UPDATE NO 329 23 November 2018

Self-Assessment and Peer Challenge Training Event Friday 30 November

The training and preparation day for February’s Peer Challenge events will be held on the morning of Friday 30 November at Easthampstead Park. Thank you to the 40 delegates who have registered with Isabelle Gregory (contact details below).

We have now had positive responses from everyone, and we look forward to seeing colleagues at the end of the month. We understand that events can get in the way of attending sessions like this. We already know of one Ofsted inspection that has landed on this date. Isabelle (contact details below) is on hand to help you react to your circumstances and to make sure that one way or another we accommodate as many colleagues as possible.

The event will be led by Anna Wright and will take colleagues through the steps involved with producing a self assessment; getting independent feedback on it from the SESLIP team; sharing it with colleagues from your triad; how the challenge day will work; what the Regional Improvement Plan will contain; and its publication at the Regional Imprpvement Summit on Friday 22 March.

You will meet your triad partners, and colleagues from the SESLIP team.

Diary Dates for 2019-20 Regional Improvement Planning

30 November – training day at Easthampstead Park. 

17 December 2018 – submission of draft 2018-19 self-assessments

late Dec-to-early Jan – SESLIP independent commentary of draft self-assessments (opt-in service, please confirm with Isabelle)

mid-to-late Jan – self-assessments finalised and shared with triad partners

February – triad challenge days – see opposite

late Feb-to-early Mar – SESLIP team draft 2019-20 Regional Improvement Plan

22 March – Regional Improvement Summit

Triad 1 – East Sussex, Surrey and Wokingham on Thursday 28 February 2019

Triad 2 – Kent, Reading and Portsmouth on Monday 4 February 2019

Triad 3 – Hampshire and IoW, Milton Keynes and Slough on Friday 15 February 2019

Triad 4 – Medway, Oxfordshire and Windsor and Maidenhead also on Friday 15 February 2019

Triad 5 – Brighton and Hove, Buckinghamshire and West Berkshire on Tuesday 26 February 2019

Triad 6 – Bracknell Forest, Southampton and West Sussex on Wednesday 13 February 2019

Please contact Isabelle Gregory (details below) for detailed information for these events.

2018-19 SESLIP Memorandum of Understanding – Consultation Draft 23 November 2018

We have previously agreed that the SESLI Programme will undertake the responsibilities of a Regional Improvement Alliance from 2019-20 onwards. This requires significant changes to our Memorandum of Understanding. A consultation draft has been prepared and you are asked to consider the new provisions for third-party disclosure of concerns or worries about potential service failure; and for data sharing with DfE (see anonymised example here) and others.

Please read the proposed MoU and example anonymised external data sharing sheet and feed back your comments to Richard Tyndall (contact details below). There will be a debate about this item at the SE ADCS Branch Meeting on Friday 7 December, when the consultation will close.

Self-assessments by Monday 17 December and Independent Commentary “opt-in”

Rebecca Eligon, one of the SESLIP consultants, contact details below, has read all the 2017-18 self-assessments shared via the DCS-only restricted access page of the SESLIP website (please contact Isabelle, details below, for help with accessing this page).

This report was discussed at a recent Directors’ meeting and it was decided that we would encourage each authority to choose its own format for producing the 2018-19 self-assessments. Rebecca has some excellent insights into what makes a readable and accessible self-assessment document, and is available for one-to-one consultation with colleagues who are charged with creating these self-assessments. Please contact her direct to discuss the core content; the format; the things to avoid and other top tips.

Part of the SESLIP support for this process will be the offer of an independent commentary on your draft 2018-19 self-assessment, as long as you have contributed a draft by Monday 17 December. This commentary will include a sense-check against the latest data (SESLIP Data Profiles for each authority are avauilable from the DCS-only restricted access page of the SESLIP website) as well as other constructive feedback. This will be timetabled to allow you make any further amemdments ahead of circulation to triad partners in January. This is an “opt-in” process, and Isabelle has written to all DCSs asking them to confirm their choice.

Regional Improvement Plan 2019-20

After the triad challenge days, SESLIP staff will compile the Regional Improvement Plan for 2019-20, including such activities as regional networks; paired support of asks and offers; coaching; mentoring; Partner-in-Practice referrals; topical peer challenges.

The Plan will be launched at the Regional Improvement Summit on Friday 22 March. 

The “trial-run” 2018-19 version of the Regional Improvement Plan and v3 of the “asks-and-offers” document are currently available at the DCS-only restricted access page of the SESLIP website (please contact Isabelle, details below, for help with accessing this page).

We are still in the proto-type phase of developing the Regional Improvement Plan and we welcome feedback on these documents as we begin to think about the style and format of the 2019-20 public versions.

Please contact Richard Tyndall (details below)  if you have any observations.

Complex LAC and Edge of Care Project – Progress Report

We’ve had a strong positive response to the project and Lucy Butler, (project sponsor and DCS Oxfordshire) met with Mark Evans and Rosemary Perry recently. Lucy was delighted with the progress and outcomes of the project so far and she will share further detail with colleagues at the SE ADCS meeting on 7 December 2018. 

We have now input completed data from 8 authorities, amounting to 529 cases; we have three more authorities currently dealing with queries, and data from a further authority expected next week.  Once all this data is collected, we will have about 800 cases from which to draw our conclusions, which is very significant in terms of understanding patterns and predicting need for our most complex children. 

Lucy and Mark are due to meet with the DfE later this month to share our methodology and understand more about how the DfE are planning to release funding next year to support the development of regional commissioning hubs.  Lucy is also keen that we use this data to start discussions with providers about the market and how they can be involved in planning for the future.  Both of these will be discussed further with DCSs at the meeting on 7 December.

We are busy planning for the next feedback session in London on 18 January 2019, involving all those colleagues who have participated in the project so far; our initial thoughts are that we will have a feedback document for each authority and also an overall document which starts to build a needs based planning document for future commissioning.

We would like to put on record our thanks for the excellent engagement we have had from everyone involved in the project; we recognise that people are really busy but, in finding to complete the documentation to a high standard, they clearly feel that this is worthwhile exercise which will deliver comprehensive information to help us plan for future service delivery.

For further information please contact Mark Evans or Rosemary Perry (details below).