To consider a report back on the follow up work on the audit of common assessment frameworks which has been completed by the independent member of the committee.
Minutes:
The Independent Member of the committee had completed follow up work on a sample of CAF’s assessed by the CAF Panel at their June meeting. The Independent Member had been commissioned to speak with the participants (referrers and parents) from the cases that she had audited from the June panels. These cases were disproportionately cases where the CAF Panel had decided they were not eligible for service, no further action was agreed, and where there was insufficient information provided.
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is essentially a tool for identifying a child’s needs, what was working well in their life, then putting in place a plan to make sure they get the support they need. Members were reminded that a CAF is only used where the child has an identified need which is below the threshold required for access to social care services, when completion of an initial and core assessment is necessary by a Social Worker. The CAF Panel meetings allowed professionals to assess the range of services a child may require and share existing information held on a child. The CAF Panel meets twice a month and had a wide attendance with appropriate officers/ professionals that could make decisions and recommendations on CAF forms received.
When considering the responses from the CAF audit and follow up work, it was important for the committee to examine these results with a note of caution as this was a qualitative study and the results were not designed to provide performance information on the CAF process. We learnt that half of the parents spoken to who had not obtained an additional service for their child, had been positive about the process as it had led to discussion about their child’s needs with a professional (the referrer). Some referrers, not obtaining an additional service for a child, had been successful through an alternative route. Other referrers had expressed dissatisfaction about the process when not receiving a service. There was negativity noted about the length of the application with requests made by referrers for a simpler form, particularly when there was a single service required such as speech therapy. Generally parents were more positive about the CAF process than referrers. There was frustration expressed by participants about lack of feedback from the CAF Panel when a service was not agreed and about delays in service provision after a service had been agreed. This raised questions about the level of involvement of participants in the decision making part of the CAF process.
The committee discussed the importance of communication and how this was important in ensuring that referrer and parents had reasonable expectations about the CAF process. They suggested a need to ensure that referrers were aware, before the start of the CAF application, of all the routes to additional services and likelihood of receiving a service through these processes. They further suggested that participants should be encouraged to seek services such as speech /language therapy, EPS, or childcare more directly with the service instead of through the CAF. This could in turn contribute to reducing the number of cases deemed ineligible for an additional service and save time for the CAF Panel.
The performance of the CAF Panel was discussed and clarification sought on how its work compared to other boroughs. It was noted that the last external feedback on the service found it to be performing well in relation to the number of assessments completed. There were also emerging national recommendations which advocated the sole use of CAF for agreeing additional services around a child, with a low threshold of need, which the Council was already in line with. Members noted that any proposed amendments to the CAF process and monitoring arrangements for decisions made by the Panel would need to be considered together with the current capacity of the service in mind. We were assured that officers were continually looking at the most efficient and effective way of dealing with CAF applications whilst also keeping to key safeguarding requirements such as information sharing.
After considering the findings of the Independent Member study and discussion of these issues the following recommendations were put forward:
RESOLVED