Behind the Inspection Rating: Data sharing sharpens service

Kirby Children's Centre Group, Knowsley, Merseyside, Children's
centre inspection, February 2014

Kirby Children's Centre Group is "relentless" when it comes to information sharing.

So says Ofsted, and the proof of the Knowsley group's determination to find out more about its users is its dogged efforts to gain access to live birth data from the NHS.

The process took years, says Gerry Allen, who as manager of the Merseyside borough's Huyton and Halewood children's centre groups works closely with the Kirby centres.

"Around August, September last year, we finally made the breakthrough in accessing live birth data," he says.

"We always understood the difference access could make to how we roll out services to families because, instead of door knocking campaigns to find out where very young children might reside, we could target our support.

"Getting the agreement was the result of several years' hard work and, understandably, our health service colleagues were cautious about sharing data like that. But the results of that agreement have been borne out in the recent inspection."

That inspection has seen the Kirby group, which runs four centres in the area, land an "outstanding" rating from Ofsted, and its effort to overcome information sharing barriers were singled out for praise.

Allen says the financial pressure on public services is part of the reason the agreement between Knowsley Council and the NHS finally came together. "The reduced resources, in some ways, gives us an extra imperative to work more closely than before," he says. "It is in all our interests to work as collaboratively as we can because broadly we're all trying to achieve the same outcomes.

"The world has changed and we almost have a responsibility to be as collaborative as we can with each other."

Ofsted's report also highlighted the Kirby group's "forensic analysis" of how well it is doing in engaging and helping its target groups, and its willingness to change activities and their venues based on the insights these detailed reports reveal.

What Kirby is good at, says Allen, is drilling down deep into the needs of its target groups. So instead of just looking at lone parents, it will go a step further, delving down into the needs of eastern European lone parents and other groups.

"For Kirby, it was also the performance management processes that the group manager Alistair Scott has made part of the performance management cycle," he adds.

"That cycle is also supported and scrutinised by Knowsley Council, which encourages us group managers to be forensic and puts on helpful pressure with questions about what our priorities are."

Ofsted also found "irrefutable evidence" that Kirby has been reducing inequalities for children with disabilities and special educational needs.

Its links with the council's child development team are important in achieving this, says the inspectorate.

"What we have with the child development team is a single entry point for children with disabilities," says Allen. "If a child with a disability comes through, a representative of each of the children's centre teams is at the meeting. That means they can persuade the referrer to try and persuade the family to become known to the children's centre.

"It's a beautifully simple thing," he says.

Fact File

• Knowsley, Merseyside
• Description: Kirby Children's Centre Group operates four children's centres in Kirby: The Pride Children's Centre; Eden Children's Centre; Northwood Children's Centre; and The Star Children's Centre, plus two satellite sites. The vast majority of children in the area are of a white British background and the area is among the top 30 per cent most deprived areas in the country. Around 4,000 under-11s in the area are in households dependent on workless benefits.
• Number of children: 2,926 children under five served by the centres
• Ofsted inspection reference number: 80507

Helpful Hints

• Advisory boards are not burdens. Kirby Children's Centre Group has a positive relationship with its advisory board says children's centre groups manager Gerry Allen. "Don't see it as a burden, try to see it as something virtuous," he says. "Kirby's centres are backed by a very strong advisory board that provides really positive support, and is not afraid of saying it like it is."
• Be thoughtful. Ofsted praised the way the group's centres made thoughtful gestures such as picking up children from the homes of teenage parents so the parents could walk to school with their friends and buying tickets so that parents could take their children to visit Santa. "Parents did not have enough words to express their gratitude to the group for giving them and their children such a magical Santa experience without the stigma of looking different," said Ofsted.
• Sweat those assets. "You have got to live in the real world - things have to pay for themselves," says Allen. "So the centres in Kirby are well used by partner agencies, which means they are truly community hubs.