Joint Area Review of Kent Children's Services

Good services, outstanding management and getting even better.

An independent inspection by OfSTED has graded services to children and young people in Kent as good with 'service management and capacity to improve' rated as outstanding. These are the key conclusions of the Joint Area Review (JAR) report published on 3 June. Please also see the JAR Action Plan for further details. The JAR involved a team of inspectors undertaking a rigorous review of key services provided to children and young people by Kent County Council (including schools) and partner agencies including health, the voluntary and community sector and district councils.

Findings are based on discussions with service users, examination of individual cases and interviews with frontline staff and managers. This places Kent amongs the top performing authorities in the country with only one other county achieving the same top rating.

Chris Wells, KCC Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Educational Standards, commented: "I am delighted that the skill, commitment and enthusiasm of all those working to improve the life chances of children and young people in Kent has been recognised by the inspectors. We know there is more to be done, so it is especially heartening that inspectors have confidence in our ability to improve even further. They have clearly recognised the moral philosophy that underpins all our work."

Main strengths identified in the JAR report

• Service management is outstanding overall with strong leadership across the partnership and clear political direction;
• There is a transformational agenda that drives the work of an enthusiastic and skilled multi-disciplinary workforce;
• Capacity to improve is outstanding, there is an impressive track record of dealing with problems while maintaining good or better value for money;
• Multi-agency child protection work is good, with well managed and in some instances innovative services;
• There is a demonstrable commitment to improving the life chances of looked after children. Effective action means the majority develop successfully in stable and excellent family placements;
• Good strategic direction and multi agency working to support children and young people with learning difficulties or disabilities is good;
• There is a strong strategy for 14 to 19 year-olds education and training, partners have successfully focused attention on vulnerable groups and have narrowed the gap in participation and attainment at ages 16 to 19;
• Services to reduce teenage conception rates and improve the sexual health of children and young people are adequate overall.

Recommendations for improvement

• That the local partnership should ensure that all eligible young people in care have a pathway plan;
• Health partners should:
• Improve IT and data collection with regard to teenage conception and sexual health;
• Prevent young people in need of in-house mental health services being admitted to adult psychiatric wards;
• Ensure there is sufficient and accessible specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health provision for children and young people with learning difficulties or disabilities;

Strengths which underpin main findings

Equalities and diversity

• The partnership has strong and developing commitment to equality and diversity. It has been successful in narrowing the gap between the majority of Kent's children and those vulnerable to poor educational outcomes.

Safeguarding

• There is good joint action taken in response to domestic violence, bullying and promoting community safety;
• There is an effective joint agency approach to the management of violent sex offenders;
• Children and young people in Kent say they feel safe and receive good quality information about keeping safe;
• Children and young people are supported well in developing socially and emotionally;
• Young carers are supported well to enable them to lead as normal a life as possible;
• Good action is taken to identify and reduce anti social behaviour.

Services for children and young people in care

• Due to good and concerted work the number of looked after children has decreased;
• The council is highly effective in achieving adoption placements;
• The number of care leavers engaged in education, employment or training reflects strong performance.

Support for children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities

• Agencies work particularly well together to ensure there is early identification and assessment of children's health and education needs. This is backed up by the provision of well co-ordinated and effective multi agency support;
• The necessary skills and commitment are to be found in many parts of the system;
• Provision for 14 - 19 year olds takes appropriate account of the needs of young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities (LDD). Transition from one type of education provision to another is well planned and supported throughout;
• Advice and guidance from Connexions is good particularly for the most vulnerable;
• Participation in education, employment or training by students from special schools improved significantly between 2004 and 2006.

Participation and attainment by age 19

• There have been substantial increases in participation in vocational education, with the 2010/11 target already exceeded due to the now excellent collaborative working between education and training advisers;
• There is a good range of alternative provision for school age young people excluded from school or at risk of becoming disengaged;
• There have been reductions in the proportion of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) to below comparators;
• Education attainment is continuing to improve and schools serving the most deprived communities are improving faster than the rest;
• Collaboration between Connexions and the youth service has made a major contribution to the development of education and training for 14 to 19 year olds and to the provision of high quality, targeted support for vulnerable young people;
• The extent and pace of improvement is impressive.

Teenage pregnancy

• There is good support to young parents to return to education and training and to meet the needs of their child;
• There is a wide range of established initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles as integral parts of a holistic, preventative approach to the sexual health and well being of young people;
• Well-planned sexual health education is widely available;
• Access to sexual health services is good, appropriately targeted at vulnerable groups and young people were very positive about these services.

Service management and capacity to improve

• There is a very strong drive to raise ambitions of all children and young people and where necessary challenge the cultural inhibitors that restrain them;
• A strong consensus exists across the partnership on key principles and development priorities. Extensive consultation with service users and providers has harnessed their engagement and support;
• There has been a steady pace of improvement particularly for the most vulnerable;
• Development of multi agency working at cluster level has had an energising effect, delivering better capacity that has had a much greater impact than the relatively modest additional funding deployed;
• The way in which ambitions are translated into more specific priorities for service development is outstanding;
• There is an effective performance driven culture. Elected members and service managers know the strengths and weaknesses of services very well and there is a rigorous approach to monitoring and challenging performance;
• The 2007 Annual Performance Assessment (APA) judged capacity to improve to be outstanding, since then the quality of service management and the effectiveness of partnership working has strengthened;

Other areas for development

• Increase the proportion of looked after children receiving health checks;
• Improve information and guidance for parents of children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities;
• Improve timescales and information about entitlements for securing housing adaptations for children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities;
• Improve the quality of accommodation and resources in alternative education centres;
• Further reduce the rate of teenage conceptions.

You can read the full Joint Area Review report and the Adobe PDF of this factsheet.