Multi-agency audits

Doncaster Safeguarding Children Partnership is responsible for agreeing with relevant organisations in Doncaster, how they should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.

We have a statutory function, described in Working Together 2018 3:39, to:

  • Use data and intelligence to assess the effectiveness of the help being provided to children and families, including early help.
  • Undertake any multiagency and interagency audits.
  • We have developed as a partnership a learning and improvement framework, in which multi-agency audits form part of the learning cycle. We agree themes for multi-agency audits based on local review of services or need, and national research and study.
Who will be involved in the multi-agency themed audit days?

Our Doncaster Safeguarding Children Partnership audit team includes colleagues from the following organisations:  

  • Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust
  • South Yorkshire Police
  • Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group
  • Doncaster Bassetlaw Hospital Foundation Trust
  • Education providers
  • Doncaster Council
  • General Practitioners (via Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group)

All members of this team are managers from partnership agencies that work with children, young people and families, all of which are have safeguarding experience

Professionals involvement in audits

Prior to the thematic audit day where possible all professionals working directly with the children/young people will be asked to complete a practitioner reflective questionnaire in relation to their involvement, interventions and impact.

Getting children/young people involved in audits 

Children and young people are invited to be involved via a short questionnaire. This may be completed by members of the audit group or by a professional whom the child/young person feels comfortable with.

Getting parents/carers involved in audits 

Parents/Carers feedback is also sought via a questionnaire. This may be completed by members of the audit group or by a professional whom the parent/carer feels comfortable with.

How often are the thematic multi-agency audits?

There are 4 audits planned for each year. Each will have a different theme as the focus.

How do we disseminate the findings from the thematic multi-agency audits? 

A full report of the findings from each thematic multi-agency audit is presented to the Learning, Quality and Improvement Sub-group. The reports focuses on what is working well, what are we worried about and what needs to happen next. These are translated into action and the action plans are monitored by the Quality and Performance Sub-group. 

An A4 learning brief is also produced which includes a summary of the findings and some good practice tips for practitioners. 

How do we measure impact of the thematic multi-agency audits?  

Like everybody we also need to measure the impact of our work. Impact is measured by the completion of the actions, re-audits demonstrating improvements and performance data evidencing change.

More information on this website