Multi-Agency Scrutiny Activity

Quality Audit

Cumbria Safeguarding Children Partnership (CSCP) monitors multi-agency performance management and quality assurance. We do this through the two Local Area Safeguarding Groups (Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness).

As set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 CSCP's should at a minimum ‘quality assure practice, including through joint audits of records’.  CSCP does not see audit as a one-off event but as part of a continuous cycle of improvement.

How do we do this?

The CSCP commission the two Local Area Safeguarding Groups to conduct quality assurance activity, the CSCP has established a regular programme of multi-agency audits. The topics of which are determined by performance data, quality information and responses to recommendations from inspections and child safeguarding practice reviews (CSPRs) and include areas of Child Protection, Child in Need and Early Help cases. The multi-agency audits have a clear focus on outcomes, and the impact of agencies in achieving those outcomes. The impact on the child is always central to the process.

Why do we do this?

It enables the CSCP to carry out its function of monitoring the effectiveness of what is done to keep children and young people safe in Cumbria.

What happens next?

The outcomes from each of the audits are analysed and drawn together into a report. The reports draw out key themes; identify areas for practice improvement and makes recommendations. The process also enables us to identify the learning points from areas which are working well and further develop inter-agency working. The CSCP Business Group has ownership of the recommendations and the key themes and the loop closes when the feedback goes back to the Local Area Safeguarding Groups.

Then what?

The information is then fed into policy and practice protocols and learning and development activity. The learning from quality audits is implemented across all of the partner agencies.

Key learning themes from Scrutiny Activities