Growth and development.pdf

AberdeenshireThe Council is part of the Northern Partnership for criminal justice social work services. Thepartnership, which includes Aberdeen City, Moray and Highland is working towards consistencyof service, with practice development groups on transfer of cases, community service, socialenquiry reports, and supervised attendance orders. There are plans for future work on probation,throughcare, prison induction, and structured programmes, and to co-ordinate their variousarrangements for work with young offenders. There will also be an information strategy, takingaccount of the authorities’ different information systems, and there is a quality assurance group.The Council is currently developing a range of quality assurance mechanisms and plans tointroduce the CareJust module of the information software package CareFirst. Currently themajority of the information is about process and there is a need to develop a range of outcomemeasures.The Joint Young Sex Offenders Project is an extension of the partnership’s adult sex offenderproject. Funding from the Youth Crime Review provides services for adolescents and childrenwho are exhibiting sexually abusive behaviour. The focus is on preventing young people’sinappropriate behaviour escalating into offending behaviour. The project uses a multidisciplinaryapproach, involving Grampian Police, schools and educational psychologists.Preliminary indications from carers suggest positive results.5. FinanceService Area(£000)Children’s Services £3,124 £9,164 £3,303 £9,715Community Care £29,921 £31,566 £31,414 £31,346Adult Offenders £773 -£75Other SW Services £3,945 £2,079 £3,979 £2,784Total £36,990 £43,583 £38,695 £43,770Spend per headSpend per head £191.82 £192.64Quartile 4 4GAE1999-2000Final netOut turn1999-20001999-2000GAE2000-2001Final netOut turn2000-20012000-2001Criminal Justice services receive funding from the Scottish Executive, £947,300 was providedin 2000-2001.Aberdeenshire spent two and a half times the GAE calculated by the Scottish Executive forchildren’s services in 2000-2001. The principal reasons cited for this high spend are expensiveresidential care and the prevalence of misuse of drugs and alcohol, though Aberdeenshire as awhole has a far lower than average rate of drug misuse. Additional resources have beenallocated, particularly in North Aberdeenshire, to provide specialist and intensive support to asmall number of drug misusing parents of young children. This is particularly taxing work forstaff and has necessitated additional training costs.The overall social work spend per head is less than in many other authorities.21