Issue - meetings

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive, Policy, Performance, Partnerships and Communication, to provide an update on work being done to improve data quality across the council in particular the Children’s and Benefits and Local Taxation service.

The Chair asked for an introduction of the report.

The Assistant Chief Executive (PPP & C) Mr Longshaw informed the Committee that the OFSTED review of Children’s Services in December 2008 highlighted data quality weakness linked to operational practice within the service. These weaknesses were subsequently reflected in the Comprehensive Area Assessment 2009.  In addition the data quality audit undertaken by Grant Thornton in the summer of 2009 identified further data quality issues in Benefits and Local Taxation.

Mr Longshaw reported that since then a number of steps had been taken to improve data quality in these two areas:

Children’s services

• Auditing of referrals, initial and core assessment indicators with a sample 300 cases reviewed.  This audit identified improvement in the quality of recording and completion of assessment records over time.
• Independent social work audits found improvements in the quality of assessments with appropriate outcomes.

Benefits and Local Taxation

Series of actions taken to improve accuracy and data quality including:

• New quality and performance software implemented – ensures that identified errors are fed back and corrected
• Compliance team established to carry out data quality checks of assessments
• Workshops held with staff and team leaders to understand accuracy issues and identify solutions
• Ongoing testing of identified risk areas i.e. new claim start dates, single persons discount and earned income calculations
• Focussed ongoing training and development activity for benefits staff

Mr Longshaw commented that work continued in other areas across the council to ensure data is robust with an ongoing programme of audits (Appendix 2).

Mr Longshaw also referred to the corporate performance team’s audit of 3 children’s social care indicators between October and  December 2009 covering data for the period April 2009 to September/October 2009 as follows:

• NI 68 Percentage of referrals to children’s social care going on to initial assessment – measured as number of initial assessments as a percentage of number of referrals.
• NI 59 Percentage of initial assessments for children’s social care carried out within 7 working days of referral.
• NI 60 Percentage of core assessments for children’s social care carried out within 35 working days

Mr Longshaw further advised that the audit focussed on compliance with the indicator definitions and the records available to support the figures reported for the given months. In total 300 cases were sampled over the period and detailed findings fed back to the service. The scale of the errors found was not material and therefore the numbers reported for the indicators were found to be substantially accurate, and Appendix 1 of the report summarised the findings and highlighted some areas of concern along with the service response.

Mr Longshaw further stated that in addition to the corporate data quality audits of the indicators, there were some off line management audits to assess the quality of practice commissioned by the service and of the 165 audits undertaken since November ‘09 and conducted by senior managers, there had been an improvement in the quality of assessments with appropriate outcomes and recommendations. A Service performance management  ...  view the full minutes text for item 169