
Nov: 76.9
Oct: 58.1
*Number of children subject to CPP / Jan ‘11
(M) / N/A / 674 / Dec: 542 / 536 / OC / ñ / The number is falling in line with management action being taken, this continues to be monitored closely
Nov: 553
Oct: 577
% of Children on CPP not allocated to a qualified social worker / Q3 10/11
(Q) / 0 / 0 / Q2 10/11: 0 / 1.1 / OC / ò / Performance has been very strong in previous months. In January, four children were allocated to managers as arrangements were being made to move the children out of county. One unborn baby was also allocated to a manager as the baby is not due to be born for several weeks. This technical issue explains the slight dip in performance for this month. Ongoing discussions are taking place with the Performance Information Unit to resolve this.
Q1 010: 0.1
Q4 09/10: 0.03
*NI67 % reviews of child protection cases on time / Jan ‘11
(M) / 100 / 100 / Dec: 100 / 99.3 / OC / ó / This represents good performance
Nov: 100
Oct: 99.8
*Number of CLA – under 16 / Jan ‘11
(M) / 1000 / 812 / Dec: 808 / 789 / S / ñ / The numbers of CLA have stabilised and reduced again after the rise last month. In January 15 young people left care and 21 became looked after including three 17 year olds and a sibling group of 4.
Nov: 787
Oct: 803
*Number of CLA – over 16 / Jan ‘11
(M) / 344 / Dec: 339 / 336 / S / ñ
Nov: 338
Oct: 331
% CLA with up to date PEPs / Jan ‘11
(M) / 92 / 86.98 / Dec: 86.43 / 85.23 / S / ò / Despite not quite reaching the target in the last three months, this indicator has performed consistently well. This month’s drop in performance can be attributed to the construction of the new Virtual School database: Data is still being transferred to this system from the old Corporate Parenting database. As such, recently completed data is not present in recent figures.
Nov: 90.49
Oct: 90.31
% of CLA allocated to a named qualified social worker / Q3 10/11
(Q) / 100 / 98.3 / Q2 10/11: 97.5 / 99.2 / OC / ñ / This indicator is extremely close to meeting its target and performance is consistently good. At the end of January there was only four cases not allocated to a qualified social worker: Three cases were allocated to Professional Assistants and one case was allocated to a social work student.
Q1 10/11: 99.4
Q4 09/10: 98.3
*%CLA placed in foster placements (between 10 and 16 years of age) / Jan ‘11
(M) / 84.5 / 73.3 / Dec:87.3 / 88 / OC / ñ / This continues to improve in line with the fostering strategy and is currently at its highest figure since first reported
Nov: 85.7
Oct: 86
*% placed in residential placements / Jan ‘11
(M) / 12 / 14.7 / Dec: 12.8 / 12.2 / OC / ó / Care continuum work continues to look at move on plans from high cost residential provision. We continue to see reduction in the use of IP residential children’s homes
Nov: 13.1
Oct: 13.2
*%CLA adopted (last rolling year) / Jan ‘11
(M) / 8 / 5.6 / Dec: 5.2 / 6.0 / S / ñ / The end of year figure is likely to be down on last year, this is due to several factors including a number of contested adoption hearings and the complex nature of the placements which is delaying final hearings
Nov: 5.8
Oct:4.7
*NI62 %CLA with 3 or more placements / Jan ‘11
(M) / 11 / 11.2 / Dec:12.6 / 12.5 / OC / ó / This figure has continued to improve month on month and is monitored closely
Nov: 13.5
Oct: 13.8
*NI63 Long term stability of CLA / Jan ‘11
(M) / 72 / 71.9 / Dec: 74 / 72.6 / OC / ñ / Performance against this indicator is good. We are above our target and our comparator average
Nov: 73.2
Oct: 73.9
Percentage of CLA with health and dental checks / Q3 10/11
(Q) / 100 / 79.23
(Q4 09/10) / Q2 10/11: 82.5 / 81.9 / S / ó / Though some way off the target of 100%, this indicator is of less concern because performance has been steadily good over the previous few months. This will be monitored closely in the final quarter of the year
Q1 10/11: 82.7
Q4 09/10: 81.6
Percentage of Care Leavers with pathway plans / Q3 10/11
(Q) / 100 / 94.5
(Q4 09/10) / Q2 10/11: 96.8 / 96.1 / S / ó / Despite just missing the target of 100% and a slightly reduced performance compared to last month, this indicator is an area of less concern because performance has been very strong for the last few months.
Q1 10/11: 96
Q4 09/10: 95.1
Percentage of Care Leavers who are NEET aged 16-19 / Q3 10/11
(Q) / 23 / 23.4
(Q4 09/10) / Q2 10/11: 19.8 / 22.4 / OC / ò / The issue of care leavers being 4-5 times more likely of being NEET is still an important area, despite this indicator meeting its target. Performance has declined this month because the level of care leavers has risen in the past year from 303 to 396.
Q1 10/11: 21.4
Q4 09/10: 21.4
Youth offending of CLA / Q3 10/11
(Q) / 2.1 / 1.7
(Q4 09/10) / Q2 10/11: 2.3 / 2.2 / S / ñ / Though performance has improved very slightly this month, this indicator represents an area of concern because the figures have been very similar for the past few months with the target not quite being hit. The service lead has suggested that one reason for not hitting the target is due to the impact of some young people being brought back into the county.
Q1 10/11: 2.2
Q4 09/10: 2.2
Performance & business support