INTER-AGENCY WORKING
The Children's Safeguards Review
7.1 The Children's Safeguards Review raised concerns about effective working between different agencies with responsibility for the care of children living away from home. Inter-agency working was the key factor in ensuring that the needs of children were met and their welfare protected. The main concerns raised were:
- the education needs of looked after children were not being met fully which resulted in poor educational outcomes for looked after children and underlined the need for LEAs and SSDs to work together to assess and meet their needs. They also needed to work more closely with the NHS to meet the needs of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD)
- the health needs of looked after children were not being fully met and the NHS and SSDs needed to work together to ensure that health needs were fully assessed and met
- the cooperation needed between all the agencies involved with disabled children was not taking place.
7.2 In addition, the Review recommended the establishment of a Ministerial Group on the Children's Safeguards Review and said that all Departments of State with responsibilities towards children should adopt the aim of promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children.
The Government response
7.3 New Government
emphasis on inter-agency
working
|
7.3 Substantial improvements in inter-agency working are definitely needed. In addition to a range of actions on specific areas, set out in individual chapters of this document, much work is being taken forward to improve the way different agencies work together including schools working with other schools, SSDs with other SSDs, LEAs with other LEAs and Trusts and Health Authorities with other Trusts and Health Authorities.
7.4 All relevant agencies at a national and local level need to have shared objectives, and shared plans about how to meet those objectives. All Government Departments with direct responsibility for the welfare of children will have objectives appropriate to those responsibilities included in their Departmental Objectives from 1999-2000. They will have to spell out in their annual reports how far and how well they have achieved those objectives.
The corporate responsibility of local authorities
7.5 Emphasis on the
corporate responsibility of
local authorities for
children in need
|
7.5 The Government intends to create, as part of the "Quality Protects" programme set out in Chapter 2, a new emphasis on the corporate responsibility of every local authority as a whole to work coherently across all departments and with partner agencies, to provide properly assessed and coordinated services for looked after children and other children needing the support of social services. Performance will be assessed against objectives which cover the range of inter agency responsibilities.
7.6 The emphasis on corporate responsibilities will be strengthened by the general programme of modernisation of local government set out in the White Paper Modern Local Government - In Touch with the People and the Local Voices White Paper in Wales which was published in July 1998. In particular, local authorities will for the first time be given clear discretionary powers to enter into effective local partnerships with other local services and bodies for any purpose which supports their functions, including the duty to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of the area. With these powers, local authorities will be able to work with confidence with a wide range of other bodies to tackle difficult cross-cutting issues.
Children's services plans
7.7 Planning for children's services needs to be rationalised, improved and made more effective. The Social Exclusion Unit is currently taking forward work on the whole range of different plans relating to children's services. The Government will take action once they have completed their work.
7.8 Action to be taken to
make children's services
planning more effective
|
7.8 One area of action will be the development of Children's Services Plans (CSPs). These should be the responsibility of local authorities corporately. They must involve the NHS in drawing up and implementing the Plans Legislation may be needed to achieve this. CSPs will, in future, be required to outline how all of the relevant agencies will take action to achieve their objectives.
Other action to promote inter-agency working
7.9 Joint working
between the NHS and
local authorities
|
7.9 The Government is taking a range of action to encourage joint working between the NHS and local authorities, for example:
- the creation of a new statutory duty of partnership for NHS bodies and local authorities to work together for the common good
- Health Improvement Plans and Health Action Zones requiring local agencies to work together
- the publication in September 1998 of a Department of Health discussion document Partnership in Action which considers how to improve joint working, and includes the intention to remove legislative barriers to allow new flexibilities such as the use of:
- pooled budgets to make it easier to pull together a comprehensive integrated package of care
- lead commissioners which will permit one authority (health authority, primary care trust or social services authority) to transfer funds and delegate functions to other authorities so that they can take responsibility for commissioning both health and
- social care
- integrated provision to enable an NHS Trust or Primary Care Trust to provide social care services beyond the level possible under current powers, or a social services in-house provider to provide a limited range of community health services.
7.10 At a national level the NPG for 1999/2000, which was published on 30 September, covers both the NHS and social services authorities in England. Its predecessor, the Planning and Priorities Guidance, dealt only with the NHS. These priorities include targets to provide a range of services to promote the physical and emotional well-being of children, especially those looked after.
7.11 Co-operation on
youth offending
|
7.11 In the field of youth justice, the Crime and Disorder Act places a duty on local authorities with social services and education responsibilities, the probation service, police and health authorities to co-operate to establish one or more youth offending teams and provide youth justice services for their area. The teams will be able to work with young offenders in the community, but they will also work with those identified as being most at risk of offending - which may include young people leaving local authority care. The Act also allows local authorities and the other relevant local agencies to establish a pooled budget for the provision of youth justice services and youth offending teams.
Children with Disabilities
7.12 Inter-agency working is essential for good services for disabled children. The Review was concerned that there needed to be active co-operation between education, social services and health to ensure that disabled children were protected from abuse. The action outlined above will help with improved co-operation generally. The recently published children's services objectives include a requirement:
- "to ensure that children with specific social needs arising out of disability or a health condition are living in families or other appropriate settings in the community where their assessed needs are adequately met and reviewed"
This should ensure that agencies work together to provide disabled children with good quality care and support. In addition, we will ensure that the revision of Working Together covers the particular problems of protection for disabled children.
Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties
7.13 Better, co-ordinated
services for children with
emotional and behavioural
difficulties
|
7.13 The Review criticised the lack of thoroughness and effectiveness of joint working for children with EBD between education authorities and social services departments and recommended the creation of a pooled budget for this group. They also called for closer working with the NHS on assessment and the delivery of services. There are a number of initiatives which will promote joint working to the benefit of EBD children and their families. These include:
- local authority corporate responsibility will mean LEAs and SSDs have to work more closely together
- the creation of a new statutory duty of partnership for NHS bodies and local authorities to work together for the common good
- enabling budgets to be pooled between the social services and the NHS
- piloting of joint reviews involving SSI, OFSTED and the Audit Commission
- improving CSPs and rationalising other plans to improve joint-working.
7.14 There is no legal or practical reason why education and social services departments cannot co-operate and jointly fund initiatives. The key remains for local authorities to identify corporately the groups of children whose needs should be jointly addressed, agree objectives and the work needing to be done, who should take this forward and how this should be resourced. This, plus outcome monitoring mechanisms and plans for improved working with the NHS, should then be published in CSPs.
7.15 The Children's Safeguards Review also recommended that all EBD children should be automatically assessed as children in need. The Government does not accept this. It believes that the current system in place is most appropriate, providing procedures are properly carried out. This is why guidance will be issued in 1999 on assessment and planning as part of the "Quality Protects" programme.
Child Protection
7.16 New child protection
guidance
|
7.16 Effective child protection systems for children living away from home require inter-agency co-operation. The Children's Safeguards Review calls for specialist teams of police and social services to carry out complex investigations of abuse in residential settings and for more effective avenues of complaint. In principle the Government supports the concept of specialist teams. This has been the subject of consultation on the revision of the Working Together guidance. The outcome is currently being considered. The Government has made its view clear that common child protection systems should apply, whether children are living at home in the community, are looked after by a local authority, or are boarders at a residential school. The Government intends to issue revised guidance in Spring 1999.
Implementation, Monitoring and Enforcement
7.17 The key action being taken is:
- new emphasis on the corporate responsibilities of local authorities in relation to looked after children and children in need through the "Quality Protects" programme
- as soon as feasible following the Social Exclusion Unit's work on inter-agency planning, establish a better co-ordinated system of planning in relation to children's services, with all key agencies having a responsibility for being involved in and delivering against the Children's Services Plan
- on-going work to give greater emphasis to joint working between the NHS and local authorities, including the creation of a new statutory duty of partnership and follow up work to the discussion document Partnership in Action
- NPG for 1999/2000 covers both health and social care, with children's services as a priority
- revised child protection guidance to be published in Spring 1999.
|
|
7.18 Monitoring will be undertaken by a range of teams. SSI and OFSTED in England and SSIW and OHMCI in Wales will be undertaking some joint inspections. This is currently being piloted in Northumberland. Regional Offices of the NHS Executive will continue to monitor the NHS and to encourage inter-agency initiatives at a local level. Joint reviews by the SSI and Audit Commission and pilot joint reviews involving SSI, OFSTED and the Audit Commission will also consider the issues.
7.19 In addition, the Department of Health is developing new performance frameworks for the NHS and social services and is considering how central bodies including SSI, the Audit Commission and the new Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) might jointly inspect services at the interface.
Outcomes
7.20 The Government expects these policies to contribute to:
- fewer children damaged through misjudgment or failures of communication between agencies when they need protection
- improved assessments which lead to effective intervention so that children no longer drift on and off the child protection register without a real improvement in their situation. This should reduce by 10%, by 2002, the proportion of children who are re-registered on the child protection register
- fewer children under-achieving as a result of exclusion from health, social care and education benefits
- reduced and more effective planning, delivering the services needed to a high quality
- increased numbers of disabled children and children with EBD receiving the services they need in a seamless way.
|
|
|
