Targeted Provision - Quality Assurance Policy

1. Policy Purpose

Targeted Provision (TP) provides education and support for high acuity children and young people (CYP) in the SEN and care systems. Our commissioners require us to evidence that every service we deliver meets their specification, the SEND Code of Practice and statutory safeguarding guidance.

This policy sets out how TP assures the quality of its services in these areas:

• Education and support services delivered to CYP

• Recruitment and engagement of staff and contractors

• Referrals and matching

• Management of TP's employees

• Product design and functionality

• Business development

• Quality assurance and service improvement

TP's employees must read, understand and implement this policy.

Much of TP's provision is delivered by self-employed contractors. Contractors are not bound by this policy. Contractors decide how they deliver their services. TP's quality reviews assess whether the service delivered meets the agreed specification, not how the contractor chooses to work.

2. Responsibilities

Chief Strategy Officer (working with the Chief Financial Officer and Head of Partnerships) will:

• Coordinate a strategic business improvement timetable and share information.

• Explore opportunities with new commissioning bodies, pursue new contracts and maintain existing partnerships.

• Work with investors to map and manage financial security and business development.

• Ensure policy and procedure documentation is in place, functional and updated in line with business activities.

• Ensure the business is promoted appropriately through social, printed and broadcast media.

Head of Education (working with the specialist SEND support team) will:

• Maintain high quality educational provision.

• Review the quality of service delivery on a proportionate, risk-based basis, and act on any concerns raised.

• Review each placement against the service specification, commissioner requirements and the SEND Code of Practice, using the evidence set out in section 4.

• Ensure TP takes part in the full graduated response throughout the assess, plan, do and review cycle.

• Ensure the highest standards of safeguarding and child protection are maintained.

Head of Recruitment (working with the Head of People) will:

• Ensure recruitment and contractor engagement follow safer recruitment guidelines.

• Ensure engagement processes attract appropriately qualified and experienced contractors able to meet the needs of our cohort.

• Ensure DBS checks and evidence of the safeguarding training required by Keeping Children Safe in Education are verified before work is offered, and monitored throughout the engagement.

Director of Technology will:

• Ensure all applications and databases remain functional, up to date and support business continuity.

• Develop new systems and processes to support the core objectives of the business.

• Direct developers to ensure efficient roll-out of new systems.

Head of Referrals will:

• Maintain high quality communication and collaboration with commissioning bodies.

• Ensure contractors offered a referral have the skills and experience to meet the CYP's needs.

• Manage logistical arrangements for individual referrals.

Head of People (working with the Head of Recruitment) will:

• Oversee employee administration, including PAYE, terms and conditions and compliance.

• Ensure TP employees complete the safeguarding training required by Keeping Children Safe in Education.

• Monitor that contractors hold current evidence of the safeguarding training required as a condition of being offered work.

Head of Partnerships will:

• Oversee all self-assessment processes and ensure outcomes feed into a time-framed, evaluated business development plan.

• Prepare for and take part in external QA audits, including SEND, safeguarding and compliance reviews.

• Maintain online QA records where individual commissioners require them.

• Conduct random internal QA audits.

• Receive and act on feedback from CYP, parents and carers, commissioners and contractors.

3. Internal QA Audit

The Head of Partnerships will conduct random internal QA audits of TP's systems and processes using the Self-Evaluation QA Audit form (Appendix 5.1). Actions will be evaluated within four weeks of the audit and signed off or extended.

Internal audits review TP's own processes. Where an audit identifies an issue with a contractor's service delivery, it is handled through the service quality review in section 4.

4. Quality Review of Teaching and Learning

TP reviews the quality of each service it delivers so that it can evidence to commissioners that the service meets their specification. Reviews assess the service delivered and its outcomes for the CYP. They are not an appraisal of the individual delivering it.

4.1. 1 Contractor-delivered services

Contractors determine their own teaching methods, planning, resources and approach to assessment. The contract for services sets out the outputs a contractor must provide. These include:

• Delivery of the sessions agreed for each referral.

• Session reports and a concluding report recording progress, engagement and strategies used.

• Records of assessment and progress sufficient to evidence outcomes to the commissioner.

• Prompt reporting of any safeguarding concern in line with statutory guidance.

4.2. 2 What a quality review considers

A quality review may draw on reports, records, samples of work and, where a commissioner requires it, a service quality visit. The following are indicators of quality, not required methods:

• Session objectives are clear and linked to the outcomes set by the commissioning body.

• Teaching is adapted to the CYP's identified needs and the level at which they are working.

• Academic and, where relevant, social and emotional outcomes are addressed.

• Assessment informs subsequent sessions.

• Feedback to the CYP supports learning, progress and self-esteem.

• The CYP makes progress within sessions and over time.

• The CYP is engaged and the learning environment is appropriate.

• The intervention is effective against the outcomes identified by the commissioning body.

4.3. 3 Findings and follow-up

Review findings will be recorded on TP's online systems and shared with the contractor within 5 working days.

Where a service meets the specification, no further action is needed. Where it does not, TP will tell the contractor which part of the specification has not been met. TP may then, under the contract for services:

• ask the contractor to remedy the shortfall;

• withhold payment for any service not delivered; or

• decline to offer the contractor further referrals.

TP's disciplinary and capability procedures apply to employees only.

4.4. 4 Employee-delivered services

Where a service is delivered by a TP employee, the Head of Education may also review it as part of the employee's line management, under TP's employment policies.

5. Appendices

1. Self-Evaluation Quality Assurance (QA) Audit form

2. Service Quality Review Record

 

5.1. Self-Evaluation Quality Assurance (QA) Audit form:

5.2. Service Quality Review record

Records must identify the CYP by referral reference only. Do not include health details, personal characteristics or other special category data unless needed to evidence the service against the specification.