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“Local authorities collect children’s services management information mainly for the purpose of sending it to the Department for Education,” says Olly Swann, director at consultants Impower. But the data councils generate through this process can reveal a lot about what children’s needs are, the scale of interventions provided and what outcomes are achieved.
What is often missing for councils, says Swann, is consistent analysis and monitoring of children’s needs and outcomes – a clear indicator of whether the placement is working, and whether interventions are being provided to the right children at the right time.
For children’s services leaders and commissioners, understanding how much is being spent on different types of placement (and why) is crucial in the management of overall budgets. Across children’s services, concerns have been raised about the high cost of some specialist independent sector care placements. This has resulted in cash-strapped councils frequently undertaking audits of their high-cost placements with a view to making savings.
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