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Background

The auditing of practice is an integral part of quality assurance systems for all agencies who deliver services to children.  The auditing of practice facilitates a degree of management oversight in addition to contributing to greater understanding regarding the quality and effectiveness of service provision on the ground.

The auditing process ensures compliance with several Climbie recommendations.  In particular, for Social Care

"Directors of Social Services must ensure that Senior Managers inspect, at least once every three months, a random selection of case files and supervision notes" (Recommendation 30).

Regional Work

It is a priority for all agencies to focus on the quality of individual casework practice and implement appropriate levels of independent challenge and support. 

Recently, regional auditing work has been undertaken via the Pan Merseyside Peer Review Group on 66 safeguarding cases.  This group was made up of multi-agency representatives from 5 Merseyside LSCB's (police, health and children's social care).  The group audited each other's practice following the findings of the Laming inquiry earlier this year. 

The findings from this exercise were disseminated at an event in June 2009 at The Suites Hotel, Kirkby and an action plan for all participating agencies was drawn up.  For Children's Social Care this plan included actions in relation to background checks with other agencies, feedback forms, up-to-date chronologies, recording sources of information clearly, multi-agency assessment, evidence of impact on child and case de-brief. 

In Knowsley it is proposed that the multi-agency auditing function of this exercise should continue locally on an annual basis.  Work has, therefore, commenced within the Quality Assurance Unit to develop a multi-agency audit tool that will assist with a multi-agency audit with partners in Health and Police scheduled for January 2010.  The Service Manager, Quality Assurance Unit will be the CSC representative on this group.

Children's Social Care

The auditing of practice within Children's Social Care needs to link in to this regional work.  The highlighted issues will be the same in many respects.

The auditing task also needs to be a continuous, robust piece of work that is regularly undertaken, reported upon and disseminated to frontline staff, managers and Knowsley Safeguarding Children Board. 

The purpose of any audit is to highlight practice issues - good and bad - so that the outcomes for children can be clearly evidenced and deficits addressed. Accurate and appropriate case recording is an important part of the accountability of staff in Children's Social Care Services to those who use the services.  It helps to focus the work of staff and it supports effective partnerships with service users and carers.  It ensures there is a documented account of a department's involvement with individual service users, families and carers.  It assists continuity when workers are unavailable or change and provides an essential tool for managers to monitor work.  It becomes a major source of evidence for investigations, enquiries and inspection.

Currently, the file audit process within Children's Social Care requires the following managers to complete a set number of audits per month and submit these to Quality Assurance Unit for scrutiny and a subsequent report to DMM and Policy and Performance Sub Group of KSCB:

Position	No. of Records
1st line Managers	4 case records/ files
Service Managers	2 case records / files
Independent Reviewing Officers	2 case records / files
Children's Services Manager	1 case record / file
Service Director	1 case record / file

The policy that supported this framework has been in place since Nov 2007.

Whilst reports have been completed by Quality Assurance Unit on those audits received, the number and regularity of file audit submissions is sporadic.  It is proposed that the process needs to be refined and developed in order to ensure that the number of file audits increases and management scrutiny/oversight is more robust. 

It is also hoped that a different approach may help make the auditing task less onerous and more productive.

The proposed model is designed to complement other team audits that managers should employ - for example, in relation to supervision files and  auditing before case closure/transfer.

The Proposal

It is proposed that 3 specific Auditing Groups are established which meet together for one full day every 6 weeks.  Group membership could alternate each session so that the task is shared equitably, although core membership should include the following:

• Service Manager
• Independent Reviewing Officer
• Team Manager x2
• Family Centre Manager
• Senior Practitioner/Social Worker x2

The groups should be co-ordinated on a thematic basis - for example, one group to focus on looked after children, another to focus on frontline duty, another on safeguarding/child protection.   As the groups develop, other specific themed areas could be included to quality assure areas of activity i.e. children with disabilities.

The Children's Services Manager and Service Director should also link into one of the auditing groups as appropriate.

Health and Education partners to be co-opted onto the groups at a future date.

This proposal will be implemented during November 2009 with 3 auditing groups scheduled to take place before the end of the month. 

It may prove valuable to have a cross section of Practitioners, Operational Managers and Senior Managers.  The process provides an opportunity for colleagues to discuss issues with each other, to have some "reflective" discussion about practice and focus on the evidence regarding outcomes. Experience has shown that it is sometimes more productive and less time-consuming to share the auditing task in this respect. It also serves to build positive working relationships and encourage all levels of the Service to take ownership for quality assurance.

A date, venue and selection of cases for the group would be co-ordinated by the Service Manager, Quality Assurance. This would provide the opportunity to focus on key 'themes' where necessary - i.e. frontline duty cases/CLA/CP/CWD/CIN cases, depending on what the divisional priorities are.  Scrutiny of fostering file when undertaking audit of CLA would need to be completed.  Key learning from a Serious Case Review may also indicate it would be useful to have a more in depth audit of a specific area of concern - i.e. domestic violence. It also provides an opportunity to monitor and review how a new procedural guidance has been embedded and if it is having a positive impact.

The full range of teams needs to be audited throughout the course of the year- and the full complement of cases needs to be considered.  A rota of membership would need to be devised. 

The existing file audit template should continue to be used, although revisions to this may occur from time to time.  The grading of files and the link to ECM outcomes will continue - as it is important to highlight within each file audit whether the practice links to improved outcomes for children and young people in receipt of services.  Evidence of CAF input on all cases should be highlighted as work continues across all agencies to embed this more successfully into practice.

The current target for audited files is 120 per year.  If each member of the group spent one day auditing every quarter - and completed 5 audits each - a total number of at least 40 cases per quarter (120 per annum) could potentially be audited.  This is based on a group of 8 people participating once per quarter in the task. 

Obviously, if the numbers of the group reduce this will affect the total number of files audited.  Similarly, some files are easier to audit than others - depending on the length of involvement, location of documents on ICS and electronic case file etc - and this may effect the total number audited.

Once a file audit is completed by the Auditing Group, the template will be returned to the practitioner, Team Manager and Service Manager for the identified tasks to be completed within 10 days.

The Team Manager will need to sign off a 'tasks completed' section of the file audit template and return to QAU.  It will be the responsibility of the relevant Service Manager  to ensure that these tasks have been completed and to re-audit on a sample basis if necessary.

The Quality Assurance Unit will continue to take responsibility for the production of reports following the audit every 6 weeks.  These reports will highlight issues in relation to practice and process. Quarterly reporting would be to Service Director, DMT and DMM.  KSCB (Performance and Scrutiny Working Group).  Joint Leadership Team would receive a composite annual report.

The information/learning from audits will be disseminated to frontline practitioners in a separate briefing session on a 6 monthly basis.  This could be via team meetings or within a one-off session that highlighted the key themes/issues in relation to practice identified within the audit.

End