NOMINATED OFFICER NEWSLETTER

NEWS

The second annual NW Provider Conference will be taking place on the 19th May 2008 and a representative group of providers are helping with the planning and organisation of the event, which will be at the Haydock Park Racecourse. Invitations will shortly be sent out to all 21 participating NW Local Authorities but keep logging onto the website as all information about the event will be available via the www.placementsnorthwest.org.uk website. For those of you who are able to attend it will be a chance to meet people involved with Placements NW and network with Local Authority Commissioners and Contract Officers and colleagues from the Independent and Voluntary childcare sector.

NEW TEAM MEMBER

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Jacqueline Jobbi to Placements NW to the position of Contract Performance Officer. Jacqueline will be based with Adrian at the Hyde office and will be supporting the Placements Commissioning Coordinator and other members of the Placement North West team with various Provider Compliance and Monitoring projects and initiatives but in particular with the administration of the Regional Fostering Scheme.

JOINT WORKING GROUPS UPDATE

The aim and objective of these groups, which are coordinated by Placements NW, is to facilitate consultation and discussion between purchasers and providers promoting an integrated approach to encourage the provision of sustainable services for children and young people in care and education. Group members are responsible for wider consultation and dissemination of information within their own networks.

RESIDENTIAL

The individual outcomes monitoring pilot agreed by the Residential Joint Working Group is now underway with all members of the Group participating in the pilot. Monitoring information continues to be collated by Placements North West. Work is also progressing to develop Registration and renewal documents. The Group is scheduled to meet again on 8th April 2008

The second Residential Provider Network Forum meeting is scheduled for 21 April which will ensure that maximum communication and consultation with the wider provider network is achieved. Placements NW will be present alongside other Purchaser representatives from the Residential Joint Working Group.

FOSTERING

The individual outcomes monitoring process pilot is ongoing and the Pilot will gradually be expanded to include more Provider organisations and will be ongoing until around September 2008. Monitoring information continues to be collated by Placement North West.

The next meeting of the Group is scheduled for 22nd April 2008. Placements North West are working with Local Authority Contract Officers and Providers to develop a NW Fostering Contract. Wider consultation will be undertaken as soon as an advanced draft document is available. David Smith is representing the North West on the Working Group for the National Fostering Contract developments and hopes to influence the development of the National Contract which, if on schedule, will be launched in September 2008.

The management and administration of the Regional Fostering Scheme was transferred from Manchester City Council to Placements North West on the 1st February. Placements North West look to forward to building on the excellent foundations developed by Manchester over the last few years with the support of the Regional Fostering Panel. Panel Meetings are now held on a six week cycle and the next meeting is scheduled for the 11th April at Manchester Town Hall. As the scheme has now expanded to incorporate the Greater Merseyside and Cheshire Authorities, Placements North West would be very interested in hearing from any Contracting or Commissioning representatives who would be interested in joining the Panel and contributing to the provider monitoring programme. Please call David Smith for an informal chat and more information. Further details relating to the development of the scheme will also be sent you in the next few weeks.

EDUCATION

The Education Group has made significant progress in developing Placements NW registration and annual registration renewal documentation and the documents are being piloted with willing provider volunteers from the Group during March. The Group has also developed a ‘Standard Fee’ document which will be included in the pilot. Next steps for the Group will be to develop an Organisational monitoring document and a children’s ‘Outcomes’ monitoring document. The Group is next scheduled to meet on 10th April 2008

LEAVING CARE

The Leaving Care Group has also been working hard to develop Placement NW documents for Leaving Care Services and the documents are at an advanced draft stage and will be piloted shortly with a representative group of providers. Considerable work has been done to develop a ‘standard fee’ document which will encourage greater transparency about the level of fees for Leaving Care services.

Progress continues to develop a Regional Leaving Care Contract and it is hoped that an advanced draft document will be ready shortly, which will be circulated to the LA Contract Officers for comment before being sent for legal scrutiny. The Group is next scheduled to meet on 7th April 2008.

It has recently been highlighted that Organisations are increasingly being asked to provide services for parents and babies/children. Jean Warren would like to hear from anyone who has experience/views in relation to this
It is recognised that one of the major objectives of this Group is to establish a linked Leaving Care Provider Network in the region to ensure that maximum communication and consultation is achieved. Clearly, this will allow all provider stakeholders to have an input and influence future direction. In view of this, the Group’s representatives are interested in hearing from any Leaving Care Providers in the NW, willing to attend and contribute to the establishment of such Provider led meetings the first of which will be facilitated by Placements NW.
Please direct any initial expressions of interest or enquiries from Providers to Jean at: jean_warren@btinternet.com

PIMS (PLACEMENT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM)

With the start of registration for organisations and establishments shortly there are going to be some significant improvements in the quality and volume of information available to users of PIMS to support them in identifying potential out of authority placements. Users will be able to read the registration documents on PIMS as well as the latest OFSTED reports and action plans. This is a significant step forward to improve the usefulness of PIMS for the NW LAs.

Alongside organisations and establishments registration information there are new search categories in PIMS which allow users to search for providers by the services they are registered to provide with OFSTED/DCSF. This will help LA Officers to identify potential placements

Fostering Providers/Purchasers have been somewhat ill served by PIMS in the past and work is ongoing to improve the quality and quantity of information in PIMS to help identify placements. The first step will be the registration of fostering organisations and a new process for recording vacancies which will be sent to providers shortly. Furthermore planning is underway to develop the categories of provision that can be recorded on the system and add the ranking system developed by the Regional Fostering Panel onto PIMS.

PIMS is a system developed by PNW on behalf of member LAs. As such PIMS should meet the needs of its users; if PIMS does not do what you need it to, or if you have ideas for developments please let us know as we will try our utmost to add the functionality you want or need.

NATIONAL CONTRACTS

The National Residential Care Contract launched and an Implementation and Monitoring Group has been convened with representatives from the independent and voluntary residential sector and commissioners. The group will monitor the implementation of the Framework over the first twelve months and will undertake a review of the Framework in September 2008. Further consultation with young people will take place during this twelve month pilot period. The NW Steering Group is pleased to support and adopt the National Contract but there will be an addendum to the Contract which will outline variations relating to a couple of the clauses. The draft addendum clauses are available for comment. These clauses will be reviewed at the end of the initial 12 month implementation period and Placements North West will feedback and update the National Contracts Steering Group on a regular basis'

A National Fostering Contract is being developed, building on the work already undertaken by the Residential Working Group. Placements NW are actively involved in this development which is being coordinated by Sue Brunton-Reed, an Independent Consultant commissioned by the DCSF. The timescale for developing the Contract is September 2008. The DCSF have agreed to support the development of National Leaving Care & Secure Accommodation contracts.

INFLATIONARY FEE INCREASE

It is proposed that future fee negotiations will be based around a fair price for the quality of care provided and there will be a clear link between performance and the fee paid. Developments are ongoing to establish a process for evaluating Provider performance, both in terms of organisational best practice, the detail in the ‘standard fee’ and individual placement outcomes. Many of these enhanced processes will shortly be incorporated within the Placements Information Management System (PIMS)

So far as the 2008/09 fee negotiations are concerned, a percentage uplift threshold was agreed by the Placements NW Steering Group in Dec 07. The Steering Group also agreed an approach to determining and recommending any exceptions, which are being coordinated by Placements NW. In this regard, Placements North West would like your views with regard to any providers who in your opinion should be considered for an increase above the agreed regionally agreed thresholds i.e. up to 2% for residential, fostering and leaving care providers and up to 2.76% for education providers. To this end, if you have a recent placement history with any of the providers named below, we would be very grateful if you could complete an Authority Quality Assurance Provider Performance Assessment Form (attached). In order to impact any collective regional negotiation, forms should be completed and returned to David Smith as soon as possible:

Education

Witherslack Group
Nugent Care
SENAD
David Lewis
Hensley Group
Royal School for the Blind

Fostering
National Fostering Agency
Foster Care Associates
Alpha Plus

Residential
Together Trust

CONTACT US:

Education or Leaving Care: Jean Warren 07730435799
Residential or Fostering: David Smith 07816941525
PIMS / Management Information Enquiries: Adrian Rocks 0161 342 4256
Organisational Accreditation and Monitoring (Fostering): Jacqueline Jobbi 0161 342 4256

Further detailed communications relating to these and any other arrangements will be posted on the website shortly. However, if you require further information in the meantime please contact David, Jean, Adrian or Jacqueline via the above links.

If you have any comments relating to the content of this Newsletter or any observations relating to Placements North West, please do not hesitate to contact us.