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HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

INTERIM SELF ASSESSMENT 2012

1 | HCC Interim Self-Assessment 2012

Item No: 4aAppendix A

1. ABOUT THE LOCAL AREA

Hertfordshire is located just to the north of London, covering an area of 634 square miles, with a population of around 1.1m, making Hertfordshire one of the most densely populated shire counties in England.

Updated Census information published in December 2012 indicates there are approximately 278,300 children and young people aged 0-19 in Hertfordshire, representing around 25% of the overall population. This is predicted to rise to approximately 303,000 by 2020. The biggest increase will be in the 0-14 population with only a slight increase in the 15-19 age group. By 2020 the largest population will be aged 50-54 and the greatest demographic shift over the next 10 years will be in the population aged 65+ years which will increase by 23%. In 2011 the general fertility rate (number of live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44) in Hertfordshire had increased to 66.2 from 64.3 births in 2009 and ranges from 57.7 births per 1,000 in Welwyn Hatfield to 73 per 1,000 in Watford. The majority of people living in Hertfordshire are white British. There are some areas, particularly in Watford, where the proportion of non‐white people is much higher than it is elsewhere in the county. Hertfordshire has recently experienced migration of workers from eastern Europe, particularly Poland, although actual numbers remain small.

There are ten district/borough council areas in the county. Watford and Stevenage are relatively densely populated wholly urban districts. East Hertfordshire and North Hertfordshire, outside their main urban towns, have large areas of rural countryside. The remaining districts of Broxbourne, Dacorum, Hertsmere, St Albans, Three Rivers and Welwyn Hatfield are more mixed. The ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation’ shows that Hertfordshire is consistently one of the least deprived areas of England; however, the general prosperity of the county is not evenly spread, and there are a number of pockets of deprivation and considerable variation across the county. All ten local authorities have pockets of considerable deprivation within their boundaries and a number of communities in Hertfordshire suffer from a range of elements of socio‐economic deprivation, including child poverty, overcrowding and dependence on welfare benefits. Examples of local authority wards experiencing such deprivation are Borehamwood, Cowley Hill, Northwick, Bedwell, Oughton, Meriden, and Waltham Cross.

The Hertfordshire Children’s Trust Partnership (HCTP) completed a detailed children’s needs assessment in 2010 to support strategic planning, including the development of the Children and Young People’s plan. This was supplemented by the Child Poverty Needs Assessment which informed our 2011 Child Poverty Strategy and we are currently revising our Joint Strategic Needs Assessment which informs our Health & Wellbeing strategy. These demonstrate both that outcomes for children and young people in Hertfordshire are generally good and often improving, but also highlighted that this is not the case for all children and young people. Several ‘vulnerable groups’ – such as children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), children looked after, some ethnic minority groups and also children from poorer families – still experience worse outcomes than the average for the overall cohort.

2. CURRENT PRIORITIES AND PLANS

Hertfordshire County Council and our partners have a range of plans and strategies in place to meet the many and varied needs of our children and young people.

These plans are intended to complement one another and provide a strong framework for the delivery of our strategic improvements:


Hertfordshire County Council’s Corporate Plan (2009-12) identifies seven priorities which help shape the County Council’s activity and budgets in order to work towards achieving our vision. The most relevant of these to children’s services are:

Ensure a positive childhood; and Secure a good education for all.

Within the developing Health and Wellbeing Board arrangements, the multi-agency Children and Young People Strategic Commissioning Group (CYPSCG) have identified the following priorities which will be driven forward by three sub-groups:

Early Intervention and Prevention (EIP)

Children with Complex Care and Additional Needs (CCCAN)

Children and Young People Living Away From

Home (CYPLAH) Reducing child poverty; Preventing children

becoming looked after; Reducing the impact of

domestic violence on children and young people;

Maintaining a Healthy Weight;

Reducing the numbers of unplanned A&E admissions.

Enhance integration of commissioning, services and resources;

Increase the number of children who are able to have their needs met locally;

SEND Pathfinder implementation;

Improve support for children and young people with autism.

Support children to achieve a secure ‘family life’;

Ensure safe, local and cost effective placements and supporting services;

Improve health, education and training outcomes;

Provide a successful transition to independence and adulthood.

With children’s services now operating across two service groups – Safeguarding & Specialist Services (S&SS) and Education & Early Intervention (E&EI) - our Children’s Services Plan (2011-13) helps to provide managers and staff across the service groups with a clear focus on improving services and outcomes for children and young people through seven key priorities:

Children and young people are kept safe;


Children and young people live with and are supported in their own families where possible;

Narrowing the gap for children looked after; A good early education for every young child; A good school for every child and young person; Narrowing the gap in attainment and wellbeing; and Service transformation and value for money.

3. LEADERSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENTS

A new service framework for Hertfordshire Children’s Services became operational in September 2011. The Children, Schools and Families department was replaced by two service groups: Education and Early Intervention (E&EI) and Safeguarding and Specialist Services (S&SS). Each service group has a Director who reports to the Chief Executive and is a full member of the Strategic Management Board (SMB).

Education & Early Intervention (E&EI) Services support and challenge schools to raise educational standards and promote the wider well-being of children and young people, in particular ensuring that there are effective targeted services to support early intervention with children, young people and families that are at risk. Children’s Safeguarding & Specialist Services (S&SS) ensure that children and young people are safe from neglect and significant harm, and that children with complex needs are supported effectively. The challenge to improve outcomes for children and young people in Hertfordshire at a lower overall cost requires a high degree of interdependence between the two new service groups (particularly relating to early intervention and prevention), as well as effective joint working with Health and Community Services (HCS) and key external partners: schools, police and the NHS.

Given the need to develop new approaches to sustaining children’s services in order to respond to pressure on public spending, the emerging Health & Wellbeing Board (HWB) arrangements benefits from Executive and Member representation from children’s services as well as senior Health representation and our children’s commissioning is well-embedded within this structure. The Children’s and Young Persons Strategic Commissioning Group (CYPSCG) is chaired by the statutory Director of Children’s Services and has representation from Health, Probation, Schools, Police, Adult Services, the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Board (HSCB) independent chair and service user groups. This group oversees the work of the children’s commissioning groups and ensures all agencies working with children have a consistent approach to commissioning based on a comprehensive needs assessment of our population as well as seeking to influence the wider determinants of health and achieve better value for money. The inclusion of the HSCB independent chair ensures that safeguarding is at the fore of all commissioning discussions and decisions. Early links have been established with the emerging Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) which are beginning to consider how best they can work with Children’s Services to improve health and social care outcomes for children and families. Equally, the importance of working with schools has been identified as a priority from the outset; through active engagement in new commissioning arrangements and development of their skills in this area, schools are now increasingly combining their traditional role as providers of universal services with commissioners of children’s services.

Recognition of the value of joint commissioning has been identified in a number of areas including specific work that has commenced to ensure the joint commissioning of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), the alignment of health and education commissioning of speech and language therapy / occupational therapy and complex and continuing care budgets. Commissioning strategies are in place for Early Intervention & Prevention (EIP); Children with Complex Care and Additional Needs (CCCAN); & Children & Young People Living Away from Home (CYPLAH). There has been a significant shift towards establishing a commissioning approach especially more productively involving health commissioners from the previous Children’s Trust arrangements. Notwithstanding this


considerable progress, the changes require a significant transition in Hertfordshire and following the royal assent of the Health and Social Care Act, further work is required to embed this approach across the partnership through the delivery of the new commissioning strategies.

The Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Board (HSCB) is independently chaired, has a mature structure and the partnership working within it is strong. It uses its Business Plan as the main vehicle for taking forward improvements and is relatively well resourced to provide support to its functions. The board has been restructured to ensure that it focuses more at the strategic level on performance and scrutiny rather than information sharing and is now more time and cost efficient. It is also expecting to share some functions such as the case review process and support with the Local Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) to create better synergy.

The HSCB strategic board is operationally supported by sub-groups that are chaired and supported by organisations across the partnership. The board developed five double district local safeguarding forums enabling local practitioners to meet at a local level to problem solve, implement case review recommendations, share organisational changes, promote local networks and to be a conduit for the HSCB to escalate local partnership issues to the strategic level. Further emphasis will be placed on these groups as a vehicle to ensure the board remains as close as possible to front line issues and activity.

Through the Improving Outcomes sub-group, HSCB continues to lead on tackling child sexual exploitation, improving the joint understanding of thresholds and the neglect assessment tool (Graded Care Profile). The child protection conference model is being reviewed to ensure that families' views are appropriately heard and taken into account. A pilot ran in November 2012 using aspects of the Strengthening Families model and participant feedback is being analysed for presentation to HSCB in January 2013. The child death overview process (CDOP) role is led by a senior health representative and has good partnership commitment. The board delivers mainly ‘level 2’ multi-agency training and this is supplemented by bespoke training which is driven by findings from audits, serious and partnership case reviews, both locally and nationally. The training sub-group takes responsibility for co-ordinating this and is delivering on a more local level to attend and network with locally based colleagues.

A priority for the coming year is the continued development of ways to engage with children and young people and parents/carers and to encourage and set an environment of healthy inter-agency challenge. As well as the children and young people’s pages of the website, the board ran a ‘healthy relationships’ competition in primary and special schools in 2012 and consulted with young people via the Children in Care Council on the child sexual exploitation campaign. The board has also run campaigns on safe sleeping, safety in the water, blind cord safety and in conjunction with the county Community Safety Unit, a campaign to raise awareness of domestic abuse with young people in year 5 and above. In keeping with the recommendations of the Munro Review and changes to legislation, the Board has recruited two lay members who started working with the board in late Autumn 2012.

4. RESOURCES AND CAPACITY

Hertfordshire continues to work to achieve improved outcomes for children, young people and families at lower costs. The Council for the Future programme, established in early 2010, has ensured that the local authority has a clear strategy to deliver change through a transformational approach rather than iterative reduction in services. Within this programme, Children’s Services Transformation has already achieved most of the £33.5m of year-on-year savings by 2014/15 from the £195m base budget for Children’s Services in 2009/10. At the same time, Children’s Services has moved from a £5.1m overspend in 2009/10 (non-schools) to achieve an in-year saving of approximately £19.8m by the end of 2011/12. This has been achieved whilst protecting front-line services as far as possible, focussing on statutory


services and providing a local approach to service delivery as well as reducing management costs by 25% and support staff functions significantly.

Budgets are actively monitored, reviewed and managed in order to secure continuous improvement, challenge areas of high expenditure and seek opportunities to improve our use of resources. Performance targets closely reflect budget saving targets and continued investment, for example in targets for recruitment of foster carers, or further reductions in the number of children who are looked after. Performance in Safeguarding & Specialist Services (S&SS) has improved significantly over the last three years. For example, performance on completion and quality of initial and core assessments within timescale has been consistently strong in recent months, significantly above target and performance in similar areas. Hertfordshire’s announced and unannounced Ofsted inspections have also confirmed these improvements.

Key indicators and performance measures relating to cost drivers and quality of services are monitored closely and regularly, and are benchmarked against other local authorities. The Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) value for money tool shows the comparative performance and cost of Hertfordshire’s children’s social care services in 2011/12. Whilst the service appears to be relatively high cost within the comparator group, the gap between Hertfordshire’s costs and the average has decreased by almost 50% since 2009. The costs of placements for children looked after has fallen; the 2011 CIPFA Children Looked After Benchmarking Club provides some positive data and shows Hertfordshire’s gross costs per child looked after per week as £805 per week compared to the average of £827 in comparator authorities. In addition, the gross annual cost of each child looked after per head of population (0-17) is lower in Hertfordshire than the average, at £158 compared to £234.

A key part of the strategy for children’s services is to reduce the demand for and cost of safeguarding and children looked after services, through effective early intervention. The reduction in our referral numbers and our success to date in reducing the numbers of children looked after has been key to our success in achieving these savings, without significant impact on the quality of services and outcomes for children and maintaining these achievements remains a focus for the coming year.

Hertfordshire’s Academy for social workers welcomed its fourth year of new recruits in September 2012. The Academy gives newly qualified social workers intensive training, mentoring and a reduced caseload. Hertfordshire, like many other authorities, had a long standing difficulty in recruiting qualified social workers (QSWs). The introduction of our Academy, which was the first nationally, has turned around this situation and has left us a much improved level of qualified social worker vacancies. At October 2012 we had 8.5 QSW vacancies in safeguarding, compared to an average of 51 for 2010, a reduction of 83% and this has also impacted positively on our financial position. To help achieve this, we have established a consultant social worker role; work is underway to address the national work on social work job descriptions and career progression and this will be in place by spring 2013.

Our Investors In People (IIP) Assessment has recognised that learning and development has underpinned the ‘transition to multi-agency localised teams and to equip front line practitioners with the skills, ability, competences, motivation and confidence to work effectively together to improve outcomes for young people’. Furthermore, our Children’s Services Transformation has been underpinned by a strong learning and development programme of short courses complemented by e-learning and coaching for managers, which have received positive feedback. Examples of courses include motivating for enhanced performance, budget skills, leading change with resilience, managing changing teams, difficult conversations and project management. Hertfordshire also actively participates in the regional succession planning programme as well as our own competitive talent management programmes endorsed by departmental boards and which include a Leadership Academy, Talent Pool and Leadership Development programmes which aim to develop our foundation, middle and senior managers.


5. INVOLVEMENT OF CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES

Improving the involvement of Children, Young People and their Families in the services provided was a key priority for the previous Hertfordshire Children’s Trust Partnership (HCTP) arrangements. Sophisticated arrangements were established to ensure that young people were directly able to influence service delivery. Local Members of the Youth Parliament and Youth Forums had a countywide ‘voice’ through the Shadow Youth Board which presented its key issues to the HCTP on a quarterly basis. Building from this infrastructure, young people have been directly involved in a range of mystery shopping activities and contributed to service planning and design. Children, young people and carers remain involved in the development of the Health and Wellbeing Board’s commissioning strategies throughout the commissioning cycle and there is a particular focus on targeting those children and young people who are most vulnerable and at risk of not having their voices heard without significant support. For example, the assessment process for our Targeted Services Fund has involved young people from target groups in designing service specifications, contract negotiations with providers and in ongoing monitoring and evaluation of these services. We have also strengthened our engagement with parents and carers of disabled children and those with special educational needs through Hertfordshire Parent Carer Involvement, supported by Contact a Family, and they are actively contributing to key developments such as our Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) pathfinder, the review of short breaks funding and Developing Special Provision Locally.

Hertfordshire’s Council for Children Looked After, launched in March 2009, is currently led by 10 ‘Deputies’, who have either put themselves forward for the role or been recommended by their social worker, Independent Review Officer or other worker. The work of the Council and the Deputies is supported by a dedicated Participation Officer. Quarterly ‘Open Forums’ are attended by 30 to 40 children and young people as well as our managers and staff and are followed by meetings between the Council Deputies, senior managers and the Lead Member for Children’s Services, in order to consider how to respond to young people’s suggestions and feedback. Council Deputies attend the Children’s Services & Corporate Parenting Panel and also attended the full HCC County Council meeting in July 2012 to present their end of year work plan report. The Deputies have also scrutinised anonymised decisions made at the Hertfordshire Access to Resources Panel about placements and support for children looked after and given their feedback and views of the fairness of the decisions made to senior managers and elected members.

Both parents and carers and young people are included in recruitment and training of staff. Young people are included in interview panels for candidates for ‘Step Up to Social Work’ as well as interviewing candidates for Hertfordshire’s Academy, residential workers, participation workers, Services for Young People posts and senior management roles (including the Director of Children’s Services, and Operations Director - Specialist Services). A recent recruitment for a new senior commissioning manager for children with complex care and additional needs involved groups of parents and carers of disabled children in setting interview questions and as part of the interview panel. Young people have run training sessions for social workers in the Academy and other teams, for example on how to communicate with young people in care, and what makes a good Social Worker. They also provided training in 2012 as part of the university course for ‘Step up’.

As part of our work to develop new models for child protection conferences, we have surveyed parents involved in conferences at two points in the year. Over 30 parents were surveyed in August and September to establish a baseline under the current model and this was then repeated with parents from the 10 pilot conferences that took place in November 2012. All the parents surveyed through the pilot reported that they found it a more positive experience and that they felt “more involved” and “had more input”.

Having strengthened our approaches to obtaining the individual wishes and feelings of children and young people about their specific case and circumstances within our practice and with a number of examples of good practice in gathering feedback about the quality of


our services, we are now developing a more coherent approach through our quarterly Performance, Practice and Quality Standards process to ensure that we consistently gather information about the quality of our services (particularly those relating to safeguarding) and to ensure that the feedback we gather becomes routinely used to inform and drive service improvement.

6. OUTCOMES

Early Years

In Hertfordshire in 2011/12, the percentage of five year olds achieving a good level of development (at least 78 points) across the Early Years Foundation Stage increased from 61% to 68%, keeping Hertfordshire above the England average of 64%. Boys have improved by 4% in Personal, Social and Emotional (PSE) development and 6% in Communication, Language and Literacy (CLL) but they continue to underperform girls. The three year trend shows an average 3% improvement year-on-year with the greatest improvement in Broxbourne.

Activities over the past year have resulted in: Improved head teacher understanding of threshold measures and use of Early Years data

through Head Teacher seminars and targeted training; Robust moderation arrangements validated by the Standards and Testing Agency; 100% schools attended universal moderation clusters or 1:1 moderation (25% schools); Assessment / use of data focus throughout training, conference and consultancy

programmes to develop practitioners’ skills; and Challenge to children’s centres regarding improvement of home learning environment.

In 2012, in addition to raising overall attainment, we have narrowed the gap slightly between the lowest achieving 20% in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the rest, from 33.2% to 29.3%, which is better than the national average of 30.1%.

The attainment gap is measured in a number of ways for different reporting purposes but each measurement aims for the gap to reduce. Overall, the gap in Hertfordshire has reduced by 3% despite the threshold improving by 7%.

Measurement ReductionReduction in the gap between lowest achieving children and those reaching the threshold.

3%

Rolling average over three years compared to national average.

1%

Reduction in the gap between lowest achieving children on free school meals and others on free school meals.

2%

The Free School Meals (FSM) threshold gap as measured by comparison of eligible and the rest has narrowed by 1% from 24% to 23%. The gap between the 20% lowest achieving 5 yr old children eligible for FSM and the rest eligible for FSM has reduced by 2% from 6.4% in 2011 to 4.4% in 2012;

Whilst the threshold overall has increased by 7% the threshold for children with SEND has increased by between 1% for children with statements and 5% for School Action + ;

The gap for children with SEND has widened as a result; The gap data by ethnicity is inconsistent but highlights the vulnerability of Gypsy Roma

and Travellers of Irish Heritage; The threshold for Bangladeshi children has reduced and the gap has widened whilst the

threshold for Turkish children has increased and gap has narrowed; Virtual school analysis of matched data also highlights the vulnerability of Children

Looked After.


Activities over the past year have resulted in: A focus on the inclusion of vulnerable groups and English as an Additional Language

(EAL) although the impact is variable; Robust Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) assessment and reliability of data

assured; Focus on early years inclusion and high expectations throughout revised EYFS training

resulting in reduction regarding FSM gap; and Support for differentiation in planning and provision Observation Assessment and

Planning courses and consultancy – impact regarding SEND not yet evident.

Children’s Centres Our Children’s Centre network provides a key access point to preventative services. Elected member support has enabled us to retain all 82 Children’s Centres and in 2012/13, funding has been held at the same level as the previous two years. Our current contracts with Children’s Centre providers have been extended which will enable sustainable arrangements that balance more targeted work with the Ofsted core purpose of a universal/preventative service.

Qualitative performance information is provided by Ofsted inspections. During the academic year September 2011 to July 2012 there were a total of eight children's centre inspections in Hertfordshire with six centres graded good or above. This is a performance of 75% judged as good or outstanding for overall effectiveness compared to the national figure of 65% reported by Ofsted for the period 1 September 2011 to 31 August 2012.

The average cost per child aged 0-4 of children’s centre services continues to decrease as centre budgets have been frozen at a total of £13,212,428 and the number of children under four in Hertfordshire has increased from 70,811 (mid-year estimates 2009) to 74,100 (Census 2011). Children’s centres are focusing more of their support to families in greatest need and have reduced significantly their universal offer. Some centres have begun to make nominal charges for universal services. The current Ofsted framework requires children’s centres to be a universal service, and the tension between this and the high cost needs of vulnerable families is proving challenging.

78% children aged under five in Hertfordshire are registered with a children’s centre. This is a 36% increase on the baseline of 42.8% in 2010/11 and an increase from 68.5% in March 2012. However families currently not accessing children’s centres may be some of those in greatest need. We are working with health and social care colleagues to improve links and referrals across services. Promotion of children’s centres is through word of mouth as well as libraries, GP surgeries, midwives, community centres, new parent packs, Herts Direct etc. The priority is to reach families with a child under one year of age in order to provide early intervention and identification of need.

Children’s Centres – Payment by ResultsHertfordshire is one of 27 local authorities participating in the Children’s Centre Payment by Results (PbR) trial which offers additional funding for improvement for young children and their families in the areas of:

child development and school readiness; parenting aspirations, self esteem and parenting skills; and child and family health and life chances.

In addition to six national PbR measures determined by the Department of Education (DfE), from April 2012 we have been trialling a basket of local PbR measures which aim to support centre improvement, Hertfordshire’s corporate priorities and Ofsted inspection gradings. The data collected for the PbR measures will give greater evidence of the impact and cost/ benefit of our services. We have also improved local data collection to help support greater targeting. Data from the children’s centre database, e-start, shows that the numbers of lone parents, young children with SEND and teenage parents registered are increasing. Centre outreach


workers are providing targeted support for vulnerable families, however, we need to do more to identify the vulnerable families that are not being reached and support children’s centre managers to make contact with them. Support is being provided to children’s centres to help them embed the PbR measures within the framework for inspection and demonstrate to Ofsted how they are achieving this.

Regular performance monitoring indicates that payment by results is having a positive impact on narrowing the gap between the lowest achieving five year old children and the rest. We report quarterly performance figures for all 82 centres against the PbR measures so any changes in performance are evident. HCC resources and local centre programmes are targeted to tackle the issues quickly. For example, the breastfeeding indicator identified areas where the prevalence at 6-8 weeks was lower than the county average and those centres have engaged with the UNICEF programme to increase breastfeeding rates. This PbR indicator also flagged up areas where the GP reporting of breastfeeding needed to be improved and this is being supported by health colleagues.

Two year old free placesDuring the past twelve months the focus has been on developing accurate baseline figures for the number of Free Early Education places for vulnerable two year olds. This has been challenging as historically Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) providers do not collate the required information in a usable format. We are now at a stage where we can accurately forecast the additional places needed to implement the expanded scheme from September 2013.

We are currently supporting PVI providers to join the 2 Year Old scheme through a tailored offer of visits from Childhood Support Services (CSS) covering business issues and from Standards & School Effectiveness (SSE) covering quality issues. This support offer has resulted in an addition 186 early education places for the most vulnerable two year olds in Hertfordshire.

We have also seen an increase from 5% to 16% of child referrals to access an early education place for two year olds from health and social care professionals. This increase has resulted from links being strengthened with health and social care teams across Hertfordshire. A total of 938 vulnerable two year olds were supported through the 2 year old scheme during 2011/12.

Areas of focus during 2013 include plans to: Develop a robust Family Support offer to parents in receipt of a free early education

for 2 year old places, to be delivered by Children Centres; Support PVI providers to develop their business model to ensure long term

sustainability; Support PVI providers to increase their capacity to offer additional early education

places to meet the needs of their communities; Roll out a programme of capital improvement projects in identified areas; Support childminders to participate in the 2 year old scheme; Raise the quality of provision for funded 2 year olds; Undertake a public consultation on the future delivery model for Hertfordshire’s

Children’s Centre programme; Revise the local Children’s Centre Payment by Results indicators to reflect the Health

and Well-being Board priorities; Continue to increase the reach of Children’s Centres; Focus of training, consultancy and briefings to highlight learning and development

needs of boys; Targeted support for schools with EYFSP threshold data below the national average; Localised support for Children Centre areas and districts where improvement was

lowest; Training and ‘monitor, challenge, support and intervention’ for children’s centres to

secure identification of and early intervention regarding vulnerable groups and


families in greatest need; Targeted support for children’s centre districts, PVI settings and schools where data

indicates need for improvement; and Focus on children looked after in EYFS to secure accelerated progress for individuals

monitored through Personal Education Plans and virtual school.

Early Help

Hertfordshire has been developing its early intervention strategy over the past three years. The first stage of this development was establishing revised threshold criteria ‘Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People in Hertfordshire’ for accessing targeted support, children’s social work and other specialist services. This is now embedded into practice and thresholds are applied consistently across our partners.

As a result of the range of initiatives and approaches developed, the rate of referrals to social care assessment teams has been reduced by almost 34% from 475.6 referrals per 10,000 in April 2010 to 356.1 in March 2012 and 304.9 in December 2012. A multi-agency Targeted Advice Service (TAS) has been established to provide advice and guidance to professionals for cases where they do not meet the threshold for Children’s Safeguarding & Specialist Services, including support and coordination how best to meet the needs of children and families, including through the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and Team Around the Family approach. More recently, formal ‘step up/ step down’ processes have been established which further strengthen the continuum of support.

The Targeted Youth Support Service (TYSS) established in February 2011, reduces demand for higher cost specialist services by providing intensive support to:

vulnerable young people in need and their families; young people to make a successful transition to adult life; prevent family breakdown; prevent escalation into specialist services; and provide statutory services in relation to young offenders and care leavers.

The service is able to provide cost effective and comprehensive packages of support by utilising all the resources of the broader Services for Young People portfolio and its partners, which leads to better outcomes for young people. In creating the service, management costs were reduced across Services for Young People by approximately 35%.

Two priority objectives of this service have been to reduce the number of 15–17 year olds entering the care system and reducing entrants to the criminal justice system. The impact of the service is evidenced by reductions in both these priority areas. The number of first time entrants to the youth justice system has fallen from 1,545 in 2007/8 to 609 in 2011/12 and if the current trend (221 after Quarter 3 2012/13) continues the number will fall still further to under 300 at year end. The number of repeat offenders also falling significantly. Joint preventative action with the police is significantly reducing volumes of offenders and supporting improved outcomes.

Equally, the number of young people aged 16+ becoming looked after has more than halved, from 154 in the year to 30 June 2010, to only 68 in the year to 31 March 2011 and has remained broadly steady at this lower level. The service therefore makes a significant contribution to achieving the financial saving targets agreed in Hertfordshire’s Children Looked After Strategy and the Council’s Integrated Plan.

Children’s CentresOur Children’s Centre network provides a key access point to preventative and early intervention services; ensuring families can get help when they need it, tackling issues early and helping to prevent costly problems from emerging later on. Children's centres offer a range of activities and services to support families facing risks associated with factors such


as domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health problems e.g. Freedom Programme, Protective Behaviours, Addiction and Family Links Nurturing programme.

Parenting supportWe have commissioned the delivery of 76 targeted parenting courses across the county which is reaching in excess of 600 parents. It was anticipated that at least 15% of those attending would be fathers/male carers, though some courses have reached 20%. Referrals for courses come from a range of sources including Specialist & Safeguarding Services, CAMHS and health visitors and the majority are subjects of a CAF.

We have also commissioned the delivery of universal parenting across 12 children’s centres within Hertfordshire, as part of the parenting support element of the DfE Payment by Results programme. These children’s centres are delivering a collective total of 46, four week “lite-bite courses” to reach in excess of 450 parents. Again, data shows an increase in attendance by fathers – up to 20% in some areas.

All of the above are either evidence based programmes or based on evidence-based programmes, in the case of the ‘lite-bite’ sessions. Additionally those programmes specifically targeted for parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autistic spectrum disorder, or have a focus on anger management are particularly well-attended. For these and the majority of the above programmes, evaluation data and case study material reveals significant improvement in parenting skills, especially behaviour management, family communication and knowledge of child development.

My Baby’s BrainMy Baby’s Brain is a new multi-agency, evidence-based project whose objective is to convey to parents of babies (aged 0-3) the principles of attachment behaviours and how they contribute to early infant brain development. Practitioners who work with parents of babies have been specially trained to understand the neuroscience of early development, and how to convey this to parents in an easily accessible, practicably applicable “Five-a-Day” message. Over 400 practitioners have so far been trained, including children’s centre outreach workers, health visitors, nursery nurses, and social workers. A further 800 practitioners in PVI childcare settings are being trained between January and March 2013. The programme is a universal approach, conveying the message that basic attachment behaviours are the social norm. However, the project will also now be adopting a targeted, early intervention approach, in order to tackle neglect in early childhood, and its impact on a child’s social and emotional wellbeing and mental health and crucially, the ability to create attachments and relationships into adolescence and adulthood. The evaluation of the project in its pilot phase, by the Family Matters Institute, revealed significant increase in knowledge and awareness among both practitioners and parents, and the need to intervene at the antenatal as well as postnatal stage. The project has been fully validated by the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes (C4EO) as an example of good practice, and was featured in the International Paediatric Neuropsychology Symposium (UCL Institute of Child Health) and the Journal of Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology. The impact of the project is now being further evaluated by the Colebrooke Centre and Warwick University. The project is a key response to the need to tackle child neglect at the earliest possible stage and is therefore a key feature of our Early Intervention and Prevention strategic direction.

Areas of focus: Research and development of ‘My Teen Brain’; Targeting parenting courses to support families with 5–11 year olds and through

transitions to secondary school; Continue to increase the percentage of fathers accessing universal and targeted

parenting support; Improving the case supervision and support for children’s centre out reach workers

and school family workers, to reflect the higher threshold levels of case work they are now involved with.


Child Poverty and Thriving FamiliesHertfordshire has a well established Child and Family Poverty Strategy which provides the strategic direction for much of this work. Child Poverty rates have remained broadly static over the past few years as broader economic conditions have had a negative impact on some families and communities in which they live.

Our major drive and priority is to improve outcomes and build on our early work with families to prevent escalation to specialist services through early intervention. The ‘Thriving Families’ programme which is being rolled-out across the county aims to improve the lives of families who experience a range of problems, including children not attending school, being involved in crime or households where anti-social behaviour is a feature, and include adults who are not in work, all of which result in high costs for public services. The Thriving Families programme will utilise the knowledge and experience of the full range of existing service providers and across all agencies and disciplines in both identifying families in need of support and focussing appropriate resources on improving family outcomes. HCC and agencies working with the families will identify opportunities to work differently together to provide more co-ordinated and cost-effective support to these families delivered and overseen through a network of Thriving Families teams distributed across the county on a ‘double-district’ basis.

Hertfordshire’s commitment to early intervention is the basis of the Thriving Families programme, which in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders and partner agencies, will work to identify and support the most vulnerable families and those currently generating the greatest demand on local service providers. This incorporates the identified cohort of 1,350 families highlighted as part of the government’s Troubled Families initiative.

Progress against government and local targets and claims against the payment by results framework established as part of the Troubled Families initiative will be recorded and monitored through robust data collection and analysis, with monthly monitoring reports. Measures include the re-integration of young people to mainstream services and rehabilitation to their families.

Domestic violence remains a key challenge for early support services. The number of reported cases of Domestic Violence range from 1,002 in June 2011 to a peak of 1,149 in September 2012 before falling to 1,023 in December 2012. The commissioning of domestic violence services is a priority in the Early Intervention & Prevention commissioning strategy.

Young People

Services for Young People was launched in January 2011 as a fully integrated youth service under single management arrangements. It has two components:

Targeted Youth Support which incorporates the Youth Offending Team, high end preventative support for vulnerable young people (including those beyond parental control and at risk of becoming accommodated), Support for Care Leavers post 18 and other specialist services such as Teenage Pregnancy, Counselling and Substance Misuse.

Youth Connexions providing youth and connexions services, access to services through our network of One Stop Shops and Channelmogo our youth web portal.

Youth Connexions Services teams are made up of the Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) Teams and the Youth Work Teams, which cover double-district areas, and the Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LDD) Team which covers the whole county. The work of these teams includes supporting progression into employment (including apprenticeships) education and training, youth work, supporting 16–18 year olds who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) and statutory interventions for young people with LDD.


Youth Connexions has an excellent track record for high performance, despite having a very low cost per head. Financial benchmarking is becoming more difficult as less national data is now published but the last time data was published Hertfordshire had the second lowest cost per head nationally.

Significant savings have been achieved through the integration of services, with a 35% reduction in management costs across Services for Young People saving approximately £950k. Additionally a number of IAG delivery posts and youth work posts were lost as a result of savings needing to be made. In addition, to maximise resources linked to targeted funding, 10 further IAG posts were redeployed to become part of Targeted Youth Support Teams. This has led to a change of focus for the Youth Connexions Teams, with a greater emphasis on early intervention through targeted delivery, particularly for those groups of young people who are more vulnerable, have higher support needs and have stepped down from Targeted Youth Support Teams. The strategy will reduce pressure on higher cost provision within children’s services, while ensuring resources are focused on the ’narrowing the gap’ agenda.

Statutory responsibility for the provision of IAG transferred from the local authority to schools in September 2012 and this has placed a greater emphasis on trading, where a focus on maintaining quality provision will be critical. The IAG team has a target to achieve £500k of income in 2012/13 rising to £1m in 2013/14. The first years target has been exceeded and the service is now trading with over 94% of Hertfordshire schools. In addition the service has recently won a contract to be a key local provider of the ‘Youth Contract’. This work will support NEETs without any qualifications and is anticipated to raise £100k - £150k per year towards the increased trading target in 2013/14.

In December 2012, the IAG service received the Matrix standard after receiving praise for the “immense impact” it makes on young people’s lives. The assessors found that Youth Connexions Hertfordshire has robust processes, promotes continuous improvement and that staff professionalism and development is one of its highest priorities. The assessor’s report said: “Youth Connexions continues to be the service of choice in the county. The staff have an enviable reputation for professionalism and dedication and are well known for putting young people at the heart of service provision. For many young people, engaging with the service has had an immense impact.”

External factors will also impact on the ability to improve outcomes overall, including the current economic climate, which will lead to a higher demand on the services delivered by Youth Connexions. Additionally central government cutbacks will lead to a greater need for advice and support; an example being the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance and the introduction of its successor funding stream. Despite these pressures NEET rates have fallen from 4.9% in June 2011 to 4.3%% in June 2012, one of the lowest of any local authority in England.

However, some vulnerable groups – Learning Difficulties & Disabilities (9%), Care Leavers (17.5%) and young people from certain disadvantaged areas are significantly more likely to be NEET. The number of NEET young people aged 18 has fallen between 2011 and 2012, but not to the same extent as for 16/17 year olds. There has also recently been a reduction in the number of 18-24 year olds who are claiming Job Seekers Allowance; however the numbers who have been claiming for 12 months or more is slightly higher than in 2011.

Provisional data for Year 11 destinations in 2012 shows that the proportion of young people staying on in School 6th forms has risen (from 59% to 60%) after a fall in 2011. The reverse has happened with respect to movement into Further Education Colleges (31% to 30%). The rate of increase in 16-18 apprenticeship starts slowed in 2011-2012. The rate of increase between 2010-11 and 2011-12 was 4.7% as compared to 26.1% the previous year. This has come about mainly due to the reduction in the number of advanced apprenticeships available following changes to the apprenticeship rules that led to some programmes no longer being eligible for funding. The latest data for success rates shows that these improved from 65.3%


in 2008-09 to 76.4% in 2010-11. This has meant that rather than having lower rates than were achieved regionally and nationally (2008-09) the county's rates are now better than the regional and national comparator averages.

In order to improve the range of apprenticeship opportunities for young people, performance reward grant funding is being used to incentivise employers to recruit young people, particularly those from disadvantaged groups. This is being coordinated with the support of apprenticeship training providers and the National Apprenticeship Service and is on track to create an additional 75 starts.

For young people with learning disabilities who are completing full time education and do not meet the threshold for specialist support, employment brokers have been recruited to establish new supported employment opportunities in order to aid the, often challenging, transition from education to the world of work.

Wider work to improve access to learning continues to have a positive impact. For example, the Department for Education has indicated that, as part of the pathfinder work on 'Raising the Participation Age to 17' which comes into force from September 2013, Hertfordshire is very well placed to meet this objective.

Against regional and national comparators most young people progress well through key stage 4 with correspondingly low exclusion and absence rates. Those young people outside of the school system are supported through a network of Education Support Centres (ESC) with all ESCs having strong Ofsted inspection outcomes. Attainment rates at the end of key stage 4 are good compared to local and national benchmarks.

Attainment levels at age 18 are above the national average but are significantly less good than those at Key Stage 4. Although the numbers of young people entering apprenticeships has increased by around 30% over the past two years, this is from a very low base and remains under developed – particularly for higher level apprenticeships. Take up of foundation level provision has not been as strong as anticipated and needs further development.

There has been a reduction in out-county placements for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) from 206 in 2009 to 132 in December 2012. These are for children and young people made solely by education or jointly i.e. health and or social care components. Implementation of a major change in the planning and delivery of education for children and young people with SEND is currently under development. The Delivery of Special Provision Locally (DSPL) aims to further reduce the numbers of children that go out of Hertfordshire to receive appropriate learning provision. This is continued post 16 through the 'Learning for Living and Work' strategy, funded through the Education Funding Agency, with a total reduction of 44% from 2009 to 2012 in out-county Independent Specialist Placements for young people with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LDD).

Teenage pregnancy rates are low. The latest available rate of under-18 conceptions was 23.2 per 1,000 girls aged 15-17 (September 2011). The rolling quarterly average shows that rates overall continue to decrease at a steady rate (23.7 in quarter 1 of 2011 to 22.7 in quarter 2) and that numbers of conceptions are stable at 121. The 2010 data shows that in Hertfordshire there has been a 29% reduction in under 18 conceptions since 1998. This rate has slowed over the past year but remains slightly ahead of the national figure of 28%.

Based on the figures for quarter 2 of 2011, the county had the lowest teenage conception rate in the Eastern region, and was significantly lower the national average (33.5).

Stevenage, Broxbourne and Welwyn Hatfield continue to have the highest aggregated rates of under 18 conceptions in the county. However as the 2010 figures show, the Stevenage rate has declined by 16% since 2009 where as the rates in Broxbourne and Welwyn Hatfield have increased by 17% and 9% respectively. The rate in St Albans has also increased


significantly since 2009 from 15 to 20.4 which is a 36% increase.

There is a focus on preventative activity in the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, such as countywide ‘Young Parents to Be’ courses, resource pack: ‘24/7 – tools and techniques for a better life’, C-Card scheme with 40 outlets across the county.

Care leavers - a particular challenge has been the doubling of the number of 13–17 year olds entering the care system, partly as a result of the Southwark judgement. However, the Targeted Youth Support Service has helped to help address this challenge.

A strategy has been developed to prepare children looked after and care leavers for adulthood and independent living. The aim of the strategy is to help children and young people develop the capacity to make satisfactory relationships, develop their self-esteem and resilience and enable them to acquire the necessary practical skills to make a successful transition from care to independent living. The strategy has two distinct phases: informal preparation from the day a child/young person becomes looked after and formal preparation for adulthood from the age of fifteen and a half commencing with the leaving care assessment of need.

The action plan includes a number of elements such as the development of age appropriate skills, work with carers to ensure that they are supported to enable the young people in their care to develop independence skills, peer mentoring, emotional preparation (counselling, brief therapy, building emotional resilience, raising educational aspirations and maintaining housing tenancies).

Mentoring - the scope of the mentoring scheme, previously available to young people by referral from Youth Connexions professionals has been broadened to provide valuable support to vulnerable young people referred by other professionals. 55 mentors have been recruited and are trained and supported to work with young people across the county, many of whom have complex needs, some also involved with specialist CAMHS or a children’s social worker. Referrals total approximately 80 per year. This is a cost effective service making a significant contribution to the early intervention strategy, with plans for further development. The service has received small commissions for specifically targeted work.

How to Thrive. The UK has a poor record of emotional wellbeing amongst our young people. In the most recent Unicef survey of life satisfaction of children in 21 countries, Britain came bottom in the league tables. The Institute of Psychiatry announced in 2007 that the number of children with emotional and behavioural problems in UK has doubled in the last 25 years. The number of adolescent suicides has quadrupled. It is reported that 75-80% of depressed young people do not receive the treatment they require and that depressed children are more likely to experience depression as adults.

If young people feel anxious they are less likely to learn effectively. Developing resilience skills early can reduce anxiety and depression, promote effective decision making and enhance relationships and meaning. How to Thrive has been developed as an arms length trading organisation providing leading edge expertise in developing resilience in children, young people and staff. The flagship programme delivered in both schools and to targeted groups is the UK Resilience Programme (PRP), an evidence-based approach to teaching young people critical life skills.

How to Thrive, in partnership with the London School of Economics, has recently been awarded funding from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to lead a national project to evidence the link between emotionally stable, self-efficacious students and improved behaviour and academic attainment in school.

Youth Justice has worked closely with Police partners to design an enhanced response aimed at diverting young people involved in low level crime from the formal Youth Justice system. Reductions in repeat offending by young people have been maintained through


effective multi-agency responses and innovative programmes and interventions with young offenders. Risk management of high risk young offenders has been revised to meet requirements of the Youth Offending Teams Core Case Inspection through improved quality assurance processes and centralised risk management panels.

Education and Employment

Hertfordshire continues to be a high achieving authority for educational attainment particularly at key stage 4. The percentage of pupils achieving five or more A*-C grades at GCSE (including English and Maths) has risen year on year from 58.1% in 2008 to 66.9% in 2011. Provisional results for 2012 indicate this has fallen to 65.3% but achievement remains well above the proportion nationally of 58.4% and Hertfordshire is ranked 12th of all local authorities on this measure.

At key stage 2, performance has improved; 82% of pupils attained level 4+ in both English and mathematics, an increase of 4 points on 2011 (78%), compared to a national figure of 80%. The proportion of children achieving the higher level 5 in English and mathematics increased by more than 7 percentage points to 32.5, compared to 27% nationally. The percentage of schools below floor standards reduced considerably, mirroring the national reduction (Herts 3%, national 4%)

At 31 August 2012 Ofsted had judged 72% of all Hertfordshire’s schools as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ at their latest inspection compared to the national average of 70%. 73% of primary schools were judged good or outstanding against a national figure of 69%. The Ofsted outcomes for education support centres (pupil referral units) are significantly higher than national. At 31 August, 50% were outstanding (17% national) and 100% good or outstanding (68% national).

The percentage of Hertfordshire schools in the Ofsted category of special measures at 31 August 2012 was 0.19%, which is considerably lower than national at 1.59% and our statistical neighbours at 1.54%. A higher percentage of schools were judged requiring a ‘Notice to Improve’ rather than ‘special measures’. The percentage with a notice to improve was 1.9 (national 1.05% and statistical neighbours 1.36%).

During the academic year 2011/12, 53% of the 139 Hertfordshire schools inspected were judged good or outstanding which is lower than the national and statistical neighbour figure of 61%. This is a reduction in performance from 2010/11 when the Hertfordshire percentage of good and outstanding schools was 63% compared to 57% nationally. Although a similar percentage were graded inadequate (Hertfordshire 9%, national 8%) 39% were graded satisfactory against a national figure of 31%.

At the same time inclusion has improved with fewer exclusions; the number of pupils coming off roll due to a permanent exclusion continues to reduce (from 75 in 2009/10, to 43 in 2010/11, to 42 in 2011/12). The level of persistent absence in primary and secondary schools in Hertfordshire remains below regional and national averages. The combined primary and secondary persistent absence figure for Hertfordshire is 4.4% which compares to 5.1% in the east of England region and 4.9% nationally. The percentage of 19 year olds attaining level 2 qualifications is also high.

The percentage of Children Looked After achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE (including English and maths) increased from 8.3% in 2008 to 18.4% in 2011, however performance fell in 2012 to 13.1 % which is below the national figure of 14.6%. Key stage 2 performance has improved in line with national.

The achievement gap for children on free school meals compared with other pupils at key stage 2 is reducing slightly but remains 7 percentage points greater than national. The gap is also closing at key stage 4, however comparison with national data is not yet available.


In all key stages, there are significant variations between districts (up to 30 percentage points at key stage 4). Attainment at key stage 5, although above national and increasing, is not yet as high as it should be given the high attainment at key stage 4.

Given the changed educational landscape Hertfordshire has maintained the breadth of school improvement services and strong relationships with academies. Standards & School Effectiveness (SSE) provides a range of flexible and bespoke school improvement services to help raise achievement and improve the quality of teaching in schools, academies and free schools. Hertfordshire continues to be among the highest performing authorities in the country for pupil achievement and school standards.

Since 2009/10 Hertfordshire has significantly improved its cost ranking on the CIPFA Value for Money analysis year on year in comparison to other local authorities, reducing from £84 per pupil in 2009/10 to £27 per pupil in 2011/12. Projections for 2012/13 would place Hertfordshire as the lowest cost authority in the higher performing quartile.

In response to changed educational policy SSE has embraced for some years the use of school to school support for school improvement. From September 2013 the school improvement service for Hertfordshire will become an arms length schools company, recognising the autonomy of schools and their responsibility for their own improvement.

Hertfordshire has one of the largest programmes of school expansions of any local authority and spending reflects this pressure. The pressure on places was experienced earlier in Hertfordshire than some other local authorities in the region. For September 2012, including free schools, an additional 46 forms of entry at reception in the primary sector were added in both permanent and temporary accommodation. This is over twice as much as any other local authority in the eastern region with HCC experiencing unprecedented rises in demand in certain localities. The average cost of a permanent one form entry expansion is approximately £2.75m.

The growth in the demand for school places continues in primary, with significant numbers of children requiring places entering the county between one six monthly data capture of children registered with general practitioners and another. For example there were 92 more children (three form entries) registered between October 2011 and April 2012. This has required both planned and responsive action.

The main emphasis in school place planning has been to concentrate on the total value for money of the provision of places as an activity. The largest cost elements continue by far to be the capital costs of works and a range of activities and policy changes have been made to reduce costs. These include moving to operate the schools system at as close to capacity as possible rather than with a 5% surplus for parental choice (however this impacts negatively on service quality and satisfaction).

The school admissions service is at the leading edge of ‘channel-shift’, and will strive to maintain its national lead for online admissions, developing further IT solutions to ensure further efficiencies. At March 2012, 97.4% of applications for secondary school were made online compared to 95.1% for the next highest authority within our comparator group and an average of 82.5%.

An online "self service" module was launched in September 2011, enabling parents to access their home to school distances for admissions purposes. The number of people accessing this online service increased from 5,350 in September 2011 to 8,482 in September 2012, an increase of almost 59%. Whilst the number of actual transactions varies significantly each month (in line with the admissions timetable and application process) over 99% are now conducted online thus dramatically reducing the volume of telephone contact necessary.

Further paperless systems and processes have been developed and implemented over the


past three years including email notification of allocations and an on-line acceptance facility. All of which has enabled the service to reduce its overall actual running costs by over £400k since 2010/11.

The completion of Special Educational Needs (SEN) assessments within statutory timescales continues to be consistently at 100% putting the authority in a good position to meet the more rigorous timescales the government intend to introduce as part of its SEN reforms.

The Integrated Services for Learning (ISL) teams are working very effectively with the 21 school partnerships to reshape services to meet local needs and to enable the most efficient use of resources. The service is developing new models of integrated service delivery that are responsive to the needs of individual schools and partnerships. Elements of ISL are trading with schools and academies and this is likely to increase as the number of academies and free schools grows.

A move to more local school commissioning and devolution of resources are key features of the Developing Special Provision Locally (DSPL) programme. This aims to ensure a more effective and equitable use of available SEN resources over time so that more children can have their needs met as close to home as possible. The number of placements in out-of-county high cost independent specialist schools has continued to reduce which has enabled resources to be reinvested in local provision. A combined budget across Education and Social Care has been established to sustain this direction of travel and develop services to provide locally for the most complex and challenging needs. Nine local DSPL commissioning groups, led by schools, are now established across the county. These give schools more ownership for the use and development of local provision and services.

The focus of team plans for the next year will include actions to improve: Achievement of children receiving free school meals:

- using data analysis in individual schools to challenge and support;- supporting children's centres and early years settings to identify vulnerable

children and ensure early intervention; and- challenging schools in the most effective use of the pupil premium

Achievement of Children Looked After (CLA):- specific support for improving attainment in English and mathematics;- a specific focus on CLA pupils with Behavioural, Emotional and Social

Difficulties; and- challenging schools in their use of pupil premium and the effectiveness of

interventions. District attainment - developing a more creative solution to school improvement

across a group of schools working together with a group of experienced school leaders. This will include working in a 'thematic' way across a number of schools, rather than supporting an individual school. It will also see the development of 'system leadership' to support improvements.

‘Satisfactory/requires improvement’ primary and secondary schools:- SSE will identify and work with all the schools that are at risk of being judged

by Ofsted as 'Requiring Improvement'; and- A programme of intervention, support and challenge will be delivered through

the Hertfordshire Improvement Partner (HIP) scheme.

Safeguarding

In October 2010 Ofsted’s inspection of safeguarding and looked after children’s services in Hertfordshire judged the overall effectiveness of both safeguarding and children looked after services as ‘adequate’.


Ofsted’s announced inspection of safeguarding and children looked after services in October 2010 recognised ‘Significant improvements have been made by the partnership since the Joint Area Review in 2007 resulting in many of the recommendations being implemented effectively . . . and services are much safer’. Building on these improvements safeguarding performance has continued to improve. Performance on many indicators and performance measures is now above comparator averages and Hertfordshire significantly outperforms similar areas.

In 2010/11, 81.2% of Initial Assessments were carried out within seven days making Hertfordshire the highest performing authority within our Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) comparator group and well above the 62.2% average for the group. Performance has continued to improve significantly and our performance in September 2012 is our best ever with 93.1% of Initial Assessments completed on time.

The number of Core Assessments carried out within 35 days has also improved significantly since 2010/11. Hertfordshire carried out 72.4% of Core Assessments within timescale in 2010/11, slightly above our CIPFA group average of 71.26% but this has increased to 88% in September 2012, well above the comparator average of 75%.

Safeguarding services are working increasingly closely with others (universal and targeted services, services for children looked after and partner agencies) to monitor and manage the flow of referrals and embed ‘step-up, step-down’ processes which ensure that children can access the available services most appropriate to meet their needs.

The implementation of a ‘step-down’ pathway is improving clarity for both families and agencies about ongoing support once child protection plans end and following a recent ‘step-down’ audit, ongoing work through the HSCB Audit and Analysis will track a cohort of children whose child protection plan has ended to evaluate the impact of interventions. At December 2012 the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) monitor reports that 4.7% of children subject to a Child Protection Plan (CPP) had been on a plan for more than two years and 14.8% were the subject of a CPP for a second or subsequent time. For both these cohorts, specific auditing has been undertaken by the Child Protection Unit during 2012/13. This has identified recurring multiple issues in relation to parental factors of those children on a CPP for a second or subsequent time including an increase in parental alcohol / drug use, relationship difficulties, parents resuming relationships and forming new ones with adults who pose a risk to children, younger children putting a strain on relationships, young parents who themselves have had difficult childhoods, and deterioration in parents with mental ill-health.

A Joint Child Protection and Investigation Team, the first in the country, has been established with Hertfordshire Constabulary, bringing together resources between the police and county council, enabling us to provide better support and reduce bureaucracy. The transformed service has sped up the response to allegations of child abuse so that children can be removed from risk as quickly as possible, pooled information and expertise to improve decision-making and developed skills of professionals interviewing vulnerable victims and witnesses. The new team is providing better outcomes for vulnerable children whilst saving money and has recently won the Children and Young People Now ‘Child Protection’ award for their innovative new service.

Ofsted judged our Fostering Service as ‘Good’ in October 2012 stating “This is a child focused service that offers a good quality service” and “outcomes for children and young people are outstanding”. Areas for improvement highlighted the need to include reasons for recommendations in panel minutes and this is being addressed.

Hertfordshire’s recruitment and retention strategy for children’s social care has significantly reduced vacancies for Qualified Social Workers (QSWs) from a peak of 70.6 full time equivalents (fte) in July 2010 to 8.5 fte in safeguarding at the end of September 2012. Our Social Worker Academy has been refined to comprise of two intakes of 15 newly qualified


social workers (NQSWs) per year instead of one intake of 30 NQSWs. The implementation of this change will reduce the management, support and office costs associated with the Academy.

Project Protector began in September 2012 and is an innovative joint working initiative in which police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) work with social workers to gain access to families with vulnerable children. The ability for police to accompany social workers on visits enables relationships with families to be forged, helps to keep vulnerable children safe and protects front-line social workers.

In common with many authorities in recent years there has been continuing pressure on Hertfordshire’s Children Looked After (CLA) services and budget as the number of children becoming looked after increased by 2% nationally between March 2011 to March 2012.

Hertfordshire’s improved performance in services for CLA over the last few years has been accompanied by increasing costs as the number of children looked after going into independent residential placements has risen. Wherever it is safe and appropriate to do so, we aim to keep children who are on the threshold of care, out of care placements and help them to stay within their families by providing appropriate targeted support services.

HCC’s Children Looked After Strategy has focused on increasing the number of children and young people who can remain safely with their families, achieving permanence for more children who are looked after, and increasing the range of value for money placement options available locally. Specific work and achievements so far have included:

The number of children looked after reduced from a peak of 1181 in June 2010 to 1029 in January 2012. However, since February the CLA population increased to a peak of 1,100 in July 2012. Work has been undertaken to analyse the possible reasons for this sharp rise and management action taken. The upward trend appears to have reversed, falling to 1,055 children in December 2012;

The number of ‘In-house’ foster placements will increase in 2012/13 which will help to reduce spending in this area;

The capacity of HCC’s fostering, supported lodgings and residential children’s homes have been increased, reducing reliance on higher-cost independent and residential placements; and

Collaborative commissioning arrangements have achieved volume discounts and reduced transactional costs.

As part of the CLA strategy, a plan to reduce the average cost of new placements for CLA was agreed. This focuses on better value for money through contract negotiations at regional, local and one-off client based negotiations.

Hertfordshire has been successful for a number of years in maintaining prices for independent residential placements and working both locally and regionally with residential homes to decrease costs where possible. We have been successful in reducing costs of residential school and independent fostering and semi-independent placements which delivered a £1.26m cost reduction to December 2011. However, this position is proving difficult to maintain as residential homes face rising food, gas/electricity and petrol prices associated with caring for our most vulnerable children.

To ensure we achieve value for money, we need to provide the most appropriate but cost-effective placements for children looked after - the emphasis is on commissioning suitable placements to achieve positive outcomes for children. Value for money should not be equated with ‘cheaper’. Placing children in lower cost residential units which are not suited to meet their individual needs could lead to disruption for children, escalating associated support costs and ultimately higher cost specialised placements.

Hertfordshire’s Adolescent Resource Centre (ARC) provides community support, residential


provision and therapeutic interventions to young people aged 12-18 who are ‘looked after’ by HCC, are in crisis and/or who are at risk of placement disruption, on account of their high risk or challenging behaviour. This provision of timely support for young people in crisis can help prevent escalation to more expensive services.

In the 12 month period 2011/12 the ARC worked with 71 children in a range of placements:

43 maintained their original placement, 26 of these in the family home; 16 moved up the care continuum following assessment of need or inability to sustain

placement; and 12 moved down the care continuum, 7 returning to the family home and 2 returning

from independent provider placements to in-house foster care.

The figures show that ARC Intervention has reduced family dysfunction and trauma and provided alternative solutions and strategies. This has enabled more young people to remain at home, in their current placement or for them to move down the care continuum. This in turn has broken the cycle of chronic spiral and families becoming increasingly dependant on long term costly interventions therefore reducing the cost of specialist placements and the emotional distress and trauma caused by multiple placement moves.

The proportion of our children who are placed with our foster carers is also a key strength and range of fostering recruitment campaigns have taken place to increase the number of in-house foster carers and the results of an in-house foster carer survey undertaken in July 2012 has enabled HCC to develop a more targeted approach to recruitment.

The DfE published the latest Children in Care and Adoption performance tables in November 2012, which showed our rankings had improved in three performance measures but dropped in six measures highlighting our need to improve. Although there have been some notable improvements in outcomes for children looked after, we know that we need to improve others, for example the proportion of young people looked after who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), who have an identified substance misuse problem, or who are cautioned or convicted. Following the significant and swift reduction of the numbers of children and young people looked after between 2010 and 2012, there is the need for sustained focus to ensure that this is maintained and that the right children and young people are coming into care; that they are moved on at an appropriate point; and that work continues to improve outcomes including continued work with partners.

The Ofsted inspection in September 2011 found our adoption service to be good and “provides good outcomes for children that are outstanding in some respects.” The service is strong at preparing both children and families for adoption; avoiding placement breakdown and placing older children. We need to increase the numbers of children adopted as well as the timeliness of placements and achieving this without impacting on stability of placements will be challenging. We are beginning to address this through the implementation of recommendations from our care planning project which will focus on reducing drift, promoting early-decision making, the development of a whole system approach and case by case weekly tracking.

Children and young people who are looked after are engaged and involved in developing and reviewing services through Hertfordshire’s Children in Care Council. Meetings are held regularly between the Council ‘Deputies’, senior officers and executive members to discuss planned changes and explore the young people’s ideas, issues and concerns. Changes to services for disabled children were subject to full consultation with parents and carers, through the Hertfordshire Parent-Carer Involvement Network and dedicated events. Parents and Carers are involved in the management and development of our SEND (Special Educational Needs & Disability) Pathfinder.

Decisions on packages of support for disabled children are made on a multi-agency basis, to ensure that packages of support meet the needs of children and young people and their


families and give best value for money. The quality and impact of services are monitored through casework audits and feedback and involvement of children, young people and families.

A number of projects to improve value for money have been implemented or are being planned:

The enhanced ‘brokerage’ service, which went live on 5 November 2012, will develop ‘smarter’ and better value for money commissioning arrangements of services to improve the experience of families and offer a greater diversity of support packages to the 1,074 open receiving cases (as at 19/11/2012);

The first stage of the short-breaks service review is under consultation with parents, to focus on providing a wider and more cost effective range of service provision to better meet the needs of children and young people; and

Hertfordshire is participating in the government’s SEND (Special Educational Needs & Disability) Pathfinder programme which aims to increase parental choice and control, establish a clear offer of local services available and move towards personal budgets. The objective of the pathfinder programme is to improve SEND services for families but it is anticipated that the move towards personal budgets to access services from different organisations, including health, will reduce duplication and help our money to go further.

Performance is regularly reported to the Leader of Council and Chief Executive through quarterly safeguarding briefings and updates presented to the Children’s Services and Corporate Parenting Cabinet Panel. The development of quarterly internal Peer Audits has been positive. Findings are reported to the Director of Children’s Services and the Senior Management Team as well as participating teams and this activity is providing evidence of good practice which has been shared across the teams. It also highlights areas for improvement and supported improvement plans to address areas of performance within prescribed timescales.

The 2010 announced inspection identified 27 areas for improvement, 15 relating to safeguarding and 12 relating to Children Looked After. Analysis presented to our Children’s Services and Corporate Parenting Panel identified that as at November 2011, action to address the recommendations were completed in 21 areas and well on-course in a further 4 where it will take time for improved outcomes to be evidenced. Since then, further progress has been made in the remaining two areas. Reviewing the provision of services to looked after young people aged 14+ and ensuring that a full range of services are available to meet their needs is a key emphasis within the Children and Young People Living Away from Home commissioning group priorities. There has also been progress in improving the proportion of child protection case reports that are shared with parents at least 24 hours in advance of conference, although we recognise that this remains an important area for improvement.

Areas of focus during 2013/14 include plans to: Strengthen engagement with children and young people and better seek their

contribution to service redesign and improvement; Implement the Care Planning Project recommendations to achieve more timely

permanence outcomes; Strengthen parenting assessments to speed up court proceedings; Utilise Munro implementation board to take forward care planning, Family Justice

Review changes, workforce reform, service redesign and ICS & performance indicator changes;

Maintain a focus across the whole continuum of care for vulnerable children; Continue implementing training for staff on specific methodology to support prevention

of accommodation building on good practice examples in region; Improve support for care leavers and interfaces between Safeguarding & Specialist

Services and the Targeted Youth Support service; and Improve joint working with adult services to manage risks to children associated with

mental health, learning disabilities and substance misuse, via the set up of revised


interagency structures and the introduction of jointly funded interface workers.


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