Scottish Government

Children's Hearings Representative Group
REPORT ON CHILDREN'S HEARINGS TIME INTERVALS 2002-03

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CHILDREN'S HEARINGS SYSTEM: HOW QUICK IS IT AT DELIVERING
A SERVICE FOR VULNERABLE CHILDREN AND THOSE WHO OFFEND?

INTRODUCTION

If children are at risk or in need of protection, it is important to deliver effective and appropriate services or interventions quickly to keep them safe and improve their welfare. Research also points to the increased effectiveness of interventions to tackle offending behaviour if they are delivered as soon as possible after the offence, when the young person can still remember what happened.

For these reasons the Children's Hearings system has had Time Intervals standards since

1 April 1999. There are fifteen standards in total which cover every stage of action by every agency from the police, through the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration to local authorities. Taken together they help to show how quickly effective action has been taken overall.

Ministers have set real store by encouraging and facilitating improved performance by all agencies in partnership in Scotland. The Time Intervals overall standard suggests that the maximum time for action should be between 80-120 working days depending on the complexity of the case. Cases involving welfare considerations may need longer if a Safeguarder has to be appointed, or complex proof hearings are needed in the Sheriff Court. By 2001-02 agencies had progressed to delivering action for those who offend in an average of 134 calendar days and for those with primarily welfare needs in 168 calendar days (source: SCRA statistics). Audit Scotland and others have pointed to the inadequacy of this performance. This report publishes the data on performance in 2002-03 and shows the extent of progress at that time.

The 32 Local Authority Review Groups comprising: Social Work, Children's Panel, SCRA, Scottish Courts Service, Education Department, Police, Crown Office and NHS are responsible for submitting the data, including contributions from all local agencies. LARGs work in partnership and have to be supported by, and accountable to, Chief Executives and senior officers who are responsible for setting clear expectations as to the improvements in reporting and performance that are required. This data is therefore self-reported and has not been separately audited at a national level. Overall performance is monitored by the Children's Hearings Representative Group assisted by the Time Intervals Monitoring Group.

NEW MONITORING ARRANGEMENTS

As can be seen from the data in this report, it has proved difficult for local teams to assemble comprehensive, accurate and timeous data. This has led to a far greater focus and manpower effort in attempting to record the information for reports such as this, rather than using real-time, quality data as a management tool to improve performance.

Whilst nationally the hearings system is delivering more quickly, progress is not fast enough to predict confidently that the national youth justice standards on timely assessment and processing will be met by 2006.

The Executive responded to the difficulties experienced by the TIMG and local agencies by suggesting earlier this year that the Time Intervals process should be reviewed. The aim was to make it easier for accurate local and national data to be made available to assist the performance improvement process.

Having consulted all agencies over the summer, it has been agreed that a sub-set of key standards should be monitored much more regularly. It has also been possible to identify data sources which release local teams from the burden of collection. On a monthly basis, the new SCRA database will provide each Director of Social Work with a report showing completion of assessment reports within 28 working days at both a local authority and national level.

On a quarterly basis, ACPO(S) will draw together data on performance by each police force. SCRA will report on performance locally and nationally on completing assessments, the Reporters' decision-making, and overall timescales. Local authorities will report on delivery of services and implementing non-residential supervision requirements.

ADSW, CoSLA, ACPO(S), SCRA and the Executive will meet quarterly to review progress and decide action priorities for the next quarter. We look to this joint impetus to ensure that key standards are met quickly and that overall time performance can be improved. The Executive will continue to collect full data on every standard on an annual basis to ensure trends in performance can be monitored.

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS IN 2002-03

• Almost all areas and agencies were able to demonstrate some improvement on the previous year's performance.
• Around one third of local authorities deliver a service on time to children following a Hearing.
• No agency in Scotland uniformly met all of its targets in all areas.
• Two of the eight police forces met their target and the achievement of the best forces is a standard which the others are striving to meet.
• Only one local authority met the target for assessing young people.
• A direct comparison with social work vacancy rates and performance does not hold with the lowest performing authority in the country having the fewest vacancies, and the best performer having above an above average vacancy rate.
• The Scottish Children's Reporter Administration met none of their standards in every area. On an average overall national basis, SCRA did meet the target to make decisions about 60% of referrals in 50 working days.
• The delivery of key mental health reports could not be monitored as only one area sent data on this service.

DELIVERY BY DIFFERENT AGENCIES

Police

Only 2 out of the eight police forces in Scotland met their target to deliver a report on the offending incident to the Reporter within 14 calendar days of arrest and charge. Dumfries and Galloway joined Tayside in delivering on time. Central Scotland is the lowest performing force in the country.

Local Authorities

Only one authority (East Renfrewshire), met the agreed standard to deliver 75% of assessments to the Reporter within 20 working days. A number of authorities improved their performance on last year: Aberdeen City; Aberdeenshire; Angus; East Lothian; East Renfrewshire; Edinburgh; Glasgow; Highland; Midlothian; North Lanarkshire; Perth and Kinross; and West Dunbartonshire.

The top 6 authorities were East Renfrewshire; Western Isles; South Ayrshire; West Lothian; Moray and Edinburgh. The bottom 6 were East Ayrshire; North Lanarkshire; Renfrewshire; South Lanarkshire; Glasgow and Stirling.

A better picture emerged on implementing a supervision requirement within 15 working days of a Hearing. Aberdeenshire, East Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Falkirk, North Ayrshire, West Dunbartonshire, West Lothian and the Western Isles all achieved this. Both Clackmannanshire and Glasgow had improved on their previous year's performance. However, this means that in around two thirds of areas a large number of children are still experiencing an unacceptable delay in receiving a service.

Staffing shortages were cited by Councils as a difficulty in meeting standards. We compared the vacancy rate within top performing and bottom performing authorities in producing assessments. Overall the vacancy trend was slightly higher in the lower performing authorities.

But there were clear anomalies. For example East Renfrewshire could meet the standard with 15% vacancies and the Western Isles just missed the target with 74% of reports on time despite 11% vacancies. In contrast North Lanarkshire delivered only 15% of reports on time with 13% vacancies and Stirling recorded only 2% vacancies yet could only manage 9% of reports on time.

This suggests that whilst the position on staffing vacancies improves there are actions that managers could take to improve performance. A number of authorities highlighted signs that national and local social work strategies were beginning to bear fruit.

SCRA

Children's Reporters are responsible for:

• taking a decision on a case within 50 working days of receipt of a referral and for informing the child and family of their decision within 5 working days. For both of those standards their target is 60% achievement.
• They should then schedule 90% of required hearings within 20 days of the decision and ensure at least 70% of Hearings are held in accommodation which meets their own minimum property standards.
• If a Safeguarder is appointed they should receive relevant papers within 3 days in 95% of cases. Following a Hearing the child and family should be sent written notification of the outcome within 5 working days for at least 60% of cases.

The Scottish Children's Reporter Administration achieved good performance against certain indicators in some areas, but did not meet all of its targets in every authority. SCRA got closest to the standards for taking a decision on a referral, for sending papers to Safeguarders and for sending written notifications to the family following a Hearing. Taking a

Scotland-wide approach to average performance, SCRA exceeded its target on making decisions on referrals. Scheduling Hearings within 20 days and meeting property standards appear to be areas where most progress is needed.

Information and communication technology in use for the period covered by this report did not yet permit the ready extraction and collation of all the data required by the time intervals standards. The SCRA national database (the RAD) was only available nationally from December 2002, which has contributed to some of the gaps in reporting, and SCRA were able to assist the process by reporting centrally only on standards 3, 4, 6 and 8. Some LARGs also report gaps between their different agencies. The SCRA database will be able to supply data fully covering 2003-04 and will extend to include reports on Standards 5, 10, 11 and 14 with part-year reporting on Standard 12.

Mental Health

We have again been unable to report on the delivery of mental health reports as only one local team sent data on performance in this area. The Executive will send this report separately to the Child Health Commissioners as well as local multi-disciplinary teams and invite them to identify ways to boost both performance and monitoring in this important area.

IMPROVEMENTS IN RESOURCES

The following developments have been introduced by the Executive in the last year to assist child protection or youth justice work in the Hearings system:

• 7.8m invested to implement the youth crime action plan in 2002-03 alone, including funds for local authority assessment and IT procedures.
• The 11m Youth Crime Prevention Fund and 9m Intensive Support Fund started to increase the range of interventions available within the statutory and independent sectors, to assist implementation of Hearings decisions.
• New National Standards were agreed for youth justice services and draft standards are in the process of being developed for child protection work.
• The Fast Track Hearings pilot was launched in 3 local areas to test the effect that joint planning and targeted resourcing and management of services can have on delivery and outcomes for a group of particularly hard to reach young people. It will be evaluated over the 2-year life of the pilot, and includes time intervals targets of 80 working days in total.
• Changing Children's Services Fund monies will double to 65.5m by 2005-06, while Sure Start Scotland funding will more than double from 23m to 50m by 2005-06.

Scottish Executive
Education Department
December 2003

NATIONAL STANDARDS

Comparison of Performance between TI Returns for 2001-02 and 2002-03

Standards achieved in 2002-03 are marked in red.

*Indicates were authority has stated standard achieved in 2002-03, but no figures supplied.