UPDATE NO 254 09 June 2017

South East Regional Data Network

The (Restricted) Quarterly Benchmarking Report 2016-17 Q4 v1 [Excel & PDF] are now available on the data benchmarking group page of the SESLIP website which your benchmarking data leads should have access to. If you require any additional logins to be set up, please contact Alastair Lee (details below).

The next meeting of the South East Regional Data Network will be on Tuesday 20 June in Crawley Library. The agenda will cover the review of Early Help indicators and as usual Ofsted will attend to give an update. For more information, please contact Alastair Lee (details below).

SEND Benchmarking Workshop – Friday 21 July

The SE Regional Data and the SE19 SEND Networks are jointly running a workshop to review the SE SEND benchmarking on Friday 21 July. Since the SE reports were originally developed a number of other reports have become available nationally. The workshop will review what is currently available and what the region needs to support service development and improvement.

The event will be held at the Blackfriars Settlement, SE1 0RB and will run from 10am – 3pm.

Bookings and further details of this workshop can be found at this Eventbrite link, or from Alastair Lee (details below).

Improving the Quality of Audit Project

Colleagues will recall that an initial consultation was held in March with QA and Audit Managers across the south-east. Following a short pause, this project is now starting work. The main activities will be:

• agreeing shared principles and standards 
• creating templates for the reporting of audits
• calibration and benchmarking of audit findings

This work will be led by David Goosey (contact details below), and is being sponsored by Michael Bracey (DCS, Milton Keynes).

Thanks to the colleagues who took the time to review the contact list of Quality Assurance and Audit Managers and report any changes/alterations/additions to Richard Tyndall (details below).

Thanks also to Reading, West Berks and Oxfordshire for positive responses to the request for colleagues to join this project. Please can others discuss this project with their QA/Audit colleagues and encourage willing volunteers to contact David Goosey (details below) about how to get involved. 

Topical Peer Challenge Round 10

Bookings for Topical Peer Challenge Round 10 are now open. Currently two participants: Buckinghamshire (MASH Front Door) and Wokingham (Virtual School).

Please let Richard Tyndall (contact details below) know if you would like to join in Round 10, the field work for which will be undertaken in late 2017 or early 2018.

Supporting Radical Efficiency in Children’s Services

Rosemary Perry (contact details below under “Adoption”) has been progressing this project (using Council published information) to research initiatives currently underway across the south east to find efficiencies in children’s social care.  This will be collated and discussed with the AD Safeguarding Group in June. 

As well as searching for examples of demand management initiatives (reducing the flow of new costs entering the system) she is also looking out for outflow management initiatives (encouraging step-down and step-out of costs already in the system).

Special thanks to Liz Rugg (East Sussex) who has shared details of the East Sussex Thrive project. If any other colleagues have examples of successful efficiency projects, past and present, which can be incorporated into the research, please contact Rosemary Perry (details below).

Leadership Development

We continue to offer our successful portfolio of Leadership Development Courses all of which have been positively evaluated by delegates.

We are offering LAs the opportunity to train their own trainers for all our courses. Our aim is to increase the capacity and capability across the region  to ensure future sustainability within LAs. Courses can also be delivered with adult services and/or for schools. Please contact Di Smith, details below, if this is of interest to you. 

All courses are run in-house in the LA who provides the venue. Each course is accompanied by a range of training resources for the delegates including a comprehensive handbook. The current courses on offer are as follows and details of each course and the costs for each can be found by downloading the April 2016 Leadership Development Prospectus. 

Coaching to Improve Performance

Embedding a Coaching Culture

Leading Change in Times of Austerity

Step Up to Leadership   

We can also arrange one-to-one coaching, especially to support newly appointed 2nd and 3rd tier managers

If you require further details or wish to book a course please get in touch with Di Smith (contact details below)