Quality Assurance & Performance Management Framework

1. Introduction

Within Central Bedfordshire, our aim is to put children and families first in everything we do, work closely with our communities and partners and be great corporate parents to children in care and care experienced adults. We want all children to lead happy, safe and healthy lives and achieve their potential.

Our quality assurance processes help us to achieve these goals by systematically monitoring and evaluating our practice and developing a learning culture. In doing so, we aim to improve services, to achieve better outcomes for children and their families and develop a better understanding of their needs, by listening to the voices of those who we support.

Our quality assurance process helps us to learn about what we are doing well, evaluates the impact of support provided to families and enables us to take accountability for our practice. In doing so, we improve outcomes for children, young people and their families. A fundamental part of this process is our consultations with children, families and carers, who help us to identify whether the support provided works for them and whether they feel our support has made a difference.

Our focus is on analysing the impact of interventions and understanding whether they have resulted in positive, timely services for children, leading to an overall improvement in their circumstances. We aim to provide a consistently good service to our children and families and support the continuous improvement and development of practice.

We also value highly the thoughts and reflections of our frontline staff, who are involved in our quality assurance process. Through collaboration and consultation with key workers, we are able to further develop our culture of learning, building confidence and holding ourselves accountable for our practice. The quality assurance process helps us to identify the learning and development needs of our workforce.

The purpose of the Quality Assurance & Practice Management Framework is to:

• Improve outcomes for children, young people and their families;
• Set practice standards against which the quality of services and their impact be measured;
• Ensure that the services provided are of a consistent high standard and sustainable through regular evaluation;
• Is both reflective and proactive through the measure of quality and impact of service delivery;
• Support the continuous improvement and development of practice;
• Influence the development of policies and procedures to support staff in delivering good practice.

The framework, whilst focussing on the internal processes and practice standards within Children Services Operations, is linked to the performance management across Children's Services and the Performance Framework of the Central Bedfordshire Safeguarding Children Board (CBSCB). More information on the role of the CBSCB can be found online at www.safeguardingbedfordshire.org.uk

It is informed by national legislation, regulations and local policies and procedures.

2. What is Quality Assurance?

Quality Assurance aims to provide the workforce and service leaders with confidence that we are delivering good quality services. It will support and improve the delivery of services for the children and families of Central Bedfordshire.

It is underpinned and informed by the following principles: We will:

• Put children, young people and families first in everything we do;
• Work closely with our communities and partners;
• Be great corporate parents to children in care and care experienced adults;
• Be accountable and take responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of our work.

Our framework is informed by analysis of effective approaches and best practice in relation to quality assurance and performance management.

In summary, the effectiveness of the Quality Assurance & Practice Management Framework requires:

• A focus on outcomes and the impact for children;
• A 'can do' culture, which is open to challenge and motivated to change;
• Managers and practitioners who are skilled, supported and enabled, who can provide and accept professional challenge.

3. Knowing Whether we are Making a Difference

The Quality Assurance Framework should help us to answer the following interlinked questions in relation to quality and delivery:

What is the quality of the service or practice being offered?

The effective development, implementation and monitoring of quality standards and good practice needs to take place within an organisational context which promotes and supports continuous development and promotes itself as a learning organisation. It depends upon ownership at all levels.

Are the right families being worked with? Is the involvement of children's Social Work proportionate?

The role of managers and practitioners is to ensure that the service provided to children, young people and their families are of a consistently high quality which positively impacts on good outcomes for children and their families. To ensure that work with families is proportionate, internal and external auditing and review processes are in place, for example, the SCB, audits, independent overview and scrutiny by IROs and CP chairs. Social workers are involved in the monthly auditing process, to contribute to their ongoing learning, through the evaluation of practice.

How helpful do parents and children find the support and intervention being offered?

We collect feedback from children and families about the support and interventions being offered, which is captured in the 'Voice and Lived Experience of Children and Families' section of this framework.

What do we need to do to improve our services?

Managers within the Professional Standards Service, which includes the Conference and Review and the Audit functions, contribute to the improvement cycle by embedding the Quality Assurance Framework in their day to day work and supporting the operational service to drive up standards through offering professional leadership, challenge correction and practice improvement. The service has a clear coordination and analysis function aimed at providing an overview of the impact and effectiveness of practice. They use a pro-active approach to developing good quality practice, to ensure that standards are achieved, improved and sustained. Audit and improvement work is informed by themes and issues identified throughout the wider service, and the Senior Management Team support in planning quality improvement actions.  

All managers have specific responsibilities for monitoring and driving forward best practice in line with service priorities, inspection and improvement plans, audit outcomes, and responding to feedback arising from individual case monitoring. In doing so, they support good outcomes for children and young people in Central Bedfordshire. Managers also have a responsibility to support practitioners through reflective supervision and appraisal.

4. Assuring and Improving Quality

4.1 Ensuring that our Quality Assurance Activity has a Positive Impact Going Forward: the Learning Cycle

4.2 How do we Implement the Learning and Improvement Cycle in Practice?

Set Standards

• Accessible procedures from Central Bedfordshire Council and the Children's Safeguarding Board;
• National legislation, guidance and research informs practice;
• Observing recommendations from case reviews.

Deliver training, policy, guidance, reports

• A comprehensive training framework supports practice learning;
• Learning and development manager meets regularly with senior managers;
• Professional capabilities framework is implemented and used to monitor social work practice;
• Annual appraisal process informs individual training needs;
• Briefings produced from Safeguarding Children's Board (SCB) learning;
• Regular workshops, webinars and case studies are shared within manager's meetings, team meetings, by consultant social workers and in collaboration with the SCB;
• Group supervision and reflective practice discussions within individual service areas;
• Easy to read 'top tips', shared with practitioners on key areas of learning;
• Weekly performance related reports sent out across the service.

Monitor, audit and gather information

• Completing case reviews;
• Robust monthly two-level audit cycle which includes managers across Children's Services;
• Multi-agency themed audits which include key partners;
• Dip-sample audits completed by audit manager, consultant social workers, practice managers and the conference and review service;
• Gathering feedback from families and young people via the audit process, CiCC, advocacy service, compliments and complaints;
• Themes arising from complaints across children's services are shared with CSMT.

Analyse and Evaluate

• Reviewing family and practitioner feedback and sharing this with the service on a quarterly basis;
• Performance Senior Management Team (PSMT) meeting takes place monthly to share learning from audit, performance information and presentation of best practice case studies;
• Quality Assurance (QA) meetings evaluate QA monitoring forms, children we are concerned about, audit actions and audit themes;
• Feedback from social workers and training requests obtained through audits are reviewed by the audit manager and consultant social workers monthly;
• Audit Champions meet regularly to discuss feedback on the audit process and to share learning from quarterly reporting.

Identify improvements

• Improvement plans are developed based upon the findings from the aforementioned activities;
• Key themes of improvement action are shared with teams via QA meetings and PSMT;
• Working groups focus on key improvement themes and formulate action plans, identify further learning needs and review progress;
• Targeted support for individual teams or workers, who are identified as needing additional support to enable accelerated improvement;
• Post-audit reflective discussions for all audits which are graded 'inadequate'.

4.3 Using Performance Information

Children Services is subject to a wide range of both national and local standards. Overall performance is measured against externally reportable performance indicators (PIs) that identify areas of strength and areas for attention and improvement.

As detailed above, PSMT meet monthly. The purpose of this group is to ensure that all managers within Children Services are aware of current and changing patterns and trends identified through performance data and audit and what this means for children, their families, service activity and service development. Audit reports identify recommendations for different areas of the service, which are shared at this group, and monitored through quarterly reporting.

PSMT enables managers to be aware of the inter-relationship between activity and performance in different service areas, thereby identifying the impact and inter-dependencies between teams in terms of performance and practice. An action plan is developed at the end of each PSMT, based upon the learning of the group in each session.

This group also provides an opportunity for the whole service to identify priority areas for improvement and be responsible for ensuring these actions are followed through as part of a continual monitoring and review process.  

The findings from audits are shared and measures are agreed to achieve good and improved practice.

The 'Voice of the Social Worker' is captured through the annual Organisational Health Check, supervision records, audits and exit interviews.

HR information is shared with senior managers regularly, which details the number of permanent and agency staff. The performance team also provide key information on allocations and changeover of workers for young people.

Political oversight and challenge of performance is achieved through regular Member briefings, including Corporate Parenting Panel and the Council's Children's Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee is provided with regular reports and updates against key themes and local priorities.

4.4 Professional, Provider and Partner Challenge

In order to enhance ownership of the quality of inter-agency practice with children and their families, there are several groups which form part of the CBSCB that provide challenge to Children's Services and its partners. Scrutiny activities include reviewing and implementing learning from case reviews, conducting and implementing the learning from multi-agency audits, sharing the findings from single-agency auditing and scrutinising performance data.

Performance information and reports are also scrutinised and challenged by the CBSCB for partner scrutiny.

All commissioned services are commissioned and tendered using established processes and there are contracts in place to ensure contracts are delivered as specified. The expectation is that all commissioned services for children in Central Bedfordshire are of a high standard and the Quality Assurance Manager has responsibility for overseeing this. The Quality Assurance team also involves representatives from the Children in Care Council to provide a young person's view when conducting visits to residential placements.

4.5 Professional Standards & Conference and Review Service (CRS) Activity

Child Protection conference chairs and Independent Reviewing Officers play a key role in planning (for children at risk of harm and those looked after) and assuring the impact and quality of practice undertaken by Children Services. Their role is to ensure that the quality of the work on a single and multi-agency basis is of a high standard, that performance indicators and procedural requirements are met, and that plans for children and young people are outcomes based and meet the specific needs of the child/young person. Every request for a conference is reviewed by the Practice Manager for CRS to ensure thresholds are consistently applied across the wider service.

IROs and conference chairs complete a monitoring form in respect of each conference/looked after child review. The monitoring form collates quantitative and qualitative information about the conference/review process, preparation of parent/s / children and the quality of practice. This information is collated on a monthly basis and reported to senior and operational managers at a monthly quality assurance liaison meeting.

Quality assurance liaison meetings are held with each individual area of the service on a bi/monthly basis, chaired by independent reviewing officers (IROs) and attended by operational managers and the audit manager. Key themes regarding learning and development are highlighted from the monitoring forms and audits, and subsequent actions taken, which may include practice workshops. The minutes of the quality assurance meetings will be sent to relevant heads of service.

A quality assurance report on child protection conferencing and LAC review activity is presented to the Senior Management Team (SMT) and to the CSMT on a quarterly basis.

A Foster Care Review Officer and IROs conduct annual and additional reviews of Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) foster carers, as required in accordance with statutory requirements. IROs routinely provide the Review Officer a copy of the bespoke Fostering Monitoring form, which includes their views on the quality of care provided by the CBC foster carer for the child and young person reviewed.  Quality Assurance meetings also take place regularly with the two Fostering Team Managers, Fostering Review Officer, the supervising IRO and Panel Advisor. 

Conference chairs have a peer audit and observation programme in place to share good practice and opportunities for reflection.

The Practice Manager of the CRS prepares an annual report on the review of looked after children for presentation to the relevant Senior Management Team (SMT and CSMT). This report is presented to the Central Bedfordshire Corporate Parenting Panel for advice and comment.

4.6 Dispute Resolution Process (DRP)

The independent reviewing officer's primary focus is to quality assure the care planning and review process for each child, and to ensure that his/her current wishes and feelings are given full consideration.

The IRO should identify areas of good practice as well as areas that need to be improved. All matters of general concern will remain on the monthly quality assurance reports until resolved. Situations concerning safeguarding issues should be escalated immediately and not delayed.

The DRP allows IROs to resolve disputes at the very earliest opportunity through a process of informal escalation to the operational manager and then formal escalation to the Head of Service. In all circumstances every attempt should be made to resolve the concerns at the earliest opportunity between the responsible social worker, their manager and the IRO. The DRP is instigated where an agreement as to a resolution cannot be achieved via the informal process or serious concerns are identified by the IRO/conference chair.

IROs can escalate their concerns to Senior Management (Heads of Service, Assistant Director Children's Services Operations and Director of Children's Services) at any time commensurate with the need and urgency of the concern or dispute. The responsible Head of Service and/or Assistant Director should ensure that all matters identified as reaching a threshold for dispute resolution, or in the dispute resolution process, are addressed with responsible social workers and line managers as soon as possible.

4.7 The Voice and Lived Experience of Children and Families

Gathering feedback assists service delivery in many ways; it helps us to learn about areas for improvement, it helps us to celebrate good quality social work practice and it enhances the voice of our communities.

There are a number of performance indicators that are routinely monitored as proxy measures that the voice of the child is being heard. These include children being seen alone on social work visits, participation in Looked After Child reviews and the voice of the child being tracked in all social work visits.

Children, families and carers are heard through feedback gathered in audits, feedback gathered within teams and the monitoring of complaints and the resolution of complaints, with a regular report on complaints being distributed to senior managers.

We also analyse feedback from other areas of our service, to support our understanding of good practice and areas for improvement. This includes feedback from our family meeting, advocacy and mediation service, Children in Care Council (CICC) and feedback received by our customer relations team.

The young people's feedback form within our monthly audit was created by two experts by experience, during their apprenticeship with Central Bedfordshire. Within the form, they have identified several key qualities that are valued in social workers, reflecting on their own personal experiences.

We are in the early stages of developing a parent forum, which comprises of several parents who have children in the care of Central Bedfordshire Council. We plan to collaborate with these parents to develop practice and support organisational learning. The idea for this project stemmed from feedback from a parent as part of a monthly audit.

The CBSCB 'voice of the child' sub-group reviews and evaluates the quality assurance mechanisms implemented by multi-agency partners, to gather the voice of the child and improve service delivery.

The Corporate Parenting Panel is co-chaired by a member of the Children in Care Council and consults with a wider group of children and young people through the Children in Care Council.

Feedback from participation activities with looked after children are reported to SMT and the Corporate Parenting Panel and used to inform and improve practice.

Young People who are, or have been looked after, also take part in recruitment interviews of social workers, managers and senior staff.

5. Practice Evaluation Activity

Good quality auditing of children's casework services is vital. Our quality assurance processes help us to systematically monitor and evaluate our practice and develop a learning culture. In doing so, we aim to improve services, to achieve better outcomes for children and their families and develop a better understanding of their needs, by listening to the voices of those who we support.

We follow a number of strands of auditing, as follows:

• Monthly practice evaluations – completed by team managers, practice managers, IRO's, consultant social workers, the audit manager and senior leaders, to aid learning, measure quality and impact;
• Moderation auditing – to create consistency in our monthly auditing and support learning;
• Thematic auditing and dip sampling – completed by our conference and review service, consultant social workers and audit manager, to support quality improvement and focus on particular themes/key lines of enquiry;
• Multi-agency thematic auditing – Led by the Safeguarding Children Board to consider a key line of enquiry and promote multi-agency learning and improvement;
• Peer auditing – at key stages, to consider a particular area of practice and to support team development of practice.

A more detailed breakdown of our audit activity is provided in our 'Practice Evaluations: A Brief Guide'.

6. Learning and Development

Central Bedfordshire has a comprehensive training and development programme for social work practitioners and managers and ensures that staff are trained in new legislative requirements, policies and practice changes. The Learning and Development team regularly attends the professional standards meeting to plan and respond to the learning and development needs of the social care workforce. Any specific learning which is identified through audit is sent to consultant social workers and the learning and Development manager on a monthly basis.

The SCB also provides additional training, e-learning and webinars to support Central Bedfordshire's learning programme.

The appraisal process is a key tool for managers to scrutinise and monitor practice standards. Employees will be supported to achieve the required standards with informal/formal personnel procedures used when it is judged they are not met.

The appraisal process is used to celebrate good practice, as well as highlighting any learning and development needs.

Appendices

Click here to view Practice Evaluations (Audit) Guidance

Click here to view Practice Evaluations (Audit) Gradings Guidance