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Outcome of Section 11 Audit (2009-10) Report

This report discusses the results of the Section 11 audit conducted in 2009-10, which evaluated the effectiveness of statutory agencies in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. It includes the agencies involved, the monitoring arrangements, and the overall findings.

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Outcome of Section 11 Audit (2009-10) Report

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  1. Outcome of Section 11 Audit(2009-10)Report to Scrutiny Topic Group 8/06/10

  2. Statutory context • Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places a duty on all statutory agencies working with children and young people to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. • Chapter 3 of Working Together 2010, the supporting statutory guidance, states the scope of the LSCB includes ‘monitoring the effectiveness of organisations’ implementation of their duties’ under Section 11.

  3. Section 11 duty • The Section 11 duty means that these key people and bodies must make arrangements to ensure two things: • Firstly that their functions are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children • Secondly, that the services they contract out to others are provided having regard to that need.

  4. Agencies involved • The key statutory bodies required to take part in this audit were: • The Local Authority (incl. District and Borough Councils) • Police • Probation Service • NHS Bodies • Youth Justice Service • The British Transport Police Note: Schools were not involved in this round of audit activity

  5. Monitoring arrangements under Section 11 • As a means of doing this a new electronic audit tool based on self-evaluation was developed by the Eastern Region and adopted / endorsed by the HSCB in early 2009. • This was supported by a number of training sessions offered to all designated statutory agencies in the use of the audit tool by the HSCB Business Unit. • Each agency was asked to complete and return the audit tool to the HSCB Business Unit by 31 January 2010.

  6. Section 11 audit tool • Using the audit tool, agencies evaluated themselves against the following criteria: • less effective • effective • exceeding requirements • There are 8 key standards each comprising a number of questions. In total there were 44 individual questions to answer.

  7. Section 11 audit tool (2) • In addition, agencies were further required to list supporting evidence against questions where they measured themselves as being effective or exceeding requirements. • Where they measured themselves as less effective they were required to set out their plans to meet the required standard including who was responsible for the related actions and when they would be completed. • The audit tool automatically transfers these actions to an agency action tracker sheet to help the agencies follow up the actions, and help HSCB monitor and support them.

  8. Who took part? • 18 out of the 20 statutory agencies completed and returned their audit results. • This is a very successful outcome in comparison with the first Section 11 audit that was carried out by the HSCB in 2007 and which had a limited response.

  9. Overall results • The percentage where agencies considered themselves to be effective in all of the 8 standards (and 44 areas) ranged from 57% to 75%. • Of the 18 agencies that took part, 5 were either effective or exceeded requirements in all 44 areas. • This indicates that overall agencies are taking safeguarding seriously.

  10. Overall results (2) • Of the remaining 13, the percentage of areas where the agencies considered themselves less effective ranged from 2% to 82% (the lower range being the traditional statutory agencies). • 3 of the 13 agencies consider themselves less effective in 70% or more of the areas within the self-assessment. • Those agencies who tended to score themselves as being less effective in key areas were those agencies where direct work with children is not the primary responsibility but is part of other roles.

  11. Wider implementation of Section 11 Audit • The HSCB Business Unit have also been working with HCC Commissioning and Children Matter East / VCS Engage East / Safe Network to develop appropriate support to the voluntary sector and more importantly its partners in relation to Safeguarding for VCS organisations seeking a contractual relationship with their local Children‘s Trust. • This work has produced a set of draft standards that can satisfy commissioning processes and are compliant with S11 requirements. The use of these standards is not restricted to just the VCS.

  12. Wider implementation of Section 11 Audit (2) • Children Matter East will pilot these draft standards this year with a cohort of VCS service providers many of whom are funded via the Children Services Targeted Fund and /or the 513 prevention fund. • We are optimistic that this will help their compliance with Section 11 audit requirements whilst reinforcing the sectors `fitness for purpose’. • In addition the standards are fit for purpose for all providers. i.e. VCS and private providers.

  13. Wider implementation of Section 11 Audit (3) • The HSCB Safe Staffing sub-group have developed a handbook for anyone who is involved in the recruitment of paid, voluntary, or other staff working with children (predominantly aimed at the VCS). • It is a set of minimum standards based on best practice and provides guidance notes and sample templates of child protection policies, procedures, and safe recruitment practices. • The handbook also contains (an adapted) Section 11 audit tool covering the safe staffing standard.

  14. Next steps • Schools, colleges and Cafcass will be involved in the next round of audit activity, and plans for this are under discussion. • In July 2010 there is a planned meeting with the Eastern Region LSCB to review the audit tool and agree a set of benchmarking standards. • A robust S11 audit framework will be in place by the autumn 2010 supported by a rolling programme of audits and data to monitor progress.

  15. Next steps (2) • A sample of follow up audits will be carried out in the first instance by the HSCB Business Unit, concentrating on those agencies who have assessed themselves as being less effective in key areas.

  16. Progress to date • The findings from the Section 11 audit is further informing the work of the following HSCB sub-groups in helping them to establish, and maintain appropriate mechanisms and processes for measuring the quality of inter-agency safeguarding work, which contributes to the overall outcomes of the HSCB: • Training • Safe Staffing • Audit and Analysis

  17. Progress to date (2) • Work is already underway with the District and Borough Council Heads of Service following two successful meetings. • This group have subsequently agreed to meet with the HSCB Business Unit lead (for S11) quarterly to review progress, share good practice and develop a peer review process.

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