Audit of Needs and Services

This Audit of Needs and Services (2005) seeks to describe:

• The needs of children and young people in County Durham using statistical data from a wide range of agencies and describing what these show.
• The range of services and facilities which are available for children and young people in County Durham.
• The views of children, young people, and their parents and carers about the services provided (or not provided) for them.
• How Durham compares with other areas where this information is available.

It was commissioned by the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership (CYPSP) on behalf of all its partners, in order to support:

• The implementation of child policy.
• The development of a joint commissioning strategy for Durham.
• Local and national performance monitoring.
• A response to the new inspection regimes when required.
• Seeking new resources at national and local level.
• Any major changes for children's services which may be needed in the future.
• The development of a systematic and continuing collection of data across agencies.

It is the first, county wide multi-agency audit of needs and services focussing on children and young people in Durham.

The Audit of Need (2005) information is drawn from the high quality research and data collection systems which are already in place across various agencies. Much of this information is publicly available, but it is located separately and often within information relating to the adult population. The Audit of Services (2005) is an incremental and developmental process based on the National Health Services mapping pilot, agency specific audits, a data capture exercise mainly within Social Care and Health and Education services and building on the existing Community Information Database.

Investing in Children were commissioned to undertake research into what children and young people think about services. The outcome of their research is referred to in each section and the full report and the audit tool they developed can be downloaded by clicking on the PDF icons below.

IIC ECM Report Final.pdf

(32 pages at 109 Kb)

IIC audit tool.pdf

(4 pages at 137 Kb)

Our approach places the child or young person at the heart. This is reflected in the organisation of the audit information with an overview of the 0-19 population in County Durham and five sections which reflect the Durham Outcomes Framework.

Each of the five sections of the audit is structured to provide some answers to the following questions.

• How are things for children and young people now?
• What are the range of services available now?
• What do children and young people think about the services they receive/do not receive?
• What do parents and carers think about the services?

The information, where it is available, is presented at whole County and local level, in order to establish the starting point for children's services in Durham. This will help to identify our next steps and to measure our progress in developing improved services for children, young people and their families.

The Audit of Needs and Services (2005) is a critical building block towards a fully integrated commissioning strategy which will ensure the right services are provided to the right children at the right time and place. Collating information about needs and services in this integrated way is enabling a fresh and fundamentally different approach to examining how the range of services in Durham contribute to improving outcomes for children and young people in Durham. There is much more still to do in terms of gathering further information and in establishing our systems to analyse and collectively use what we have learned, but this approach will be refined and improved for 2006 and beyond, in order achieve our vision for children and young people in County Durham:

• Being Healthy
• Staying Safe
• Enjoy and Achieve
• Make a Positive Contribution
• Achieve Economic Well-being