Resource pressures in local partnerships make it hard to prioritise early help for children and families, report finds

A multi-agency report has revealed that some families should have been stepped up from early help to statutory social care earlier than they were, and that resource pressures across universal and targeted services in local partnerships make it hard to prioritise early help.

Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published findings from five joint targeted area inspections on the theme of the multi-agency response to children and families who need help.

The inspections, which took place between December 2022 and March 2023, uncovered some “excellent” early help practice, but also cases where children did not have lead professionals with the necessary skills and experience working with them, so they “did not benefit from the more robust systems for oversight of the child’s case that a lead professional should offer”.

The report notes that clear processes and clarity about the role of early help supports effective interventions for children and families.

It was found that the quality of information and decision-making varied between each area’s multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) or equivalent, meaning that families did not always receive a timely response to their needs.

The report also noted that some approaches in early help are too “adult-focused”.

“In developing a child-centred approach, areas must be both family-focused and child-centred”, said inspectors.

The report advised that it needs to be clear to professionals working with children and families across the partnership “exactly where thresholds apply”. Further, that those working directly with children and families should be made aware of the outcome of referrals made by them.

The inspectors stated: “We found examples of school staff thinking that a social care assessment referral meant a step up to statutory social care work. They did not understand that the assessment outcomes may have resulted in no further action. This introduces a risk if the referrer believes a child is being overseen by other professionals when they are not.”

The report comes as the Department for Education plans to merge targeted early help with child in need services as part of its children’s social care reforms, ‘Stable homes, built on love’’.

The inspectors warned that the lack of capacity across agencies is “likely to hinder progress in achieving the full vision of the reforms”.

The report added that the reforms need to remain “responsive to the specific weaknesses that we found in some local areas”. Including:

• A lack of prioritisation and oversight; partners in the multi-agency safeguarding arrangements (MASA) need to have effective oversight of early help.
• Weak processes such as no identified lead professional, assessment or plan.
• Lack of multi-agency working, particularly with schools.
• Children’s needs and risks not always being matched to lead professionals with sufficient skills, experience and knowledge.

The inspections found that early help services “worked well” when partners knew their communities well and tailored services to local need to make them accessible.

Looking at the issue of information sharing, the report warned that information-sharing and communication between partners was “varied across the different areas and needs to be improved”.

Inadequate information sharing was underpinned in some cases by poor recording, with some areas not recording information about the child’s ethnicity, culture or religion, the report found.

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.

Lottie Winson