ECINS’ Heather Ette spoke to Police Sergeant Carl Holland, Operational Lead for ECINS at Nottinghamshire Police about their Complex Case Panel Meetings that are chaired by Ashfield District Council and attended by a range of statutory organisations.
‘Between 10 and 15 representatives regularly attend the Ashfield Complex Case Panel’, said Carl. ‘The meeting is co-located at the District Council offices as not all attendees have access to video conferencing facilities.
Numerous Council departments are present, led by the Council’s Communities’ Protection Department who are joined by the Police, Community Mental Health Team, Council Housing, Fire Brigade and a number of teams who are affiliated to the Council to look at lifestyles, including Job Centre representatives and other statutory agencies.’
Nottinghamshire Police currently use ECINS to manage their cases for a range of business areas including IOM, Hate Crime, Victim services, Early Intervention, Safeguarding and Automatic Referrals. Ashfield District Council also use the system for an additional range of business areas including Licensing, ASB, Rough Sleepers, Unauthorised Encampments, Staff Safety/Risk Register and Vulnerable Persons.
The Complex Case Panels meet on a monthly basis and ECINS is used to administrate the process.
‘Over the next few weeks I am rolling out ECINS training to all of the agencies involved in the CCPs to get them all on board and working in the same way’ said Carl. ‘Quite a number of the attendees already use it frequently but having everyone accessing and using the system will really help to speed up our processes as a partnership.
‘I always get a very good response from agencies when they are introduced to ECINS and I explain the benefits. Once they see for themselves how it enables multi-agency use, sharing of information and realtime information, rather than waiting on emails, they are won over’, explained Carl.
ECINS acts as the facilitator for the CCP meetings as it holds all of the key information that will be discussed. The Chairperson collates the information from ECINS and creates a confidential document for those people who are not currently accessing the system. ECINS users log into the system from their mobiles, laptops or tablets to see the information live.
‘I hook into ECINS at the meetings as it’s much easier for me to see everything in one place and I don’t have to carry wads of paper around with me’, said Carl. ‘To accommodate all of our attendees the meeting is held in a traditional format, the agenda is set beforehand and minutes are taken live at the meeting but after the meeting ends the minutes, actions and tasks are all transferred to ECINS so that we can see the progress of cases live on the system and can check what tasks and actions are outstanding ahead of the next meeting.
‘It saves us a lot of time and energy and creates a more efficient workspace as there is no need to send separate emails or carry out numerous phone calls.’
About Complex Case Panels
Complex Case Panels Complex Case Panels (CCPs) are made up of members from statutory organisations such as the County Council and other local authorities, the Police, the Fire Service and/or GPs and non-statutory organisations such as Registered Social Landlords, Charities, Probation and organisations that offer support to individuals and their families.
The CCPs considers cases referred to it involving people identified as vulnerable, for instance, where individuals have been victim to anti-social behaviour. Information may be shared in relation to the victim or perpetrator of a crime or anti-social activity. Information about individuals connected with those individuals, for instance, family members may also be shared.
Personal information shall be shared for one or more of the following purposes:
• early intervention to provide support to individuals;
• to prevent crime and disorder or anti-social behaviour;
• for safeguarding and for promoting welfare of adults at risk of abuse and harm;
• for wider public protection.
The County Council and the other members of the CCPs have an information sharing agreement in place which sets out the details and legal basis of the information sharing arrangement. The personal information that is shared with the other organisations will be retained by them and they will become responsible for that information.
Information received by the County Council will be stored in accordance with its retention polices. Information shared with other members of the CCPs and CDPs will store the information in accordance with their own record retention policies.
Information shall be shared between the County Council and other members of the CPPs and CDPs using a cloud storage and database provider. The cloud storage is located in the UK and the provider is ISO/IEC 27001 certified.
The database has a national search facility which provides other organisations who are registered with the provider. 4 Complex Case Panels Complex Case Panels (CCPs) are made up of members from statutory organisations such as the County Council.
