06/05/2023

The Contribution of Independent Reviewing Officers to Quality Assuring and Improving Services for Looked after Children and Care Leavers

This Annual IRO report provides quantitative and qualitative evidence relating to the Leeds IRO Services for 2016/17 as required by statutory guidance.

The IRO Annual Report must be presented to the Corporate Parenting Board and the Local Safeguarding Children Board.

1. Introduction

Leeds Independent Reviewing Service Annual Report

Reporting Period 1st April 2016 – 31st March 2017

Report ofINDEPENDENT REVIEWING SERVICE –

Head of Service

Report to LSCB / MALAP / Corporate Carers

Report Originators Siobhan Brady/Louise Tatchell/Anne Baxter

Date of Report 30th June 2017

1.1 This annual report has been produced under the requirements of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The Independent Reviewing Service has a key role in assuring the quality of a Local Authority’s care planning for looked after children and improving the overall quality of services offered.

1.2 This report is prepared for those with executive responsibility for children’s services and corporate parenting, to enable consideration of the services on offer, and to consider whether the local authority is achieving optimum outcomes for our looked after children. This report must be presented to Corporate Parenting Board and the Leeds Safeguarding Children Board.

1.3 This report provides an opportunity to highlight areas of good practice and areas for improvement, to identify emerging themes and trends, to report on work undertaken to date and outline the service development priorities for the coming twelve months.

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2. Profile of the Leeds IRO Service

2.1 The Independent Reviewing service operates within the framework of the IRO Handbook. This is statutory guidance issued to local authorities in 2011. The IRO has a key role in relation to the improvement and quality assurance of the Care Planning for Looked after Children and for challenging any drift and delay.

2.2 IRO’s have a responsibility to ensure that plans are timely, effective and achieve good outcomes for children and young people. They have a responsibility to promote best practice and high professional standards across the Children’s Social Work Service.

2.3 IROs make an important contribution to the consistency of practice from all those who have a corporate responsibility for looked after children and care leavers. They have a duty to prevent drift and delay in care planning and ensure that the local authority’s efforts are focused on meeting the needs of children and achieving the best possible outcomes. IROs monitor the activity of the local authority as a corporate parent, in ensuring that appropriate actions are taken to meet the child’s assessed needs, and that the Local Authority is operating in line with care planning regulations. They have a responsibility to identify patterns of concern that emerge in respect of individual children and collectively, and to make senior leaders aware.

2.4 In addition to their core responsibilities for Looked after Children, during 2016/17, Leeds IROs have continued to chair pathway plan reviews of care leavers up to age 19 ½ years. They also have the responsibility of chairing some Supervision Order reviews.

2.5 The Independent Reviewing Service is sited within the Integrated Safeguarding Unit. The service consists of three area based teams aligned with the cluster structure in Children’s Services. Each team has an area base which is shared with the Child Protection Conference chairs. The IRO service is supported by a small number of administrative staff. In 2016/17 the number of support staff has slightly decreased.

2.6 The IRO service in Leeds consists of:

Dave Basker Head of Service Quality and Practice Improvement Anne Baxter, Service Delivery Manager Two Team Managers – Siobhan Brady & Louise Tatchell 24 FTE IRO’s which involves 30 staff in a range of full and part-time posts

2.7 Since January 2016 the service has operated with two rather than three team managers. This reduction in management capacity has been absorbed by reconfiguring the responsibilities of the remaining two team managers and the service manager, and by redesigning the way the service functions in terms of team meetings, supervision etc. While this has increased the demands on the two team managers, the savings from keeping this position unfilled has meant that the service is able to recruit new IROs when vacancies occur.

2.8 Each team comprises 8 full time equivalent staff. The longest serving member of staff has been with the service since its formation in 1999, the most recent member joined in February 2016. The total number of part time and full time IROs is 30. There are low levels of staff turnover. In 2015/16 one IRO left to work in another local authority while two others left due to personal reasons. As a result of the stable staff team IRO’s have strong and enduring relationships with the children and young people they review. The same IRO will tend to review all the children in a sibling group, which maintains continuity for children and parents alike. Many children have had the same IRO for a number of years. Maintaining this ongoing consistent relationship is seen as very important by children and IROs alike.

2.9 The team is predominantly staffed with female staff - of the 30 staff in post, only one is male. The majority of the staff team are of white British ethnic origin, with one Asian member of staff.

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2.10 All IROs have at least 5 years post-qualifying experience as a social worker and are registered as social workers with the Health Professionals Council. Several of our IRO’s have previously held manager roles in other services.

2.11 IROs and managers can access a diverse range of training appropriate to their development needs, and the specific areas of knowledge required by the needs of the young people on their caseloads. Some of this training is bespoke, arranged by the service to meet the specific requirements of IROs, while other training is more generic accessed by a wide range of social work staff.

2.12 IROs are observed by their managers chairing a review on an annual basis. Their performance is recorded and rated in line with the expectations set out in the IRO handbook. We use this opportunity to seek feedback from all those involved in the review process. Observations are formally recorded and are part of the annual appraisal process. This has proved to be a helpful opportunity to reflect on practice and learning and gives managers and IROs a chance to hear from children, parents and professionals what it is like to be “on the receiving end“ of a looked after review .

2.13 IRO’s have contributed, through their expertise and experience, to improvements in wider practice through delivery of training and briefing sessions to staff in children’s services in the following areas:

Best practice in care planning Child protection Looked after reviews for foster carers Outcome-focussed practice

2.14 The IRO management team are integral to a number of Panels and forums and planning groups, in which the IRO perspective is valued as part of the decision making process alongside that of children’s social work service. These include the main MALAP and each MALAP sub-group, LSCB sub groups, Placements Task and Finish group, CSE and Missing Task and Finish group, and the Independent Visitor approval panel.

2.15 The Leeds IRO service is represented at the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional IRO Practitioners and Regional IRO Managers forums. IRO’s also had opportunity to attend the annual regional IRO conference which was held in Sheffield in November 2016.

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3. Quantitative information about the IRO service

During 2016-2017

A total of 2761 Looked after and Adoption Reviews have been chaired during the year.

95% of all reviews were held on time.

2864 consultations undertaken with children and young people, of which 2404 were face-to-face visits.

Offer to 142 care leavers to have their Pathway Plan reviewed by their established IRO

3.1 The IRO Handbook recommends that a caseload for a full-time IRO is between 50 and 70. Nationally, we are aware that caseloads are variable. In Leeds caseloads have remained on average at 64 . The size of caseload alone does not indicate the workload for each IRO, as this is determined by the number of other responsibilities e.g. The number of out of authority placements, large family groups, and unaccompanied asylum seekers.

3.2 In addition to carrying out reviews of the Pathway Plans of care leavers, and the first review of Supervision Orders, IROs also review some children who are looked after as part of a series of planned short breaks.

3.3 Care planning and reviewing for children originating from other countries brings additional levels of complexity in relation to issues of establishing jurisdiction, use of interpreters and cultural needs, all of which require additional time to ensure effective care planning.

Table 1.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Number of Looked After Children and UASC by month April 2016 to March 2017

3.4 Table 1 shows the overall number of children looked after in the year, excluding those on planned short breaks. Unaccompanied asylum seekers are separately recorded. The steady reduction in looked after numbers has stalled, and the figure of 1253 looked after children at March 2017 is the same as the figure from April 2015.

3.5 The IRO service has noted that since November 2016 there is a significant increase in the numbers of children

newly looked after month on month, with the exception of January 2017. See Table 2 below. Whether this is indicative of any increased risk to children requires further exploration. Our data shows that only 37% of newly looked after children have been on a Child Protection Plan in the preceding year before becoming looked after.

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Further examination is required to understand why, if levels of risk are so great that children need to come into care, this seems to be happening without first utilising formal child protection processes, for 63% of newly looked after children.

Table 2.

0

10

20

30

40

50CLA Starters by month and those previously, or continue to be, subject to a CPP

Care leaver reviews by IROs 2016-17

3.6 IRO’s began to conduct care leaver reviews for young people leaving care from January 2014 onwards. Following an independent evaluation of this approach during 2015-16 the offer to care leavers was made more flexible and led by the young person. Essentially IROs now offer one post-18 review to care leavers, then remaining reviews are offered in a way that is guided by the care leaver’s preferences.

3.7 On occasions when young people are leaving care without having an allocated Personal Advisor or where there are issues around care leaver entitlements, IROs will remain involved until a PA has been allocated to support that young person and ensure that the pathway plan is working well.

Table 3. Care leaver reviews No.

Young people leaving care at age 18+ 125

Young people leaving care at age 16 or 17 17

Total care leavers reviews offered 142

Reducing the numbers of children looked after.

3.8 IROs are responsible for ensuring looked after children achieve permanence and that this occurs without unnecessary drift or delay. During 2016-17, 405 children are recorded as having left care. This figure is higher than the previous year (397 in 2015-16) but much lower than the year before (479 in 2014-15) 142 of these are care leavers, whose time in care comes to an end because they turn 18 or because they cease to be accommodated by the local authority.

3.9 Table 4 below shows that last year, around 18.8% of children who left care did so as a result of adoption ( 77 children). Around 26.9% of children who left care returned to their parents. Work is continuing on ensuring these children do not remain on care orders any longer than is necessary to ensure their reintegration into their family.

46 children, 11% of those leaving care, did so on a Special Guardianship order or residence order (now Child Arrangements order) to either a family member or a foster carer.

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Table 4. Nos. of children leaving care with reasonsApril 2016 to March 2017

Number of children

% of all leaving care

In care on remand – came to an end 12 2.9%Adopted - application unopposed 48 11.7%Adopted- consent dispensed with 29 7.1%Age assessment determined UASC to be aged 18 or over 3 0.7%Care taken over by another LA in the UK 3 0.7%Child moved abroad 10 2.4%Left care to live with parents, relatives, or other person with no parental responsibility 26 6.4%Moved into independent living arrangement and no longer looked after : accommodation providing no formalised advice/support arrangements (e.g. B&B, bedsit, own flat, living with friends) 12 2.9%Moved into independent living arrangement and no longer looked after : supportive accommodation providing formalised advice/support arrangements (e.g. most hostels, YMCAs, and care leaver projects) 25 6.1%Period of being looked after ceased for any other reason ( NB this is usually independent living / reaching 18) 104 25.4%Residence order granted 4 0.1%Return home to live with parents, relatives, or other person with parental responsibility as part of the care planning process 66 16.1%Return home to live with parents, relatives, or other person with parental responsibility which was not part of the care planning process 18 4.4%Special guardianship order made to carers other than former foster carers 10 2.4%Special guardianship order made to former foster carers 32 7.8%Transferred to care of adult social services 3 0.7%Grand Total 405 100%

3.10 This would suggest that care planning for looked after children remains dynamic, there is good throughput , and focussed on achieving permanence through family–based options. However, given the recent increase in numbers of children newly looked after, the level of throughput is evidently not keeping pace with the numbers coming in, resulting in the overall increase we have seen this past year

Timeliness of reviews

3.11 Of children who were still looked after on 31st March 2017, 84% had had all of their reviews carried out within statutory timescales. For children who were looked after at any point during the year, for over 20 working days

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Children entering and leaving care: What are we doing about it?

Undertake an audit exercise of newly looked after children not previously on CP plans to examine how risks had been managed prior to coming into care. Report findings to Head of Service to share with senior leaders / LSCB

Continue to offer up to three care leaver reviews for young people, negotiated between the IRO and young person.

Work with the 13+ service towards ensuring transitions for care leavers are underpinned by timely allocation of PAs, and explore extending the PA role to other agencies and professionals.

Setting service objectives for all IROs to be proactive in seeking family based care for children looked after, with a focus on engaging fathers and extended family as potential care givers.

(including those who have subsequently left care), an average 95% of reviews were held on time, which is a slight decrease from 96% last year.

3.12 Analysis of data recording reasons for late reviews highlights the primary reasons for reviews being late:

Family and carers being unable to attend (16.7% of all late reviews).

Social Worker lack of availability / illness (22% of late reviews.)

IRO lack of availability / illness (10.4% of late reviews.)

Late requests for initial reviews account for 7.1% of late reviews. This is a welcome reduction from 12.2% last year, attributable to better reporting and the IRO team managers being better equipped to proactively contact social workers for children newly looked after.

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Timeliness of Reviews: What are we doing about it?

We have requested a weekly report on CLA with no allocated IRO, which picks up children who have become recently looked after, but where a request for an IRO has not yet been made. We then follow this up with the social workers.

We use the monthly report into “newly looked after children” to understand where late requests are coming from and identifying any patterns. We then share this with relevant social work managers.

Using softer information e.g. from placements service to pick up newly looked after children.

Over summer holidays, often a pressure point, IROs will allocate slots in their diaries to take 20 working day reviews and duty reviews on any case that requires cover. This expectation also applies to staff on term-time only contracts.

Children entering and leaving care: What are we doing about it?

Undertake an audit exercise of newly looked after children not previously on CP plans to examine how risks had been managed prior to coming into care. Report findings to Head of Service to share with senior leaders / LSCB

Continue to offer up to three care leaver reviews for young people, negotiated between the IRO and young person.

Work with the 13+ service towards ensuring transitions for care leavers are underpinned by timely allocation of PAs, and explore extending the PA role to other agencies and professionals.

Setting service objectives for all IROs to be proactive in seeking family based care for children looked after, with a focus on engaging fathers and extended family as potential care givers.

4 Qualitative information about the IRO service

4.1 After every review they chair, IROs complete a Quality Assurance monitoring form. This is then available on the child’s record for social workers and managers to see. This provides feedback on issues such as “was the child well prepared for the review?”, “is the care plan of good quality?”, “is the relationship between chid and social worker a good one?” etc. The data from these is anonymised, aggregated and analysed to produce a picture of what is working well for all looked after children from the IRO perspective.

4.2 The findings from the QA monitoring process are set out below. All data is up to date @ 31 st December 2016. The Quarter 4 data (Jan – March 2017) is not available to us yet, due to the conversion from Frameworki to Mosaic.

Consultation with children and young people

4.3 A key responsibility for IROs is to ensure that the child’s wishes and feelings are known and are influential in formulating the care plan. IROs must also establish whether the child knows their own rights and entitlements, in law, for example that they can make a complaint, or apply to court to under S8 of the Children Act.

4.4 As part of preparation for a review, the social worker should consult with the child before the review to ascertain their views about both the practicalities of the meeting (e.g. who is invited, venue, how the child wants to participate) and about what they would like to be discussed/decided.

4.5 Data gathered by IRO’s throughout this year indicates that in 88.3% of cases the social worker has consulted with the child prior to the review. Where consultation has taken place, in the IRO’s judgement, this has been carried out to a good standard in 96% of cases.

4.6 In addition to consultation by the social worker, the IRO handbook requires IROs meet with children separately and prior to the review meeting, or as part of the process. Not all children and young people want to come to a meeting, but prefer their views to be obtained via another means; a core aspect of the IRO’s role is to consult with the young person before the meeting and ensure that their voice is heard within the care planning and reviewing process.

4.7 In total, during the year, 2864 consultation activities were recorded by IROs. A consultation activity includes a visit or attempted visit or, less commonly, a telephone call, to a child or young person in connection with their looked after review. Of these, face to face consultations took place on 2404 (84%) of occasions. This fell slightly short of our 2016/17 service target of 85%, but given some of the capacity issues through staff turnover and illness, is positive.

4.8 Of the 16% (454) of young people not seen as part of the consultation process, over a third (169 or 37%) chose to be consulted by telephone or e-mail. The vast majority of these are aged 11 or over. This is an increase from last year, and means that, as well as maintaining the number of children who did meet with their IRO face to face, other young people who did not want to meet with their IRO were able to provide their views by another means. Over the coming year, we would like to use technology as a more effective means of communicating with this group of young people e.g. via WhatsApp, Snapchat or FaceTime, this will require all IROs to have a Smartphone or other suitable mobile device.

4.9 As well as consulting with the child/young person prior to the review, IRO’s also encourage and support children and young people to attend their review meeting; the child/young person’s participation is prioritised above that of family members, if it is not possible for both the child and family to meet together.

4.10 During the year children attended just under half (48%) of all reviews, which is the same level as last year. This is thought to be on the low side compared with other local authorities. Some children may have attended the whole of their review meeting or just part. Children who did not attend their review on one occasion may have attended their review on another occasion. Generally speaking, around 20% of looked after children are aged 4 or under.

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They would be unlikely to attend the review meeting, but would be visited by the IRO as part of the review process and observed with their caregivers. Efforts will be made this year to examine ways in which we can improve children’s active participation in their review meetings, for example by holding the review as a series of meetings rather than one big meeting.

4.11 Obviously if over half of all children do not attend their reviews, this will impact on the extent to which children can lead or chair the review themselves. In 2016-17 only 7.4% of children were recorded as leading their own review. A renewed focus on this will happen over the coming year, with IROs being encouraged to offer this to all children they review and to be creative and flexible in how they involve children in leading their own review. This is not always straightforward, given the statutory nature of looked after reviews. It may be possible to learn from other local authorities who have had greater success in this area.

4.12 The intention of these various consultation activities and encouraging children to take part in the review process is that they are able to have their views known and taken proper account of in the care planning process. Data collected from the Quality Assurance monitoring form indicates that the child’s views had evidently made a difference to the care plan to a good or outstanding degree in 96.3% of reviews undertaken.

Table 5. In the IRO's opinion, to what extent did the Child/ Young Persons views make a difference to the plan?

Inadequate Requires Improvement

Good Outstanding

0.1% 3.7% 87.7% 8.6%

4.13 Throughout the consultation and review process, the IRO will seek to establish the extent to which the child/young person understands their current circumstances and the plans for the longer term. Of those aged 4 and above, 85% of looked after children are deemed by their IRO to understand most or all of their plan, a marked increase on last year. The percentages under inadequate and requires improvement have been examined and actions recommended.

Table 6. In the IROs opinion, to what extent does the Child/ Young Person understand their Care Plan (at a level appropriate to their age and level of understanding)Child under 4 19.7 %None 1.1%Some 10.9 %Mostly 20.8%All 47.5 %

4.14 However, of those children who have additional communication needs, around one in twelve (8%) do not have the support to express their wishes and feelings in their review. This is a welcome reduction on 14% from last year, but there is scope to work more collaboratively with the CHAD and Have A Voice Council on improving even further.

Table 7. If the Child/ Young Person has additional communication needs, did they have the necessary support to express their wishes and feelings in the Review?

Not Applicable

No Yes

78.6% 8.0% 13.4%

Table 8. Is the Child / Young Person fully aware of their rights and entitlements e.g. Independent Advocacy, Complaints, Section 8?

Don’t know

No Yes

5.9% 19.3% 74.8%

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4.15 With regard to advocacy while on the face of it only 74.8% of looked after children are aware of their legal and statutory rights, again around 20% of children are below school age and therefore this figure is more encouraging than it might appear. With regard to children with additional communication needs – this will be addressed in partnership with our colleagues in CHAD and Have a Voice council (see below) 4.16 The IRO is now routinely notified of any complaints made by their looked after children so that they can be aware of this issues leading to the complaint and even use the reviewing process as a way of achieving resolution.

4.17 Consultation was undertaken by the service manager for the IRO service with the Have a Voice Council in March 2017 about the YP’s experience of their review meetings -their feedback was shared and discussed at IRO team Meeting in May 2017 and is being used to inform service improvements with regard to children’s involvement in their reviews.

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5. Feedback from practice observations – what review participants say

5.1 All IROs are observed chairing a review as a matter of course at least once per year, and feedback is sought from the review attendees and their views sought about the IRO. In the past year we have targeted observed reviews at reviews where children are present. Some of the comments received about IROs are below. Comments are shared with IROs as part of their professional development.

In answer to the question:

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Is there anything you really liked about the review or thought was done well by the IRO?

Everybody listened and I was able to understand everything that was

mentioned in the meeting (13 year old CLA)

“Everyone listened to me and took into account what I was saying” (child aged 12)

“The IRO kept the discussion well -focussed and managed to contain an issue identifying that it could be discussed outside of the meeting”. (social worker)

I thought (IRO) was proactive. I feel comfortable with her – I like her approach and how she kept the meeting flowing

(Grandmother / kinship carer)

“I liked that the young person took control of her own review “ (School teacher)

Consultation with parents

5.2 Data has been available for three years now regarding the involvement of birth parents and others with parental responsibility in reviews. During the first two years, the level of involvement remained consistent with birth parents or others with parental responsibility being invited to just over two thirds of reviews. In 2014/15 birth mothers attended 42% of reviews whilst birth fathers were only present for one in five (19%) reviews.

5.3 Improving the involvement of parents in the care planning process has been a service priority for the past two years. IRO’s were set targets to increase to 75% the number of parents invited to attend reviews and to increase the number of those parents invited who attend by 10%.

Table 9. Parental invites 2016/17 %

Was the Birth Mother invited to attend the review? No 40.3%Yes 59.7%

Was the Birth Father invited to attend the review? No 65.2%Yes 34.8%

5.4 Our service target of a 75% parental invitation rate has not been achieved this year and we have done some analysis as to why not. The numbers of parents who are either deceased, in custody, whereabouts unknown, or where the child does not want them invited to the review are the main reasons why some parents are not invited.

5.5 Some positive impact following the focus in this area can be seen, in that there has been an increase in the number of parents accepting their invitations to reviews, the number being offered a separate meeting and the number accepting an invitation to meet with the IRO separately to the review meeting. IROs work hard to reach out to parents and obtain their views and this is illustrated below:

5.6 The % of mothers and fathers attending reviews has stayed the same for mothers but has slightly increased for fathers. See table 10 below.

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Involving Children and Young People: What are we doing about it?

Appraisal targets for IROs reflect our continued commitment to setting high expectations in this area – IROs are expected to see 85% of children aged 5 and above.

Preparing a business case for Smartphones for every IRO to enable to them to communicate with older children in ways that young people prefer.

Routine audit of review records, to identify how children’s views are obtained and recorded, along with routine feedback from children attending reviews as part of the observation of IROs practice.

IROs will be expected to highlight those children who choose not to attend their review meeting, establish what would need to change for them to attend.

Further exploration will be undertaken with the CHAD and Have a Voice to ensure that all children with additional communication needs are enabled to make a full contribution to their reviews.

Table 10. Parental attendance 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17

% % %

If invited, did the Birth Mother attend the Review?

No 58% 50% 52%Yes 42% 50% 48%

If invited, did the Birth Father attend the Review?

No 81% 72% 71%Yes 19% 28 % 29%

5.7 Not all parents want to attend a meeting, and some cannot attend due to work or other commitments. Where this is the case IROs will offer to meet separately or telephone parents. IROs will also meet parents who may be reticent about attending meetings, to encourage and support them to attend. Table 11 below illustrates the extent to which IROs are offering separate meetings with parents and the take-up of this offer by parents. This demonstrates an increase from the previous year, for both mothers and fathers, indicating that where IROs do reach out to offer parents a meeting, there is a good chance (around 48 / 49%) that parents will accept.

5.8 Mothers remain more likely to accept than fathers. Further work will be done around engaging fathers during the coming year. Each of the three IRO teams now has an IRO who is the “Fathers Champion” and who have recently attended a research lecture on how best to engage fathers in planning and supporting their children.

Table 11. Separate meetings offered by IROs to parents

Separate discussion offered?

If offered was this accepted?

% acceptance

Yes No Yes %

Mothers 672 536 354 ( 2015/16 = 232)

52.7%

Fathers 436 660 186(2015/16 = 171)

42.7%

Total all parents 1108 1196 540(2015/16 = 403)

48.7%

5.9 Where parents are not invited to attend their children’s reviews, information collected by IRO’s indicates the range of reasons:

Table 12 . If not invited, why not

Mother % Father %Adoption Review 17.7% Adoption Review 9.8%Child's Wish

17.3%Child's Wish

7.9%Deceased 9.4% Deceased 7.4%Inappropriate behaviour

8.4%Inappropriate behaviour

6.1%Other e.g. in custody / living far away / not in contact with child 26.1%

Other e.g. in custody / living far away/ not in contact with child 26.7%

Presents a risk 4.5% Presents a risk 8.7%Whereabouts unknown

16.6%Whereabouts unknown

33.5%

The “Other” category has a high % of the overall reasons for not inviting parents and this includes a wide range of reasons. These cases are addressed with IROs at appraisal and supervision on a regular basis to identify reasons why parents don’t attend, and identify opportunities to overcome any barriers to involvement and include more parents.

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5.10 Although there has been a steady increase in the rate of parental involvement in reviews, there remains room for further improvement, particularly with respect to ensuring appropriate challenge regarding efforts to identify the whereabouts of parents who are no longer in touch with social workers.

5.11 The parental consultation form, completed by birth parents before reviews, has been re-designed to be more inviting for parents and to utilise their knowledge of their children better.

5.12 Ensuring the involvement of parents in planning for their children remains a key priority for the IRO service in the forthcoming year. The service plan highlights this area, and this is included in the individual objectives for each IRO during the next appraisal period.

6. Quality of Care Planning

6.1 A function for an IRO service is to identify issues and trends in services provided to looked after children, and report these to senior managers and elected members. We do this by routinely competing monitoring data after every review, and also by monitoring the issues that are being raised by IROs as quality assurance processes or informal & formal disputes.

6.2 IRO’s must evidence their monitoring of the progress of plans between reviews. They do this by conducting a brief “mid-way check” between reviews, which is an opportunity for touching base – an evidenced dialogue between IRO and social worker to ensure that care planning is on track. IROs also demonstrate their “footprint” on a case by adding their comments, relevant email correspondence etc. to children’s records. By actively monitoring progress in this way it becomes less likely that, when it is time for reviews to take place, that the IRO is faced with any unexpected developments on cases.

6.3 The most up to date IRO monitoring information indicates that:

82% of children have clear permanence plans, which are progressing in a timely way. Where there are no permanence plans, these tend to be in the cluster teams and because assessments are still to be completed or the case is in proceedings.

Personal Education Plans are usually completed, and are deemed to be contributing to good educational outcomes in 93.2 % of cases, a slight increase from last year.

Pathway Plans are in place or the majority of 16 and 17 year olds, and 89 % of these are being progressed to the IROs satisfaction. Around 85.8 % of pathway plans are considered to identify the desired outcomes and required actions and services to support the young person in transition to adulthood/independence. This would suggest some scope for closer working with the 13+ service on developing outcomes focussed approaches to pathway planning. This has already begun as part of a recent project with Unicef, resulting in a revised approach to person centred planning for young people approaching independence.

Prior to every review social workers should see and prepare the child, parents, update the current assessment of need, produce a revised care plan, and discuss this with their supervisor. Social workers

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Parental Involvement: What are we doing about it?

Ensure appropriate challenge regarding efforts to identify the whereabouts of parents who are no longer in touch with social work services. Use our auditing processes to determine whether sufficient efforts are made to locate parents recorded as whereabouts unknown

Utilise the fathers’ champions in each IRO team to share best practice about what works in terms of best engagement with fathers.

should determine who is invited to the review and let the IROs admin know about 4 weeks prior so that invitations and consultations can go out in a timely way. IROs make a judgement about the quality of this preparation:

Table 13. In the judgement of the IRO, how well did the Social Worker plan and prepare for the review?

Inadequate Requires Improvement

Good Outstanding

2.1% 11.1% 78.1% 8.7%

In the judgement of the IRO, what was the overall quality of the Care Plan proposed bythe Social Worker?

Inadequate Requires Improvement

Good Outstanding

2.7% 5.5% 84.4% 7.4%

6.4 Overall, we can see that most social workers plan and prepare in a way that is good or outstanding. In 13.2% of reviews this falls short of “good”. The resulting plans presented to reviews are judged to be goodor outstanding in 91.8% of cases. For the plans that require improvement, the IRO should identify actions required to bring the planning up to “good” in the review records, raise an informal QA, and if necessary, communicate their concerns to the Service Manager. In some cases a dispute might arise if the issues are not resolved.

7. Corporate Parenting

Rights and entitlements

7.1 IROs should establish whether children have been given a copy of the Promise by their social worker. Where this hasn’t happened, the IRO should make a clear recommendation that this is done and then track the progress of this. Some further work is needed on the data, as The Promise is now used with younger children under age 5 and this expectation needs to be reflected in the IRO’s practice.

Table 14. Has the Child/ Young Person received a copy of The Promise from their current social worker?

No Yes Child Under 5

13.5% 63.4% 23.1%

7.2 There is significant discrepancy between the longer term CLA teams and the cluster teams / CHAD with regards to the promise. For example the overall figure of 63.4% “Yes” masks a range of 20-82% depending on the service area. Data will be supplied to Heads of Service to illustrate these differences, in order to improve consistency of practice.

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Quality of Care Planning: What are we doing about it?

Improve the focus on outcome- based care planning within the social workers care plan and the IRO report.

Strengthen links with the social work teams by offering direct input via Breakfast briefings, team meetings, induction for new social workers and team managers.

7.3 Since last year, improvements have been made in the information collected on the factors which contribute to drift and delay in achieving the agreed permanence plan. This includes information about factors outside the local authority’s immediate control such as the contribution of partner agencies.

7.4 In the IRO’s judgement there has been some delay identified with progressing the plan in one fifth of all looked after child reviews during the year. This remains broadly the same as the previous year.

Table 15. Is there any drift and/or delay in achieving permanency for this child or young person, irrespective of the cause?Yes No

20.96%

(2015/16 =20.2%)

79.04%

(2015/16=79.8%)

7.5 Reasons for this are varied but amongst the most frequently identified issues are delays caused by the legal process and issues with the child’s placement. Notably this year has seen an increase in drift and delay being attributed to placement availability, whilst there is a decrease in the impact of staff turnover.

Other factors remain broadly on a par with previous years. See Table 16:

Table 16. If drift and delay identified, what factors are contributing? (more than one issue may apply)

%

Legal Processes 22 %

Placement Issues 15 %Birth family Issues 11.9 %Placement availability 10.5%

(2015/16= 7.6%)Staff Turnover 1.1%

(2015/16= 5.2%)Non engagement of Young Person 3.8%Education Issues 3.8%Non engagement of Parent 3.1%Inadequate Assessment 2.8%Health Issues 2.0%Other 23.8%

7.6 Information provided by IRO’s highlights that three quarters of children had had the same social worker throughout the 6 month period since the last review. Just over one fifth of children had experienced one change of social worker with only a very small number (16 children ) being allocated three or more social workers in the preceding 6 months.

Table 17. How many Social Workers has the Child/ Young Person had in the past 6 months?

1 2 3 4 576% 22.8 % 0.9% 0.3% 0%

7.7 This stability in the child’s allocated social worker is reflected in the extent to which IROs report that 94.5% of looked after children have a good relationship with their social worker. This judgement is not simply based on whether or not the child likes their social worker, but on the extent to which the social worker has been able to build a relationship with the young person that enables them to tackle difficult issues, help the child understand their life history or explain reasons for decisions the child may not agree with.

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7.8 IRO’s also now offer a judgement about the overall quality of corporate parenting for that child in the period since the last review. Information from last year indicates that IRO’s judge this to be of Good or Outstanding quality in the vast majority of cases. Where corporate parenting has been deemed inadequate or requires improvement, the recommended actions to improve the situation are identified by the IRO and shared with the relevant manager.

In the judgement of the IRO, what is the overall quality of corporate parenting of this child or young person?

Inadequate Requires Improvement

Good Outstanding

1% 10% 81% 9%

7.9 IRO managers are represented on each of the Multi-Agency Looked After Partnerships (MALAP) sub-groups, and the Strategic MALAP is attended by the ISU Service Delivery Manager. This has provided a useful forum for IRO managers and staff to strengthen links across agencies and to share the perspectives of the IRO service with regard to multi-agency planning for looked after children. Information obtained from the revised IRO Quality Assurance monitoring will be shared with the MALAP sub-groups

8. Quality Assurance role of the IRO service – Key Messages

Dispute resolution and escalation

8.1 A significant aspect of IRO’s work is focussed on continuing oversight and scrutiny of each child’s care plan in between statutory reviews. For Leeds IROs, this part of the role is about good quality conversations and appropriate challenge (highlighted in more detail below) between the IRO and others (e.g. child/ young person/ social worker/ parent/ carer/ school). This activity is difficult to quantify, but is key in ensuring that plans progress appropriately and in a timely way.

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Corporate Parenting: What are we doing about it?

Work with Virtual School to identify and address the causes of delays in progressing agreed care plans where there are educational issues.

Work with the social work service to strengthen the quality of analysis and a more outcome focussed approach to care plans.

Clarify the expectation with regard to preschool age children and “The Promise” and monitor the extent to which these younger children have had the Promise

The informal process – Quality Assurance

8.2 A joint approach to managing our Quality Assurance process was agreed with the Senior Leadership Team in late 2013. This identified areas of social work practice which were “core” within their role and usually reflected statutory responsibilities. Where IRO’s observed these responsibilities not to be met they would be required to initiate the Quality Assurance process in order to highlight the issue and set clear timescales for the task to be completed. This has provided an evidence-based framework for IRO’s to consistently highlight issues and to set clear timescales for the task to be completed.

8.3 Over the past year, 450 quality assurance issues have been recorded at the informal stage by IRO’s across the city. This is a more than double the previous year. This is reflective of greater challenge by IROs where basic tasks are not being completed to support care planning.

The most frequently identified areas of concern are:

Table 19. Top 10 Issues raised in the Quality Assurance ProcessNos 2016/17( last year)

% of all QAs

PEP - completion/recording/distribution 118 (62) 26.2%No/Inadequate Social Workers report for review/report sent on the day

59 (34) 13.1%

Team Manager not agreeing/ signing care plan submitted to review 54( <6) 11.7%Statutory visits not in evidence 48 (25) 10.7%Delay in progressing plan/permanence (inc placements) 19 (18) 4.2%

Pathway Plan/Transitions Plans Inadequate/require updating 26 (16) 5.8%

No Missing / CSE risk assessment or risk management plan 22 ( <6) 4.9%Life Story work needed / not done 14 (11) 3.1%Contact needs not met or contact issues require resolving 12 (7) 2.7%Authorisation for placement not evidenced ( e.g. placement with parents / kinship assessment

7 ( <6) 1.6%

Health needs assessment not evidenced 7( <6) 1.6%Other reasons 63 20.6%TOTAL 450

Personal Education Plans (PEPs) 8.4 Personal Education Plans remain the predominant issue for IROs to raise a QA. IROs work closely with the Virtual School to ensure that every Looked after child has a PEP, this is up to date and reflective of their current circumstances, and is producing good educational outcomes for the child. We have worked with the Virtual School this year to revise and update our consultation forms for schools to ensure IROs are asking the right questions about progress, support and the use of additional resources available to schools ( e.g. PP+ , Tuition,)

Provision of care plans/reports for reviews8.5 This year there has been an increase in the number of QAs raised because children don’t have an up to date care plan presented to their review or because the management authorisation of these hasn’t been evidenced.

Statutory visits8.6 Statutory Visits have been the subject of the Quality Assurance Process on 48 occasions during the year. This is a double the number from last year. This indicates that the IRO cannot find any evidence in the child’s record that statutory visits have been undertaken. Actions to address these matters have been taken up with relevant managers and workers

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Quality of Pathway Plans8.7 A lot of work has been undertaken in the past year, led by the 13+ service, to produce a better more person centred pathway plan that will be more engaging & meaningful for care leavers, more outcomes focussed and shorter. IROs have contributed to the development of this new plan and over the coming year, we should expect to see better quality pathway plans shaped and influenced by young people’s own priorities and aspirations.

The formal process – Dispute Resolution

8.8 Leeds IROs have good professional relationships with children’s social work teams. Where problems or differences of opinion exist, IROs will always seek to resolve the issue informally with the social worker or the social worker’s manager. This approach supports Leeds’ restorative practice agenda and both our service and Children’s Social Work Service have continued to embrace this approach within our challenge agenda.

8.9 With the Social Work service, we have adopted a solution–focussed, collaborative approach to prevent issues escalating into a formal dispute. In many circumstances we have averted potential formal disputes through a process of negotiation, conversations and meetings.

8.10 There have been formal disputes relating to six children during 2016 / 17. The IRO service has also averted a further nine formal disputes by holding meetings with senior managers before invoking formal dispute procedures.

8.11 Of the six formal disputes – 2 were regarding unacceptable drift and delay in assessment of a mother as part of a reunification plan; one was regarding safe care planning / unsuitable accommodation for a 16 year old boy; one was regarding the Local Authority’s inability to find suitable placements for two brothers on interim care orders placed with parent, one was safe care planning and provision of suitable placement and education for a 14 year old girl.

8.12 Of the nine averted disputes, these arose due to a number of factors including education needs not being met, children placed with parents not being visited, specialist placements not being provided, evidence of deliberate injury to a baby being called into question, safe care planning not being evidenced / risk not being adequately managed, adequate assessments / checks not being conducted on prospective kinship carers. 8.13 Plans are now in place for the IRO service to report directly into the Deputy Director’s leadership team meetings on practice challenges over the coming year.

9.0 Challenges ahead

Based on the data, and issues feedback from IROs, the main issues for LSCB and Corporate Carers to be aware of in the coming year would include:

Rising numbers of newly looked after children

Efficacy of early help / child in need services at managing risk and preventing significant harm.

Children placed with parents rising.

Unaccompanied asylum seeking / Dublin 3 children

Placements pressure, including the need to provide specialist education for children placed externally, where appropriate provision not available in Leeds

Increasing number of informal Quality Assurance Processes instigated regarding basic requirements.

Allocation of PAs to looked after children before leaving care.

Developing the role of IROS in identifying and challenging practice (rather than process) issues more consistently

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Issues for MALAP

Given the increase in numbers of looked after children, it is an emerging finding that a significant number of these children have had previous, often lengthy involvement with early help and services for children in need. Our data suggests that around two thirds of children have not been on a child protection plan before becoming looked after. This would suggest a need to focus on the robustness and effectiveness of the early help and child in need level interventions, and how these are able to reduce risk and address emerging vulnerabilities in families who otherwise could have their children removed.

Availability of placements for children with specialist needs, especially those with educational needs that cannot be met in Leeds schools.

10. Annual work programme for April 2017- March 2018

THEME ONE: INCLUSION & INVOLVEMENT IN REVIEWS

Service Outcome: Parents of looked after children are engaged with the planning and reviewing discussions for their children.

Offer a menu of options to maximise parental inclusion. E.g. offering phone consultation, separate meetings to parents prior to / instead of the review meeting.

Ensure efforts are made at every looked after review to identify whereabouts of fathers and mothers who are no longer in touch with social work services. Evidence this in the review record.

For those parents whose whereabouts are known, encourage them to become engaged in the review process even when they do not attend the meeting. Evidence this is done in the review record.

Service Outcome: Children and young people are consulted with, in a meaningful way, prior to their reviews

Maintain the level of IRO consultations with children prior to reviews at 85% or above. Offer creative engagement with children, including children with additional communication needs, varying

the format of meetings, use of tools and toolkits, increasing the numbers of children who lead their own reviews in some way, and ensuring reviews are child-centred meetings.

Increase the proportion of children attending their reviews from 48% to 55%.

THEME TWO : IMPROVING QUALITY OF CARE PLANNING Service Outcome: Looked after reviews make a difference for children and young people by improving the quality of social work reports and care plans.

Ensure looked after review meetings and the resulting reports and decisions are focussed on desired outcomes for children and young people. Decisions and actions have a direct link to an outcome.

Evidence on the child’s record, (in line with current guidance) actions taken when overall quality of corporate parenting identified as inadequate or requiring improvement.

Where social work reports, care plans and pathway plans are not completed prior to reviews, not signed by a manager, are of poor quality, or are not outcomes-focussed, use the formal and informal QA processes to improve quality and timeliness.

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Service Outcome: Every IRO contributes to practice and performance improvement activities in respect of social work with children and young people.

In addition to reviewing and monitoring of care plans, every IRO to undertake at least one piece of training / development / practice improvement activity per year intended to improve the quality of social work practice around care planning.

THEME THREE: CHILDREN SAFELY REMAIN IN THE CARE, OR RETURN TO THE CARE, OF THEIR BIRTH FAMILIES WHERE POSSIBLE.

Service Outcome: Looked after Children remain in contact with members of their birth family. The possibility of reunification with wider family is regularly explored and promoted where safe to do so.

Reunification – looking at potential of reunification for children in long term care. Consider this as the “first choice” option when agreeing longer term plans and outcomes for children, unless risks are too great.

Working collaboratively with the social work and placements services to reduce the need for children to be placed in external placements far away from Leeds.

Recording why parents have not been invited to reviews and evidencing efforts made to involve them in planning and reviewing for their child. This includes mothers and fathers.

Routinely exploring options for improving contact / family time with extended family when reviewing children, including family on mother’s and father’s side.

Promoting and protecting contact / family time between siblings placed separately. To proactively monitor the care plans of children placed with parents in order to ensure these arrangements

do not continue longer than necessary. Overall aim is to have no child remain placed with parents for more than 18 months.

ENDS

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