31 May Our reaction to the Children’s Social Care Independent Review

Last week, the final report of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was published. Commissioning Alliance welcomes the Review’s recommendations – we are comforted that one of the outlined solutions for improving Children’s Social Care is commissioning at scale and with better data.

However, it is crucial that there is a national solution to this national challenge, and that the recommended Regional Commissioning Cooperatives (RCCs) do not work in silos. The experience of existing commissioning consortia is that, even with 19+ member authorities, we have been unable to affect the change we need. A genuinely new, national approach is required.

Inter-RCC Working

The proposed RCC system must include strategic coordination and shared data. Any new operating model needs a national strategic framework that:

• Outlines what we are collectively trying to achieve
• Works, with similar approaches, to a nationally agreed set of standards – contracts, systems integration, data collection and sharing
• Allows RCCs to cooperate and collaborate with each other – on individual placement making and strategic market management

Without the above, there is a risk that we are simply creating the same competition between commissioners for placements that we have now, just at a far greater scale. Working at scale brings many opportunities for reform, but if implemented without a coherent national strategy for inter-RCC working, it may inadvertently lead to greater fragmentation.

A new approach to data & process

Data and process are key issues for local authorities and providers alike – these are not regional issues.

We need to be better able to understand what our children and young people need, and what solutions and services work best for them. We need to be able to spot and understand gaps and trends in the market to better forecast this going forward (CMA highlighted the lack of good data and forecasting, attributing to the problem statement in their final report on the CSC market).

But, crucially, we need to manage data about young people better. The information we collect about the children and young people in care is too often siloed and non-transferable – both between local authorities, and between local authorities and providers – meaning we require the children and young people themselves to share their information over and over.

We must agree a national data standard and a charter to which all those in the system can sign up. We must work together to improve the way the markets work. And we must ensure a better experience for children and young people through better data.

Strategic coordination, consistency, shared data and collaboration must be at the very heart of our approach to children’s social care, if we are to achieve the CSC Independent Review’s aspirations for the future.

The full final report can be read here: Final Report – The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (independent-review.uk)