Independent reviewing officers
The appointment of an independent reviewing officer (IRO) is a legal requirement under Section 118 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The government issued the Review of Children's Cases (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2004 along with statutory guidance in September 2004.
The regulations require all local authorities to appoint an IRO to participate in the statutory meetings to review the care plan of each looked-after child. The IRO usually takes on the role of chairing the meeting. The IRO is also responsible for monitoring the performance of the local authority's functions in respect of each review. If appropriate, IROs can refer a child's case to a CAFCASS officer. IROs are ideally placed to assess the quality and effectiveness of local authority planning and support for children.
The 2004 regulations impose a duty on the IRO to ensure that:
- Children's views are understood and taken into account
- Persons responsible for implementing review recommendations are
identified
- Any failure to review cases in accordance with the regulations or to make arrangements to implement any aspect of the care plan is brought to the attention of the accountable service managers.
Read the statutory guidance below or click to download the 2004 regulations from the Office of Public Sector Information.
Independent
Reviewing Officers Guidance
IROs and placement stability
Placement stability is a key part of ensuring that care is a positive experience for looked-after children. It helps to ensure that they are offered the same opportunities as other children and that they have the individual support necessary to reach their potential.The local authority with responsibility for the child's care must respond to any recommendations.
During each care planning and review service cycle, the IRO service will have personal contact with all children in the local authority's care. An effective IRO service is therefore well positioned to support the authority's corporate parenting responsibilities, ensuring that the children in the authority's care are provided with stable placements that meet children's needs, enabling them to reach their potential.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families commissioned a report on the placement of looked-after children which was published in December 2005. The study looks at stability in terms of diversion from care, early intervention and prevention, and at achieving permanence for looked-after children in the longer term. It found that the effective operation of the council's IRO service was an important factor in enabling local managers to maintain an overview of the planning processes for the children in their care, increasing the likelihood that their placements will be stable.
Download the report below or read more about placement stability on this website.
Qualitative Study: The Placement Stability of Looked After Children
Regional networks
We have encouraged and supported the development of networks of IROs in each region. The role of these networks includes:
- Improving knowledge about how the IRO role is contributing to the effective
implementation of care plans, including the collation of intelligence
about the:
- Quality of care planning
- Availability of placements to meet needs
- Effectiveness of local placement commissioning strategies
- Children's views
- Providing a forum for IROs to share ideas, to resolve common problems and
to learn from each other to improve their practice.
- Benchmarking good practice in care planning so that all local authorities
in a region might be able to access an evidence base to develop a more
consistent responses to meeting the needs of children in care.
- Providing IROs with opportunities to gain mutual support to explore how they can be most effective in this new role.
Representatives from each IRO network take part in the National IRO Project
Group. This group:
- Maintains a national overview about how the IRO role is developing
nationally
- Identifies examples of good practice at regional level which can be used to
illustrate how IROs contribute to improving the quality of care planning within
a local authority.
- Identifies IROs' training needs and advise on how these might best be
met.
- Identifies policy issues that need to be addressed at a national level.
Regional Network link managers
Link managers act as a conduit to share information on regional activity to develop the IRO role to support care planning with the Department for Children, Schools and Families and to also to cascade information from the DCSF to managers of IRO services within their region. The link managers contribute to the National IRO Project Group.
| East Region | |
| East Midlands Region | Ian.Henderson@derbyshire.gov.uk |
| London Region | |
| North East Region | Cath.McEvoy@northtyneside |
| North West Region | Sam.Daley@ssd.lancscc.gov.uk |
| South East Region |
Jenny.R.Clifton@westsussex.gov.uk
Dave.Seal@oxfordshire.gov.uk JdeJongh@westberks.gov.uk |
| South West Region | |
| West Midlands Region | |
| Yorkshire and Humberside Region |
Documents
The
contribution of IROs to placement stability: phone survey results
A
report on a survey of local authorities about the application of Section 118 of
the Adoption and Children Act 2002
The
IRO role: examples of good practice
Cafcass and the Work of Independent Reviewing Officers
This page was last updated on 12 July 2007
