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Liverpool Children's Services Procedures Manual
Assessment Service, Duty, Allocation and Closure
Scope of this chapter
The scope of this chapter is the referral and allocation of children to social workers. Children will be referred into the Assessment Service from our Children’s Advice and Support Service (CASS) when they have identified that a family is in need of either a S17 Single Assessment or a S47 Strategy Meeting. Managers in the receiving social work team are responsible for timely allocation, case planning and reviewing. This procedure also applies to the reallocation of cases and case closures. It applies within both Capita systems and Liquid Logic.
Amendment
This chapter was refreshed in July 2024.
- CASS will transfer all relevant referrals to the Assessment Service Referrals tray on our Liquid Logic System;
- There is a clear Assessment Duty System in place that both CASS and the Assessment Service are aware of. When the relevant team is on duty, the Team Manager or Deputy Team Manager will access this tray throughout the day to ensure all new referrals are reviewed in a timely manner and allocated appropriately.
- Team Managers receiving referrals from CASS will complete and record an Allocation Plan in the electronic social care record. The Team Manager will include a timescale for seeing the child, planned actions in the assessment, any history, and review date with the manager. This plan must be discussed with the social worker at the point of allocation. The Team Manager must also consider if a Strategy Discussion is necessary and complete the same day;
- All referrals must be allocated to a qualified Social Worker for assessment.
- All referrals should be allocated within 24 hours of receipt into the duty tray. Any delay in allocation must be reported to the service manager who will consider how to allocate cases in the duty team or elsewhere. The Team Manager will record their view and allocation plan the same day. All Children’s files must have management oversight recorded in the electronic record by the end of each day to ensure all referrals have an overview and plan (This could include that the intended social worker is out and a timescale for when it will be discussed with a named social worker and allocated; or an explanation that the Team Manager has reviewed the content of the referral, has considered it not to be S47 or needing immediate allocation, and a priority for S17 allocation within a few days when team members are available);
- Once a referral is allocated the child should be seen immediately or within 24 hours for S47 investigations & serious concerns and in most cases within 48 hours for other concerns. The Team Manager will exercise professional judgement in the allocation plan and set the number of days in which the child must be seen to take into account both urgent cases and examples such as cases in which it is appropriate to give notice of visits, or where additional information is awaited. The team manager will record in the allocation plan the reason for agreeing set days beyond 48 hours;
- In order to facilitate allocation of all referrals the same day CASS will send referrals to the area teams up to 4.15pm Monday to Thursday and up to 3.45pm on Fridays;
- If there is any disagreement with the CASS Team Manager's decision on the need for a referral, this will be discussed between the CASS Manager and Duty Team Manager and discussion and decision recorded within the referral. This will also be referred to the CASS/Assessment weekly meeting for review. This can be escalated to the relevant Service Managers if no outcome can be decided between Team Managers at the time.
- When social workers leave the service or are on sick leave, children should be allocated to another social worker. This should be planned in advance where time permits (If sickness is short term the Team Manager and Service Manager should agree and record cover arrangements, similar to annual leave where cover for urgent and statutory matters is provided by Team Members or the managers);
- Alternatively the Service Manager and Team Manager must meet immediately and weekly thereafter until all cases are reallocated. This meeting should include oversight of case planning as well as planning for reallocation. This should be reported in the fortnightly caseload performance management system to the Director;
- While awaiting reallocation cases should be managed as a minimum by the Team Manager or deputy and use duty social workers or others to cover essential work including statutory visits, court deadlines and reviews;
- While awaiting reallocation cases should remain in the box of the social worker and not be transferred to a team or general box.
- Interventions can be closed only by a Team Manager or deputy Team Manager. When a social worker is ready to recommend closure this must be by recommendation through electronic workflow and not by transferring the child to the manager;
- All children should remain allocated to the relevant social worker until closed by a manager.
Last Updated: July 30, 2024
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