Joint Area Review

What is it?

The Joint Area Review (JAR) is an inspection of all children and young people’s services across a Local Authority area. Across Nottinghamshire the JAR took place in May 2008 and was undertaken by a joint inspectorate including:

• Ofsted
• Healthcare Commission
• CSCI
• Youth services inspectorate.

The JAR is a review of all services, not just local authority services. The following inspections took place simultaneously:

• 2008 Annual Performance Assessment (APA) of Children and Young People’s Services
• Corporate Performance Assessment (CPA) of the County Council. (The JAR contributes the children and young people’s element of the CPA.)
• Enhanced Youth Inspection
• Inspection of the Youth Offending Service.

Purpose

The JAR set out to analyse how well our services across the Partnership are working together to secure improved outcomes for the children and young people of Nottinghamshire. It will deliver detailed analysis and judgments of the Nottinghamshire Children and Young People’s Partnership, including the functioning of Children and Young People’s Services.

Key elements

• Examination of a range of documentation from all organisations involved in the review. This took place in advance of the on-site period
• Two week on-site period from 17-23 May 2008
• Scrutiny of ten case files with an in-depth audit trail for each one
• Graded judgments of our ability to improve outcomes for:
  • Children in need of safeguarding
  • Children and young people looked after by the Local Authority
  • Disabled and learning-disabled children
• Graded judgements on our Service Management and Capacity to Improve
• Inspection and judgment of key areas of concern identified through the 2007 Annual Performance Assessment (APA)
• Inspection of services provided by all agencies across the five Every Child Matters outcomes
• Fieldwork visits selected by the inspectors including questioning of children, young people, parents and carers and members of staff at all levels, from directorate to those in direct contact with children and young people.
  

JAR Judgements

The JAR will deliver five graded judgements on:

• safeguarding
• looked after children
• children with disabilities/learning difficulties
• service management
• capacity to improve.
  

It may also include further ungraded judgements arising from the 2007 APA or from other inspections.