Every Child Matters implementation update

Report: 6
Date: 17 May 2007
By: AC Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report provides members with details of the work undertaken by the MPS Every Child Matters (ECM) Programme Board and the MPS position in delivering the ECM change agenda against the MPA benchmark.

A. Recommendation

That members consider the contents of this report against the MPA ECM benchmark and support the work being undertaken by the Every Child Matters Programme Board.

B. Supporting information

1. The Children Act 2004 is the legal framework for the Government’s national change programme ‘Every Child Matters – Change for Children’ and sets out a statutory requirement for all partner agencies working with children and young people to work in partnership to ensure that all children are able to achieve in life. Sec 10 sets out the duty for all agencies to cooperate to improve well-being and Sec 11 is a duty to promote safeguarding and well-being.

2. The full Every Child Matters (ECM) statutory requirement does not come into effect until April 2008 although there has been some phased introduction of specialist multi-agency ECM activity such as the establishing of Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB). The MPS must have its ECM compliance business processes in place and have relevant staff trained by no later than April 2008. The statutory guidance sets out in some detail the expectations for all statutory agencies, including the police.

3. The benchmark grid created by the MPA to be used as an oversight of the MPS development of the ECM change for children agenda will clearly set out the current MPS position against each of the requirements to be addressed. The development of the work within the grid will be subject of regular review by the ECM Programme Board and will be available for future PPRC reports. The initial version is included as Appendix 1.

Oversight of Police Force policy 1 - Senior management commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children with a clear line of accountability within the organisation

4. To ensure that the MPS is able to deliver the statutory requirements of the Children Act the ECM Programme Board currently chaired at Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) level, by Commander Rod Jarman, was formed in September 2005. The Programme Board has a dedicated programme manager Inspector Alan Hodges and police staff administration support.

5. The ECM programme board meets bi-monthly and the work undertaken is circulated to partner organisations and the MPA. This includes a Programme plan, risk register and a Sec 11 benchmarking document, all of which are subject to regular review and updates, the MPA Oversight of Force Policy will be included in this work.

6. The programme board consists of senior MPS officers and staff representing the business groups whose work is directly impacted by the ECM agenda and who can contribute to ensuring the MPS is able to meet our statutory requirements. To ensure that the MPS consider the strategic issues and impact on the work by partner agencies, membership of the programme board includes; a Director of Children Services, who also represents the Association of London Directors of Children Services (ALDCS); a Deputy Director of Children and Learning from Government Office for London (GOL); a member of the Safeguarding Independent Advisory Group (SIAG) and Richard Sumray who represents the MPA.

7. As part of the improvements to working in partnership, the MPS has made a commitment that it is represented on each Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB). The representatives are able to speak for the organisation with authority, commit their organisation on policy and practice matters and hold their organisation to account.

8. At a borough level, the MPS has set a clear minimum standard to ensure the correct level of engagement is maintained with local partner agencies, through the LSCB and where they exist, the Children Trusts. The MPS position is that membership of LSCBs will be at Senior Management Team (SMT) level from the borough. Additionally the Detective Inspector of the Child Abuse Investigation Team (SCD5) for that local authority area will also be part of the LSCB. This enables the LSCB to tackle those issues around keeping children and young people safe with the full support of the MPS.

9. Attendance at LSCB meetings is monitored and in the financial year between April 2006 and March 2007, the MPS was represented at 155 of the 160 meetings, this equates to 97% of all LSCB meetings.

10. Through a performance needs analysis (PNA) the MPS has identified five key areas of change that need to be implemented to ensure that the ECM change agenda is achieved. They are: Improved partnership working, training, safer recruiting, information communication technology (ICT) and Information Sharing.

11. To deliver the key changes two project teams have been formed, the ECM People Project and ECM Systems Project. Each project team is chaired by a Senior Police Officer and has clear terms of reference.

12. The ECM People Project team is chaired by a Detective Superintendent and will deliver, an MPS ECM safeguarding policy and system operating procedure (SOP), develop training, develop the role of a safeguarding single point of contact (SPOC) and develop MPS safe recruiting standards for staff working with children and young people.

13. The ECM Systems Project team is chaired by a Detective Chief Superintendent and will deliver, an MPS ECM ICT solution, a safeguarding children intelligence handling process and a safeguarding children information sharing process.

Oversight of Police Force policy 2 - The police force should ensure that all officers and staff are familiar with the force commitment and responsibilities under ECM.

14. To raise awareness of the ECM change for children agenda, a communication process has been put into place to ensure that all staff are made aware of their responsibilities. A full communication strategy is now being developed to ensure that appropriate and timely awareness is raised across the whole MPS workforce that will coincide with ECM specific training.

15. Awareness work already undertaken includes the creation of an ECM intranet WEB page, and the publishing on the MPS intranet home page of a statement of responsibility, which includes a link to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) ‘What to do if’ booklet which offers guidance to all professionals and the general public on what to do if they have a concern about a child.

16. Two ECM awareness conferences have been delivered in the past 14 months, these have been aimed at police officers who represent the MPS at LSCB meetings and those staff who are already working in partnership roles throughout the MPS that impact on children and young people. These days have involved external speakers, representing DfES, the London Council, ALDCS, Barnardos, HMIC and MPS speakers who have covered subjects such as Serious Case Reviews, Child Death Reviews, Child Abuse through Sexual Exploitation, and updates on the delivery of the ECM agenda within the MPS. At the most recent event, invites were extended to police colleagues from the police forces surrounding the MPS area.

18. In February 2007 a half day consultation day was organised for Borough Commanders or their SMT representatives, this event was designed to give a briefing on what work was being done and on how the boroughs could contribute to the process as well as to debate the key issues highlighted in this report that need to be delivered.

19. Part of the ongoing awareness campaign has involved the ECM Manager delivering a presentation on ECM to staff working in roles where there is already a requirement that they understand the ECM change for children agenda, this includes Detective Inspectors working on the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5), Safer Schools Police Officers (SSP), and Safer Neighbourhood Officers attending the safer neighbourhoods initial course. In July 2007 four training days have been designed for all officers working in Safer Schools Partnerships (SSP) and the Youth Offending Teams (YOT), the emphasis of these days will be to improve working practices and look at how ECM sits within their roles and their responsibilities.

Training to be delivered

20. The training needs analysis (TNA) has identified that in order to ensure that the MPS is meeting its responsibilities to safeguard children and meet our responsibilities under the Children Act 2004 and to maximise our opportunity for contributing towards the safeguarding children agenda. It is necessary to deliver ECM training to relevant MPS personnel prior to April 2008 and to ensure training is available for new personnel joining the MPS after this date.

21. The MPS does not have existing training that complies with the requirements of the Children Act although there is training provided around child abuse which is given to new recruits and as part of the probationer development training. Some additional training is given to newly-promoted uniformed inspectors as part of the leadership course and police officers joining the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5) are given bespoke training. Four levels of training have been identified for MPS staff.

• Level 1 - Introduction to ECM
• Level 2 - ECM Foundation
• Level 3 - ECM Investigation
• Level 4 - ECM Managers

Level 1

22. All operational police roles including PCSOs and specialist roles, should be trained how to identify and submit (pre and post intervention) intelligence relating to child safeguarding using a new ECM Pre-Assessment checklist (PAC) electronic form based on the 5 key outcomes of ECM – Be Healthy, Stay Safe, Enjoy & achieve, Make a Positive contribution & Economic Well being. It has been identified that this training will need to be delivered to up to 38,000 MPS staff. This training will be delivered by the MPS.

Level 2

23. Police roles working directly with children as part of their operational function, where they have the opportunity to build relationships with children, such as police officers working as SSP or YOT and MPS staff working with Volunteer Police Cadets or in youth engagement activities. It has been identified that this training will need to be delivered to up to 1,200 MPS staff. This training will be delivered through the multi agency training that is being created on behalf of the LSCBs through each Local Authority’s training departments.

Level 3

24. Police roles that routinely investigate cases involving children, should already be attending the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5) delivered 10-day ‘child protection’ course which will be adapted to include relevant ECM elements. It has been identified that this training will need to be delivered to up to 500 additional police officers that do not currently access this training such as those working within Public Protection roles. This training will be delivered by the MPS.

Level 4

25. Senior police officers responsible for managing staff routinely investigating offences committed against children. It has been identified that this training will need to be delivered to up to 200 police officers. This training will be delivered by the MPS.

26. The MPS Training Management Board met on 23 April 2007 to discuss the ECM training proposals. It has been agreed that training will be delivered to MPS staff at all levels set out above. The Level 1 training being delivered as a 3-hour classroom package will enable staff to fully understand the issues and their responsibilities. This will also ensure that the cultural and mind set changes required within the workforce are understood so that MPS staff are able to contribute to helping the children of London achieve the five key outcomes.

27. It is planned that the level 1 training programme will begin to be delivered from January 2008 to coincide with changes to safeguarding practices and to ensure that, once trained, staff are able to make use of their knowledge and have the appropriate process in paces to record, analyse and disseminate safeguarding information.

Oversight of Police Force policy 3 - Service development takes account of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare and is informed, where appropriate, by the views of children and families

28. The draft MPS Children and Young People policy document, which is currently being updated, is clearly written with ECM as the core theme throughout. The creation of an MPS Youth Strategy Group to be chaired by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Rose Fitzpatrick will enable the coordination of all policing issues that impact on children and young people. Through the ECM change for children agenda, the MPS is seeking to ensure that children are considered in all policies. As part of their consultation on the Age strand of the Equalities Scheme, the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate have been requested to ensure that, children and young people under the age of 18, are considered as a distinct group that should be considered when creating all future policies and reviewing the current policies.

29. As one of the partner agencies working to deliver ECM in the local authority areas the MPS is part of local consultation exercises that have been undertaken, this includes the consultation with children and young people over the development of the local Children and Young people Plans.

30. The MPS, through the Safer Neighbourhoods Unit, has recently conducted a youth survey which was aimed at school aged children in years 7 to years 13, this survey identified key issues for children especially on the subject of staying safe. All Safer Neighbourhood Teams are now required to have at least one ‘youth defined’ local priority and to improve engagement of young people in community problem solving initiatives.

Oversight of Police Force policy 4 - Effective inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children

31. The involvement of the borough police with LSCB and the development of Children and Young People Plans will improve local working but challenges identified that need to be addressed are:

• Improvements in joint working between police and social services departments outside of the Child Abuse Command,
• Improvements needed around communication and sharing of information, especially tackling issues affecting children who are at risk of sexual exploitation,
• Appropriate attendance by borough police officers at case conferences where concerns about the children considered most at risk of abuse are discussed in multi agency meetings to decide on a protection plan (formerly the Child Protection Registers). The involvement of borough police is key in ensuring that necessary information is shared across all agencies and appropriate risk assessments are made. It requires managers of those borough units concerned e.g. Community Safety Units dealing with cases of Domestic Violence, to instil upon their staff the importance of such joint working.

32. The Children’s Act 2004 requires greater sharing of information between all agencies working with children and young people. For the police service this means:

• Agreeing and signing up to information sharing protocols
• Accessing the 32 different London Common Assessment Framework systems
• Inputting data and searching ‘ContactPoint’ the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) National Information Sharing Index.

33. Each local authority area is developing its own information sharing protocol. A single protocol would be of benefit to the MPS, however this is unlikely. The MPS will be required to sign 32 different protocols although through consultation with the police and advice from the MPS Information Sharing Unit there should be a common standard.

34. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) will have a significant impact on Policing. Implementation of this Framework requires the MPS to review the way information on children at potential risk of harm is processed. Current policy requires officers to report interactions with children at potential risk of harm by way of a Merlin ‘coming to notice’ report, which is then automatically forwarded to the local Child Abuse Investigation Team. Following development of the information – including a risk assessment – information is generally passed to social services for their information. SCD5 process over 112,000 Merlin reports a year and this requirement places a growing burden on ‘referrals desks’.

35. Recent analyses of the instances of police recording information about children and young people has identified that yearly around 500,000 records are made on various ICT and paper systems across London.

36. The CAF process is likely to significantly increase the notifications of children as the threshold for recording this information is significantly lowered so that children and young people who are not achieving the Every Child Matters five Key outcomes can be identified. As such, a sizeable increase in the number of notifications called a Pre Assessment Checklist (PAC) will be generated. It is not appropriate for the SCD5 referral desks to assess these reports as they are below the threshold that would require investigation of abuse and the volume would be difficult to manage.

37. The challenge for the MPS is to develop an alternative system for recording the information and how to manage it. This work is currently part of the ECM Systems Project.

38. Each local authority area is developing its own CAF process. An attempt by London Councils (formerly the ALG) to create a pan London e-CAF system not been supported by the DfES and this will mean that each local authority will be looking to develop their own e-CAF processes on different timescales. The MPS will not be able to manage 32 different implementations and will look to develop the CAF process at a time when all 32 local processes are operational. A CAF working group has been set up within the MPS and involves a local authority CAF coordinator. From June 2007, the MPS will be part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s CAF pilot. Police officers working as part of a safer neighbourhood team (SNT) within the St Charles Ward will be recording concerns about children and young people not achieving any of the five key outcomes. This pilot is planned to last for six months and will be subject of regular reviews. The project lead is the Community Safety and Partnership Inspector for Kensington and Chelsea.

39. ‘ContactPoint’ which was formerly referred to as the ‘National Information Sharing Index’, is currently being developed by the DfES and will contain specific information of all children up to the age of 18 living in England. Access to the system will enable all professionals working with children to identify if there are concerns about that child and will provide contact details for the professional who will have additional information that could help to safeguard that child. The MPS is currently working closely with ContactPoint advisors to establish how MPS electronic systems will be able to link with the index to enable information to be inputted as well as allowing appropriate MPS staff to have searching access. The DfES have required all partner agencies to complete a case management system (CMS) and workforce analyses work by September 2007. The MPS has completed the CMS analysis and are in the process of completing the workforce analysis.

Oversight of Police Force policy 5 - Operational policies

40. As part of the changes being implemented within the MPS, an improved process of recording information about children taken into police protection, under Section 46 Children Act 1989 has been devised. This will ensure that all children who are taken into police protection are identified, ensuring that appropriate inter agency action is taken. Use of the Crime Reporting Information System (CRIS) as the means to record this information, will allow for the appropriate details and levels of supervision to be put in place in an electronic format that can be accessed by relevant staff, especially staff working within the CAITs. The introduction of this new process will be supported through a communication strategy and local training, as well as being part of existing training given on the MPS leadership course to Sergeants and Inspectors on promotion.

41. To ensure that the MPS is employing a workforce that is safe to work with children, the ECM People project are looking at safe recruiting practices. This will include a review of our process of dealing with allegations that are made against staff working with children.

42. The Children Act 2004 requires employers to ensure that all staff that work with children and young people are safe to do so and with this is an expectation that those staff are subject of enhanced CRB checks. Through work already undertaken by the ECM Manager and the Standards and Intelligence Command (SCD26) it has been accepted by the DfES that the MPS vetting standards are equivalent if not superior to CRB checks. Additionally, agreement has been given by the DfES for the police service in England to have access to LIST 99 and the Prevention of Offences against Children Act (POCA) list. This will enable the MPS to have access to all information currently accessed by CRB.

43. The challenge now is for the MPS to identify all roles that involve working with children and young people. An MPS policy is being created which will clearly set out which roles will require vetting prior to a person being employed in that post, this requirement already exists for staff who work as Child Abuse Investigators, SSP, YOTs and as Volunteer Police Cadet Coordinators (VPCC).

44. The DfES ‘Working Together’ document clearly sets out the process by which all agencies should work in partnership and investigate concerns about abuse. Part of this book sets out new procedures to be implemented by April 2008 to deal with allegations against a professional person working with children and young people. It also sets out the role of a Lead Allegations Designated Officer (LADO) working on behalf of the LSCB and the need to keep them updated on progress of investigations. The MPS has held a number of meetings with the DfES Allegation Advisors to ensure that police are able to meet the requirements of Working Together. The two challenges facing the MPS are the timescales advised for the process of investigation which are in conflict with current Police Discipline Regulations and the definition of a police officer or staff member working with children. The MPS is part of a national ACPO led working group and will make recommendations on how to deal with this issue through the ECM People project to the ECM Programme Board.

C. Race and equality impact

1. Every Child Matters has clear and distinct equality and diversity implications. It aims to ensure that policies and services are designed around the needs and well being of children and young people. The ethos of the Children Act is quite explicit, 'every child matters' irrespective of race or other social attribute. The key point is that the main area of vulnerability is age and all children should receive the services they need, including the need for protection.

D. Financial implications

Information Communication Technology (ICT)

1. Section 12 of the Children Act 2004 sets out the statutory requirement for the Government to create a National Information Sharing (IS) index, this index will record information about all persons under the age of 18 years living in England. The index is now referred to as ‘ContactPoint’.

2. The MPS is required to develop an ICT system that can electronically link to the ContactPoint to enable a search and to populate the index with the name and contact details within a police force where the police consider they hold important information to share with partner agencies relating to the person. DOI has agreed in their 2007 –2008 bidding process to fund this project up to £600,000.

3. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a process to record and assess the needs of a child or young person who is not achieving one of the five key outcomes. MPS staff will not be involved in completing the assessment, but there is a requirement to ensure that information gathered as a result of police interaction about these children is recorded by MPS staff on a PAC and shared with partner agencies. The ICT solution for this process has not been identified but current systems already used within the MPS can be adapted to meet the requirement, this will require some funding.

Training

4. There are no additional design or development costs anticipated for the delivery of the ECM Training. The anticipated costs will result from the opportunity costs caused through the abstraction of staff away from their core roles. Table 1 sets out the opportunity costs anticipated for ECM training. Appendix 2 shows the full breakdown of ECM training requirements.

Table 1 – Total Abstractions and Opportunity Costs for ECM training

Safe recruiting

5. The MPS currently require staff working within specific roles that involve contact with children and young people to be vetted to an enhanced level. Guidance contained within the Children Act 2004 requires all agencies whose staff work with or come into contact with children and young people to ensure that they have safe recruiting policies in place, for organisations this means being subject to an enhanced CRB check.

6. The MPS will need to review the current vetting procedures to ensure that all staff working with or who come into contact with children and young people are subject to an enhanced vetting process.

7. The full costs for this provision are not known

Contributions to LSCBs

8. Since the financial year 2005/2006, the MPS has provided funding towards the LSCB. Currently £240,000 is paid to the London Councils who distribute £5,000 to each of the 32 London LSCB. The remaining funds, £80,000 are used for work connected to the London Safeguarding Children Board. The MPS also provide funding in kind through partnership initiatives through SCD5 such as Project Violet and Project Indigo and by assisting with the current partner agency joint investigation and Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) training.

9. However, LSCBs are now asking for all partner agencies including the police to increase their contributions. Whilst these requests have so far been refused, they are likely to continue and there is a real risk that such refusals may be misinterpreted as a lack of police commitment and/or cooperation. .

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Inspector Alan Hodges, Territorial Policing, Safer Neighbourhoods Unit, MPS.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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