Exploring local authority data and monitoring of Family Group Conferences

Recommendations for national data collection

Strengthening Family Networks
March 4, 2025

Exploring local authority data and monitoring of Family Group Conferences

Report

Summary

A Family Group Conference (FGC) is a family-led decision making approach used in children’s social care. FGCs are widely used in England and there is a growing evidence base for their effectiveness, particularly at the pre-proceeding stage in the UK. Despite this, there is currently no routinely collected data on the extent to which FGCs are offered and taken up by families. Local authorities do not have a standardised system or approach for capturing FGC data and there are various systems and methods for collecting data across children’s services.

Without a method for collecting data on the use of FGCs, it is not possible to know at a national level which families are being offered FGCs, which families accept, and what their outcomes are.

To help address this gap, Foundations commissioned Coram, in partnership with Family Rights Group (FRG), Daybreak, and Data to Insight (D2I), to conduct a project exploring what data on FGCs is currently being collected and what methods are being used to store this data. The report also recommends several options for how this data could be routinely collecting across England to provide a national picture of FGC service provision.

Aims

The project had two key aims:

To understand what data local authorities currently collect on FGCs at pre-proceeding stage specifically, and at other stages where relevant, and what data and monitoring systems they use.
To develop recommendations for how data could be routinely collected on family access to FGCs at pre-proceedings (which should cover how as well as who should do this).

Method

The project took a mixed-methods, multi-disciplinary approach. This included:

An assessment of previous work on FGC data collection
Two parent-carer panel discussions
Interviews with staff from 10 local authorities
In-depth site visits with three local authorities to explore how they recorded and reported on FGCs.

In total, 58 professionals were engaged, including FGC service managers, business and administration support, heads of services, data analysts, and FGC coordinators. Interviews were also held with FGC providers, national stakeholders and academics. Consultation workshops were held with local authorities to test the emerging findings and co-develop recommendations and options for a national data collection.

Key Findings

The project found that local authorities recorded a range of data on FGCs including:

Referral information
Information used to plan an FGC
Information on the conference meetings and reviews (including attendance)
The FGC plans and review plans themselves
Information from families and professionals at closure and after the FGC, including feedback and views on outcomes.

Data was recorded using a range of different methods, including children’s services case management systems (CMS) and local authority internal recording systems and spreadsheets. Almost all FGC services also used spreadsheets to record some form of FGC data. There was substantial variation in the quality of FGC data and in data quality assurance processes.

Overall, local authorities were supportive of the introduction of a national standardised, routine data collection on FGCs. Many felt that it could promote FGCs within their local authority as well as nationally and generally wanted it for benchmarking purposes.

Based on these findings, the report outlines three possible options for establishing a routine, national standardised data collection:

Option 1 – Voluntary, standalone collection of aggregated local authority level FGC data
Option 2 – Voluntary standalone collection of child level FGC data from local authorities
Option 3 – Collection of child-level FGC data from local authorities through an existing national data collection, such as the Child in Need (CiN) census.

The report also provides the key features and processes required to effectively establish a national FGC data collection. These include:

Co-develop the data collection with the sector
Allow time to test and pilot the new data collection
Minimise burden on local authorities, by only collecting data which will be useful to the sector and used to inform local, regional and national policy and practice
Provide a data collection template and accompanying guidance
Account for variation in FGCs
Ensure data is submitted and held securely in line with UK GDPR
Maximise usefulness to the sector, by providing tools to analyse the data for benchmarking purposes locally, regionally and nationally
Provide transformation funding to develop a national data collection
Gain approval from the DfE’s Star Chamber (relevant only to Option 3).

Implications for Policy

The report recommends adopting a phased approach to data collection. The phased approach would begin with Option 1, which involves co-designing a survey with the sector and then collecting aggregated local authority-level data. This would then be used to support the implementation of Option 2 and 3, which are more complex, resource-intensive data collection methods. Foundations will be discussing these options with the Department for Education.

Linked Project

You can view the project linked to this publication here:

Exploring local area data & monitoring of Family Group Conferences

Related Publications

Report

Strengthening Family Networks

What interventions improve outcomes for kinship carers & children in their care

Learn More

Report

Strengthening Family Networks

Understanding the variation in support for kinship carers

Learn More

Exploring local authority data and monitoring of Family Group Conferences