How Local Authorities Can Optimise Their Case Management System to Minimise Risk

Currently, the children’s social care system in the U.K. is facing significant challenges due to the growing number of children in the care of local authorities as well as the seriousness of workforce shortages. As a result of this, a huge pressure on councils has developed due to dysfunction caused by soaring costs and the workforce recruitment crisis.  Data provided by the Government indicates that there has been a 7.29 per cent increase in children receiving support from children’s services since 2010.

With the rising cost of children’s social care for local authorities, how can we begin to help councils to do more with less, whilst having a better visibility of their costs and expenditure? Could technology play a bigger role in maintaining a robust approach to financial planning and savings?

Optimising Case Management Systems

The way in which local authorities optimise their case management systems can help to play a key role in how they manage risk – both financially and as a way of highlighting specific risks to children.

By having a complete picture of each young person and their environment, local authorities can begin to better manage how they are recording, tracking, and analysing children’s needs and progress. As well as also allowing them to witness how they are spending their budget and resources.

Enhancing Data Entry & Integration

Optimising case management systems can help better manage recording, tracking and analysis of children’s needs and progress. By effectively leveraging their own case management systems, councils could begin to streamline data entry and begin to integrate it into their core systems to help support children’s needs through technology.

There is a need for local authorities to begin to start enhancing the quality of their business intelligence to enable them to complete strategic reporting on crucial information for each child. Multiple councils are still relying on disparate spreadsheets and documents for data entry meaning that councils still cannot holistically analyse and use this vital information. This is because of the complex processes councils must go through to find and extract the data.

As a result, a good case management system has the potential to save staff overwhelming amounts of both time and energy in the long run. Integrating a dedicated system will enable them to make data-led decisions about where is the best place to allocate resources.

Next Steps

Gain deeper insights into the challenges and solutions in children’s social care by downloading our comprehensive white-paper. It outlines the best practices, innovative technologies and actionable strategies for optimising social care management.

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If you have any questions or would like to discuss specific needs, please contact us. Our team is here to provide guidance, answer your questions and help you find the best solutions for your organisation.

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