Agenda item

The Panel will consider the Children’s Services Annual Quality Assurance report. The report is for information and provides an overview of audit and learning processes for the last 12 months for consideration and discussion.

Contact:        Vicky Metheringham, Service Director

Robert Fordyce, Head of Quality Assurance and Practice Development

The Panel considered the Children’s Services Annual Quality Assurance report which was presented by Robert Fordyce, Principal Social Worker for Kirklees and Head of Service - Quality Assurance and Practice Development. The report was for information purposes and provided an overview of audit and learning processes for the last 12 months for consideration and discussion.

Rob Fordyce advised the Panel that Quality Assurance in Children’s Social Care was conducted through a number of strands. These took the form of:

• Learning Conversations - between managers and practitioners and involved looking at a single child’s file to understand the quality of the work within that file. Managers who did not have line management responsibility for the practitioner were matched with them to ensure an independent eye on the quality of work. The results of the conversation were then recorded on a standard form which would then be analysed monthly by Rob Fordyce on a qualitative and quantitative basis to establish areas of strength and areas for improvement.
• Practice Learning Days - a Team or Area would meet to conduct a deep dive into one area of practice, for example, the quality of work addressing domestic abuse. This involved an element of peer auditing and a learning element to promote improvement.
• Deep Dive Audits - issues or themes arising from Learning Conversations would be discussed and considered by Senior Management and a plan for improvement put in place, eg: Life Story Work as mentioned in the report.

Rob Fordyce, highlighted the following key points from the report  -

• Engagement – Quality engagement had improved from 50% being good in December 2024 to 88%, as a result of training and team development sessions for practitioners. Improvements had been made to evidence good practice in children’s files.
• Quality Assurance Board – As it had been noted that some Teams were doing better than others in certain areas, a Quality Assurance Board of Service Managers met once a month to share good practice across Services.
• Management Oversight and Supervision – This was a longstanding area of development, highlighted in the previous Ofsted report. At the start of the timeframe 38% of children’s files showed evidence of supervision taking place and this had risen to 65%. A survey for managers and practitioners to discover areas for learning had led to a training course being developed and delivered to managers throughout 2024. The training would continue into 2025 so improvements should continue to be seen.
• Partnership working – This had dipped, from 81% of children’s files showing good partnership working in December 2024 to 61% in August. This was a concern to the service, and it could be due to auditors having a more nuanced understanding of what good partnership working looked like due to the Learning Conversations that had taken place. Rob Fordyce advised the Panel that this was an area that would be looked at by the Service.
• Assessments and Planning – 80% of assessments reviewed were addressing the risks in August, which was good, however the Youth Engagement Service failed to be consistently good and the Children Looked After and Care Leavers Services could be better. To address this, the language used to describe the concerns around children would be a focus over the next 12 months, and this work would cumulate at the Annual Social Care Conference in March 2025 to coincide with World Social Work Day.
• Quotes from Families – these had been gathered during the process of the Learning Conversations and used throughout the report. Feedback from parents about the service they had received from their social worker had largely been positive, at least 80%.

The Chair added that she looked forward to attending some of the forthcoming Practice Learning Days, along with other Panel Members.

Vicky Metheringham, Service Director for Child Protection and Family Support, advised that a plethora of auditing activities were planned over the next 12 months, and that it was very difficult to achieve the volume of Learning Conversations, due to the conflicting demands on Manager time, however there remained a commitment to ensuring they were completed.  The Panel recognised the time pressures on Teams to complete the Learning Conversations but agreed that they were a very useful tool. 

Questions and comments were invited from Panel Members, with the following issues being covered:

·         How were Managers and staff being paired up and was this to promote best practice? Rob Fordyce advised that Managers and practitioners were matched randomly to complete the Learning Conversations, ensuring that there was no line management responsibility involved in the process. The process was cross-service to ensure the dissemination of good practice.

·         Would Partnership working involve grass root organisations? Robert Fordyce advised that this should involve all professionals involved with a family should be consulted and included. Schools and health colleagues were often at meetings, however there may be other professionals such as probation workers or community organisations who could or should be included and this was an area for development. 

·         What would the approach be to young people and how would they be engaged and included in the conversation? Robert Fordyce advised that a key strand of the working group around the use of language was consultation with young people, by using the Children and Care Council, the Care Leaver’s Forum and the Our Voice Team. The Panel was informed that there was currently a scoping exercise underway, to identify the jargon in assessments and any templates used. This language would then be shared with young people and their parents to gain their understanding. There was also a move towards removing acronyms wherever possible. Training would include the voice of young people about their responses to reading their own files.

RESOLVED:

(1) That the report be noted and Officers be thanked for their contributions.

(2) That Members of the Panel would attend some of the forthcoming Practice Learning Days with Teams across the Children’s Service and report back with updates to future Panel Meetings.