Placements Northwest: registration

The development of the regional registration and monitoring process incorporates a new regional approach which shifts away from the traditional method and practice of accreditation and moves towards a streamlined on line provider registration process. To compliment the registration stage we will be introducing and consolidating various regional monitoring initiatives in order for the region’s local authorities to eventually ascertain provider performance which in turn should assist their commissioning activity. This is essentially an initiative developed in partnership with North West based providers to establish an equitable, consistent and transparent approach to registration and monitoring. The registration of your organisation is the first stage of this process.

Categorisation of Providers

The Placements North West approach will be to prioritise registration and monitoring activity towards those providers with current or a recent placement history in the region. This approach is designed to maximise available regional resources effectively whilst emphasising our commitment to developing and working in partnership with service providers based in the North West.

As described below, our approach is to separate North West based provider provision from that located outside of the region. This is an exercise that will enable PNW to organise provider information on a geographical basis allowing Placements North West to maximise monitoring activities in the region. It must be stressed that is not in any way a judgement on the quality of provision.

Registration - Criteria and Guidance;

All NW based providers who have previously provided information on PIMS will be contacted and asked to complete the appropriate registration documentation.
Any provider interested in providing Children’s Services in the North West will be able to register by completing the appropriate registration documentation. This includes any recently established new provision.
Providers will initially be divided into two geographic categories: namely North West and Out of Region areas.
For the purposes of this process and guidance the North West will be defined as any provision located within the geographic boundaries of the 21 participating local authorities plus an additional 20 miles radius to include those providers just outside the North West boundary.
Any providers within this additional extra 20 mile radius will be included in the NW category as recognition of Every Child Matters policy and an acknowledgement that although not geographically inside the North West region, these providers may in fact be looking after a child or young person, who has been placed by a NW local authority, whose usual residence is just inside the NW region.
Any borderline cases geographically, will be considered on request, taking into account the specialist nature of provision as well as placement history. This is intended to be a flexible approach and is clearly not designed to discriminate against any provider outside of the NW region but recognises that regional monitoring activities needs to concentrate on NW based provision as much as possible.
Any provider located outside this area will be categorised as being an ‘Out of Region’ service provider. All information provided by this category of provider will be held on the database for information and available as required by the participating local authorities. However, much of this information will be not validated by Placements North West except in exceptional cases when the specialist nature of the provision and placement frequency dictates otherwise. Local Authorities will be advised accordingly and may wish to request further information independently.
North West based providers will be asked to comply with additional monitoring activities and these requirements are summarised under Stage 3 below.

Registration and Monitoring – Process

Organisation Registration: This gathers key information on the company and is completed once and then updated annually. This holds information on the organisations financial viability, business structure etc. More information regarding how we will undertake this work will be available shortly
Service Specific Registration: This focuses on specific service information. It contains information such as the OFSTED reports relating to your service.
Financial Information: This relates to your fees and the service category offered by your service and acknowledges the core cost specification if this has been developed for your service either regionally or nationally.

This method of monitoring is currently well established for the Fostering Sector in the North West and is essentially an Annual Quality Assurance Report which allows the provider to evidence areas of good practice during the preceding 12 months. Submissions are assessed and scored by the Regional Fostering Panel (participating Local Authorities). The main criteria for selection are that the provider has a NW office base; NW focused Ofsted Report and has NW placement activity. The scores will eventually go towards each provider regional performance ‘ranking’. This model of organisational monitoring and others are currently being considered by the other 3 PNW Joint Working Groups for possible future use.

In accordance with the requirements of ‘Every Child Matters’ and in line with new National Contracts initiatives all stakeholders recognise the need to be able to focus on measuring provider performance in terms of improving individual outcomes for children and young people. There is clearly a need for providers to assist with this development by reporting on individual outcomes progress. The process is still at the ‘pilot’ stage in the NW but it will soon become an essential part of the monitoring process. Again, provider performance assessment and agreed scores will eventually go towards each provider’s regional performance ‘ranking’.

Registration and Monitoring - Categorisation, Criteria and Process.

Background

Categorisation of Providers

Registration - Criteria and Guidance;

Registration and Monitoring – Process

Frequently Asked Questions