The Performance Management Framework is structured around the partnership’s vision of ‘Keeping Children Safe’ by prevention through early intervention, delivering a joined-up response and by listening to families, children and young people.
The partnership works to ensure that services seek to identify those most likely to be harmed. We do this by sharing information and data effectively and challenge organisations to learn and continuously improve. The partnership utilises a multi-agency audit framework for checking progress and challenging areas of concern.
Section 11 Audits
Section 11 of the Children Act places a statutory duty on key organisations to make arrangements to ensure that in their operation they deliver on the responsibilities they have with regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
How do we know if Section 11 is being implemented properly?
All organisations that are responsible for complying with Section 11 and represented on the Durham LSCB should have processes in place to assure the organisation’s managers, regulators, commissioners and ultimately their service users that those arrangements are working and that compliance with the Section 11 standards can be demonstrated and evidenced.
Durham LSCB will audit compliance with Section 11 responsibilities. All organisations will be asked to complete an annual self assessment and provide evidence of their compliance with Section 11 standards when carrying out their day to day business.
This audit will give an indication of best practice, levels of compliance and areas for improvement.
It is important to remember that Section 11 does not give agencies any new functions, nor does it over-ride their existing functions. Instead it requires agencies to carry out existing functions in a way that takes into account the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.