FOI Request - Review of Children's Social Work
Request 101002201880
Re: FOI 101002159481
I have just run some logic checks on the data and it appears that there are some inaccuracies. The number of children referred is shown as 23 yet the number of child protection investigations as 44.The number of CP investigations is 43 - less than the numbers investigated. Can you please check this data.
Response 12-07-2019
Following your request for a review of our response to the FOI you submitted, Children's Social Work - 101002201880, a review meeting was held at the Council offices on 10th July 2019. In attendance were the Acting Records and Heritage Manager, Senior Solicitor, Performance & Evaluation Support Officer, Senior Social Worker and Information Co-ordinator.
Your review request highlights the requirement that Moray Council provides an accurate response and so the accuracy of our original reply was discussed.
The method used for recording referrals to Children & Families Social Work prior to 2018, included any contact or interaction added to the system for all cases including those already open and being worked by the department. The resulting data amounted to thousands of ‘referrals’ each month which made isolating true referrals extremely difficult. Therefore, the figures provided in our original response were the result of an extensive search through thousands of interactions in order to try to identify the first true referral of need for the child.
The same method was undertaken to identify Child Protection investigations. These investigations are captured in our recording system, Carefirst, by assigning pieces of work to different event types. Unfortunately, social workers may not always have used consistent ‘event types’ to record them.
Upon investigation, it was found that there had been a misunderstanding about the structure of the question and the answer provided should have been:
3 No. of children having a CP investigation 44
7 No. of investigations on the cohort 56
However, given that the method of recording at that time was not suited to producing the requested figures, the response provided was an estimate based on our best ability to refine the data. We apologise for not clarifying at the time that this was a ‘best estimate’.
Your review requests asked that we check the data. While we have undertaken further work as outlined above, to revisit the figures provided in our response in order to provide a meaningfully more accurate response would require rechecking a pool of 1,649 separate pieces of data, perhaps more than once, costing in excess of £600. The Council therefore amends its original decision to apply section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, excessive cost, to questions 2, 3, 6 and 7.
Please note that a new method of recording new child concerns on the system was introduced in early 2018.