Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council awards Integrated Children’s System contract to TCO (Part of CACI Ltd)

Over the past year Barnsley has been praised by the Commission for Social Care Inspection for its strong commitment to children’s services.

Barnsley are seen as an innovative and forward looking Council with initiatives such as their first multi-agency Children and Young People’s plan now in place to support Electronic Social Care Records (ESCR) and Integrated Childrens System (ICS).

Barnsley MBC has taken the view that, for the ICS to be a success, it needs to be fully supported by a modern, workflow based technology system. Barnsley understands that it is only by supporting their frontline workers with the most efficient technology that they can achieve their goal of becoming a leading children’s social care provider.

Having conducted a thorough review of their existing systems, Barnsley came to the conclusion that their current IT systems were no longer adequate for a modern social care organisation. In setting the requirements for a replacement system the Council brought together both the government’s compliance agenda and national best practice. The replacement system would also need to adapt and respond to both a rapidly changing environment and Barnsley’s as yet unknown future requirements. The Council’s long term strategy is therefore to continually evolve the product to bring incremental changes (with ongoing benefits and improvements) rather than to implement major changes every few years.

Barnsley recognised early on that to ensure the success of any IT project it is essential to involve and communicate with all staff about any changes. This meant that the practitioners were involved in the procurement process and 45 social care staff attended the software demonstrations to score the systems on a number of criteria.

One of the crucial “must haves” for the replacement system was that it should give practitioners real time access to information anytime, anywhere. In addition to this the replacement system needed to improve on operational and business management issues including reducing paperwork, improving access to information, accuracy of data, reducing duplication and enhancing reporting.

Given Barnsley MBC’s extensive business improvement and usability criteria, it was clear that the TCO product represented the most practitioner-friendly and most comprehensive product.

As well as including practioners in the procurement process, Barnsley has invested heavily in training and development for their staff which will ensure a smooth transition between systems. Training will extend beyond the TCO product training, with Information Governance and IT Literacy being undertaken at the same time. This will help move the organisation’s culture to one which can embrace the latest technology.

Barnsley believe that the TCO OfficeBase system represents a core building block that will help them achieve their long term goals. The Council is determined that the appropriate use of Information Technology will become the catalyst for improving the delivery of care to children and families by releasing resources back into frontline social work.

Doug Adams, Assistant Executive Director of Childrens Social Services said

“I am delighted that we are at the point of taking this exciting development forward. The TCO OfficeBase system offers us the chance to be at the forefront of a new way of working. We will be making information available to all our staff in a much more useable way. Most importantly it will enable us to improve the services that we offer to children and families in Barnsley”

For further information on this project please contact Ian Fereday, from Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council on 01226 775625, email ianfereday@barnsley.gov.uk Or Gillian Smith at TCO (Part of CACI Ltd.) on 020 8893 9039, email info@tcosoftware.com