Good practices identified by Ofsted's tough single inspection framework

Figures released by Ofsted show that of the 59 local authority children's social care services assessed under the single inspection framework between November 2013 and 30 June 2015, only 14 (less than one on four) were graded "good". None were judged to be "outstanding".

Commenting on the statistics at the time of publication, Ofsted's chief operating officer Matthew Coffey said those 14 authorities had shown they are putting children's outcomes at the heart of decision-making and practice. So exactly how did they do this, and what can other local authorities learn from their experience?

We examine the stories of three children's services departments that impressed the inspectors.

LEEDS COUNCIL - THE 'CHILD-FRIENDLY CITY' STRATEGY

Judged "Good" in single inspection framework March 2015

Leeds' director of children's services, Nigel Richardson says the authority's journey in recent years has been about "a relentless and unshakeable focus on outcomes". He took up the post following an inadequate rating in 2010. His arrival coincided with the appointment of a new chief executive and the election of a new leader of the council.

"I was working with the deputy leader and the priority was to get the whole of children's services sorted, given the fact we were in government intervention and had an improvement notice in place," Richardson says. "Leeds had a clear ambition at that time to be the best city in the UK, so we started to articulate what we wanted to achieve for children around Leeds being recognised as one of the world's first child-friendly cities."

While immediate action to address the issues behind the inadequate rating was undertaken, work began to pull together a partnership of the local authority, health services, education and police to decide what each agency had to do.

"It was about binding together our collective will, which allowed us to start talking about putting children at the heart of the growth strategy of the city," Richardson adds. "It wasn't about getting out of intervention, or just making sure we were OK, it was about a genuine ambition and the role of children in the sustainable future of the city."

A set of five outcomes was developed: that children are safe from harm; they enjoy healthy lifestyles; they do well in learning; have fun growing up; and they feel they have a genuine voice. Meanwhile, data was analysed to come up with 12 things that needed to be done.

Three of these were chosen to "obsess" over in an attempt to get "significant traction": reducing the need for children to be looked after; improving school attendance; and destinations of children after leaving education.

To deliver improvements, the local authority area was divided into 25 clusters. In each of these, the most vulnerable children were identified based on available data.

The authority also invested £1m in family group conferencing - a process led by family members to plan and make decisions for a child who is at risk.

Since April 2011, the number of looked-after children has fallen from 1,419 to 1,240, secondary school absence has reduced by 2.5 per cent, and the number of young people not in education, employment or training has dropped from 2,176 to 1,670.

TRAFFORD COUNCIL - STRONG PARTNERSHIPS ARE THE BEDROCK

Judged "Good" in single inspection framework May 2015

According to Ofsted, Trafford Council has successfully maintained standards over the past five years. A safeguarding inspection rated the children's services department as "good" in May 2010. The local authority repeated that feat at its most recent inspection, published in May this year.

Cathy Rooney, acting joint director of children's social care, points to the authority's long-standing partnerships with other agencies as the bedrock of the service's success.

The multi-agency referral and assessment team acts as the "front door" for Trafford's children and young people's service. This team is comprised of staff from children's social care, police, education, health and an early help co-ordinator. It accepts referrals for children and young people who are deemed in need of support and undertakes child protection enquiries where appropriate. Cases can be referred to integrated area teams offering family support.

"In the area teams health visitors are sitting next to social workers and educational welfare officers who work on the same patch and are often managing the same families together," Rooney says. "You can break down an awful lot of barriers between organisations and improve communication and joint working together with those families.

"We laid that foundation 10 years ago, but it took several years to build up due to governance issues. Pulling together a multi-agency view of how to support families in a holistic way is so important. It is one of the key cornerstones of what makes Trafford 'good'."

Rooney points to strong governance and quality assurance as a reason for Trafford's performance. "We deliberately build in mechanisms to make sure we know our services well, through quality assurance and back-to-the-floor exercises.

"There's a very strong management group at every level. Our operational managers know the workloads of their social workers and know where the pressure points are. They know the quality of intervention and recording, and that knowledge works its way up the system."

Rooney says the requirement to save money in recent years means that the early intervention offer has had to be targeted at those most in need.

"We have had to reshape our delivery of early intervention where we target the most vulnerable and engage much more with the voluntary and community sectors," she says.

ESSEX COUNCIL - MOVING MONEY TO EARLY HELP

Judged "Good" in single inspection framework February 2014

Services in Essex have improved considerably since the authority was judged 'inadequate' in 2010. Shortly after that inspection report, the local authority recruited Dave Hill as director of children's services from Croydon Council and tasked him with turning things around.

"When I arrived here things were really bad," he says. "There were just under 2,000 unallocated child protection cases.

"There had been a huge amount of serious case reviews, some of which highlighted really poor practice. Partner agencies had lost all faith in each other and everybody was blaming each other. It was really rough."

Hill says the department set about creating a plan, not simply to execute a quick-fix to be judged adequate, but with the ambition to become outstanding in the longer term.

A decision was taken to invest heavily in early intervention where possible.

"If you are in trouble, all the focus goes on doing more child protection, and having more children in care, because that's the safe option," Hill says. "If there was any risk at all you would err on the side of caution, and that was driving the budget, which was in big trouble. We had to fundamentally change the mix of intervention."

The shift in focus paid dividends.

In the past five years, the number of children in care has fallen from 1,615 to under 1,000, a drop of nearly 40 per cent.

"I did a little deal with the lead member for finance, who is now the council leader, and asked for 33 pence in the pound of any savings I made to be invested in prevention," Hill says. "The council has pretty much stuck to that deal. Getting the finances straight was really important.

"If you constantly spend life trying to fight back waves on the money, it is very difficult to get down to the practice, which is what you need to sort out."

Alongside this, there was a concerted effort to reduce social worker caseloads.

Due to reductions in numbers of children in care and cases being reallocated to share the load, average caseloads have dropped from above 30 per social worker in 2010 to 12 per social worker now.

"People can't remember 30 names," Hill says. "If you can't remember the names of the children you are responsible for, what chance have you got working with them?"

Meanwhile, all managers were sent on a year-long systemic supervision course. In addition, efforts were made to tackle the issue of social workers spending two-thirds of their time in front of computers on process and administration and only one-third on face-to-face casework by modifying computer software to remove superfluous requirements.

"By the time the single inspection framework came around in February 2014 we had been through quite a significant continuous journey," Hill says. "You have got to get yourself into a virtuous circle, with the right cases dealt with through prevention and early intervention.

"We feel we have the right calibration in terms of cases that do and don't end up being statutory and we believe that will serve us well."

SINGLE INSPECTION FRAMEWORK

• The single inspection framework examines services for children in need of help and protection; looked-after children and care leavers; and local Safeguarding Children Boards
• Of the 59 local authority children's social care services assessed between November 2013 and June 2015, 14 were graded "good", 31 "requires improvement" and 14 "inadequate". None have been awarded an "outstanding" rating.
• In March, the ADCS, LGA and council chief executive group Solace, joined forces to call for the framework to be "stood down" because it is "no longer fit for purpose". The organisations said it fails to assess the involvement of other agencies and places too great a burden on children's services departments.
• Ofsted plans to complete the three-year inspection cycle of all 152 English local authorities by November 2016.