Contact: Alison Alexander, ext 6171, e-mail: [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 During 2007 Children's Services across Hampshire will be inspected and assessed through a Joint Area review (JAR). This paper provides a status report on the activities taking place in response to the JAR.

2 Recommendations

a) That members endorse and offer support for the work taking place with partners, including the Primary Care Trust, the voluntary sector and the Learning and Skills Council in the three additional areas of investigation: health inequalities, 14 - 19 and young carers.

b) Members are invited to offer suggestions for projects that the inspector might visit that demonstrate positive partnership working and seek to improve achievement of young people within the areas of investigation

3 Introduction

3.1 The Joint Area Review (JAR) assesses the quality of services that are provided by Children's Services across the County to support children and young people to develop with regard to the five core outcomes of Every Child Matters:

· be healthy

· stay safe

· enjoy and achieve

· make a positive contribution

· achieve economic well-being

3.2 While the County Council's work with children is the main focus of the inspection, the work of its partners also comes under scrutiny.

3.3 Alongside the JAR there will be an inspection of Hampshire County Council Youth Service and Wessex Youth Offending team and evidence from both will be fed into the JAR process.

3.4 The JAR methodology has changed for 2007 and Hampshire will be one of the first to be assessed under the new system. The main features of the new system are:

· the core assessment is made on five areas: looked after children, children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, safeguarding issues, management of the service and the capacity to improve.

· additional areas for investigation are identified based on the 2006 Annual Performance Assessment (APA)

· a heavy emphasis on case file analysis and a pursuit of the issues identified through that process

· an analysis of documentation - including a review of the Children and Young People's Plan (CYPP)

· two weeks of field work, observations and assessments. Week 1 is mainly concerned with the inspection of provision and week 2 is spent in meetings with practitioners, managers and strategic leaders.

3.5 Hampshire's APA in May 2006 was strong and the additional areas identified are, accordingly, few. Other local authorities, with weaker APAs, are inspected on more. The three areas are:

· Health inequalities: the inspection will focus on the developments made in moving from a medical to social model.

· 14 - 19 agenda: this is a hugely complex area and inspectors will seek to identify the distance we have travelled in delivering the 14 - 19 strategy. The lead inspector has pointed out that this is not regarded as an area of weakness

· Young carers: support for these children and young people is an issue of national interest but one about which less factual data exists. The lead inspector suggested that inspecting Hampshire allows a little `headroom' and gives an inspection team the opportunity to find evidence about issues which, in some other authorities, there would not be time to do.

3.6 The outcome of the JAR contributes to the fifth theme `achievement' of the Corporate Assessment (CA). The Corporate Performance Team and the Children's Service Department are working together to streamline:

· administration costs and processes

· internal and external communications

· practical arrangements for the inspectors including transport and accommodation.

This will be the last JAR and CA in Hampshire. From 2009 they will be replaced by the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).

4 Timescales

4.1 The process has already begun. Initial briefing meetings were held in December 2006 and January 2007, case files have been selected and a sample chosen for detailed study by the inspection team and voluntary sector partners have been identified to participate in the inspection.

4.2 The inspectors will spend April 18 - 20 in the analysis of documentation. There will be a focus on qualitative and quantitative evidence to demonstrate achievement by children and young people against outcomes, develop further hypotheses and determine the nature of their field work.

4.3 The fieldwork will take place over nine days beginning on 8 May 2007 and its focus will be on testing hypotheses and drawing conclusions. The inspectors will be seeking to identify what is it like for young people, especially vulnerable young people, to live and grow up in Hampshire. They will meet and talk with some of them and a sample of parents and carers.

Inspectors will also explore service issues with a variety of practitioners, middle and strategic managers, including:

· health professionals

· youth workers and personal advisers

· social workers

· specialist staff such as special educational needs and child protection

· local elected members

4.4 Inspectors will be accompanied on their visits by young people who live in Hampshire and are trained as Care Act Team mark, quality award, assessors.

4.5 The final report will be published on 14 August 2007. The first draft will be available for comment in June 2007.

4.6 Preparation for the JAR is substantial. Senior Officers are heavily engaged in the process of setting strategic direction, drawing together improvement plans, quality assurance of documentation, engaging partners and supporting managers.

4.7 Managers are writing reports, auditing case files, engaging partners and involving children, young people and their carers.

4.8 Partners represented on the Children and Young People's Partnership Management Board (CYPPMB) met the Lead Inspector in January and are actively engaged in the all aspects of the review.

5 Consultation

5.1 Consultation has taken place with Hampshire Voluntary Service Children and Young Peoples Alliance and the partners represented on the Children and Young Peoples Management Board.

6 Legal implications

None

7 Financial implications

7.1 None

8 Personnel implications

8.1 None

9 Impact assessment

9.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

10 Crime prevention issues

10.1 None

11 Views of the Local County Councillor

11.1 Potential for impact too widely spread for meaningful `local' comment.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None.