Portsmouth City Council is the local authority of the city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, England (estimated population is 249,956). It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government services including adult social care, children's social care and education.  
  
Portsmouth is an innovative and proactive council, and use Data for Good to help the most vulnerable in society with a focus on effectiveness. Their journey started with the implementation of the Sentinel Data Platform, delivering and integrated data set across approximately 30 systems.

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Vulnerable Pupil Tracker

• Junior, Senior Education levelled portals split between schools to manage cross border intakes and outtakes and ensure handover notes are visible across settings and as children move between stages and change peer groups. Local Authority level portals providing high level metrics with drill downs to individual settings and children. 
• All information concerning a child collated in one easy to view Child Overview screen with actions dashboard covering Safeguarding data, Attendance/Exclusions data, Exploitation Risk, Youth Offending Team data feeds, Police data, NEETS data, Social Care plan, Alternative Provision mentor notes, Vulnerability metrics with full workflow and chronology. 
• Automated user alerts including behavioural and attendance.
• Advanced search functionality and drill downs into single view of pupil.  
• Centralized notes and PDF upload functions per pupil to allow sharing of notes and documents across settings and agencies for handovers. 
• Workflow and Chronology showing a full list of past and upcoming actions including attendance, case worker actions, and changes reflecting increased or decreased risk, progress or regression. 
• Access levels tailored to groups with exception criteria for users with risk conflicting interest. 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) for all users. 

For Portsmouth’s requirements we also delivered:

• Data profiling to assign vulnerability scores to pupils, with configurable weighting to suit school requirements and data feeds Portsmouth pooled. 
• Profiling for children based on various rules targeting NEETS.
• RAG risk ratings for children's cases.
• Workflows for RAG ratings based on child overview.
• Audit information for all RAG ratings, safeguarding, vulnerability changes.
• Multiple dashboards across safeguarding levels, education settings, vulnerability reasons, and attendance.
• Specific dashboards for each educational setting available for high access level groups (e.g., admin users).
• Integration with Family Support Plan.

Family Support Planning Solution

Portsmouth needed a digital solution for their Family Support Planning processes. Users needed to be able to create, complete, and share forms covering all family members to record progress with actions and scoring based on multiple categories. The solution also needed to integrate data feeds from multiple sources such as Capita, Core , and Mosaic. The solution was to create specific dashboards for Local Authority and Practitioners displaying key metrics. The solution also included a Child Single View detailing information per child such as names, UPN, student id, sibling names, education settings (including those of siblings), as well as Family Support Plan Status, Reviews, and Lead Professional. 

Portsmouth’s Family Support Plan solution included:

• Search Functions
• Push Notifications
• Reports specific to user credentials
• Drill Down Options
• Family Support Plan Cohort Specifics
• Multiple User Specific Dashboards displaying key metrics

• Sibling Links
• RAG ratings
• Functions to request/accept case transfers (with full audit trail)
• Review and closure functionalities (with full audit trail)
• Family Support Plan status displays and updates (with full audit trail)
• Practitioner Assessment Summaries

Supporting Families Phase 3

Portsmouth adopted our Supporting Families solution in preparation for meeting the requirements of Phase 3 of the national Supporting Families programme, administered by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUCH, formerly the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)).  
 
Our current Supporting Families Solution has been specifically designed to meet the requirements of the Supporting Families Programme Phase 3.  Providing automated data integration and management, it helps identify and support vulnerable families.  
 
The software matches and integrates data from all available sources to provide up-to-date, holistic and user-friendly records of individuals and family units. The data sharing features of the platform also facilitate collaborative and proactive working. Fully configurable, it put Portsmouth’s appropriate user groups and cohorts in control of setting profiling criteria and the scenarios that trigger automatic alerts – helping teams deliver the interventions that families need and can really benefit from. 

Phase 3 of the Supporting Families programme has two key objectives: 
  
To see vulnerable families thrive, building their resilience by providing effective, whole family support to help prevent escalation into statutory services 
 
To drive system change locally and nationally, working with local authorities and their partners to create joined up local services, able to identify families in need, provide the right support at the right time, and track their outcomes in the long term

Phase 3 of the Supporting Families Programme incorporates: 

• A new outcomes framework including ten headline outcomes rather than the previous six. This will enable more detailed reporting on the problems families are facing, clarify what good looks like for these outcomes, and what levels of evidence would be expected when measuring these outcomes. This new framework will help build consistency of outcome measurement across the country and give clearer guidance to local authorities on what is expected, but also what is possible.
   
• An updated funding formula, now using the latest deprivation data and more recent population data. The formula now includes the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation which provides a better reflection of current need and supports levelling up by ensuring funding is distributed fairly.
    
• A new process for local authorities to apply for Earned Autonomy status has been launched. A prospectus sets out the level of maturity local authorities and their partners will need to demonstrate to move to Earned Autonomy status.
    
• A refreshed Early Help System guide has been published following collaboration with local authorities and other government departments. The refreshed version improves on the content and clarity of the self-assessments and works to encourage local transformation in line with the descriptors.
   

The Supporting Families solution is a powerful, flexible, forward-looking technology that meets these needs. Features include: 

•  Family-overview and drill-down screens that show you the full picture 
• Chronological views of families displaying improvements or setbacks history
• Single point of access for improved data sharing and collaborative working 
• Flexible user control of rules for validating and merging people’s data 
• Automatic data profiling to identify families in need and provide early help 
• Maximised outcomes claims bringing increased income 
• Automatically prepared Government returns, evidenced by a full audit trail of events and outcomes

Developed to meet the evolving requirements of the Supporting Families Programme (previously Troubled Families), our agile solution helped Portsmouth conform to the Data Maturity Model while enabling them to look ahead and respond to future Government initiatives.