Interim Report Children’s Services 29th September 2000 presenter Margaret Asquith

1. Interim Report Children’s Services 29th September 2000 presenter Margaret Asquith

2. Scope of the ReviewScope of the ReviewResidential CareFosteringAdoptionLeaving Care Care Packages

3. Residential Care issuesResidential issuesNeed to benchmark with an authority which performs well on low cost Develop a contracting approach with the private sectorChild care social workers must gain awareness of costs and the need for commissioning Need to consult more residential care staff. There is a perception that not enough Residential Care staff participated or were involved Must address dissatisfaction of young people in some in-house services Tackling the staff culture Choice about where to live, for children and young people must improve

4. Fostering issuesFoster care issuesNeed to find out why foster care in Newcastle costs more than in other authoritiesFind out what differences in quality there are between authorities Need to carry out exit interviews with foster carers who leave Social Services to join our competitorsWe need a better understanding of what ‘packages’ are offered by competitors and may need to increase payments and support to foster carers to halt the drainConsider SSD only providing standard placements and limiting use of external providers Increase number of in-house standard placementsConsider use of specialist staff for marketing and recruitment of foster carersConsider out-sourcing whole or part of the service

5. Adoption issuesLook at financial comparisons like for like, rather than per head of populationNeed fuller understanding of unit costs across authoritiesConsider ‘package’ offered to adopters by other providersWe need to think about ways of getting views from adopted childrenConsider ‘Beacon status’ and sell placements to other authoritiesConsider merger of regional servicesConsider external agency to provide post-adoption servicesNeed to clarify separate roles for children’s social worker and adoption social worker during adoption

6. Leaving Care issuesNeed to compare like with like i.e. an authority which provides a similar service and has a similar number of care leaversConsult with corporate partners, housing, education etc to identify ways of improving service.We need better understanding of unit costs in comparator authoritiesEstablish which agencies could provide and at what costExplore alternative models of delivering this serviceConsider a telephone based support service – look for sponsorship to provide free mobile phones

7. Care Packages issuesNeed to review how social workers buy services and then carry out a qualitative analysis of spendingNeed to test the market for expanding ways of cost-effectively supporting familiesEstablish eligibility criteria for care packages linked to new assessmentsSocial workers must develop costing, coding and commissioning skillsConsider additional post in Planning and Contract Compliance sectionConsider ‘radical’ 20% cut in budget to create 10% saving and 10% re-investment

8. Conclusions • Best Value follows the recent re-organisation of SSD and introduction of Quality Protects • Because of this, much work had already begun in Children’s Services, to look at effectiveness of services • Best Value has confirmed our understanding of problem areas • Involving private providers and child care voluntary groups strengthened both the inquiry and challenge stages of the review • However, the notable success of this review has been the full involvement of young people, in carrying out and responding to consultation.