The Report

Questions to consider for:

• Open Those ultimately accountable; Safeguarding Adult Board members and Chair

  1. Has the report achieved the agreed commissioning specification?
  2. Have you sought to manage expectations of all Board members regarding the proportionality of the SAR including the report?
  3. Does it provide insights into factors that increase the risk that people will not be effectively safeguarded and/or illuminate conditions that are effective in enabling good safeguarding practice?
  4. Are the findings that the SAB is asked to accept, and partners be responsible for acting on, presented clearly and succinctly?
  5. Can you and partners readily use the contents of the report to inform work to enhance partnership working, improve outcomes for adults and families and improve the reliability of efforts to safeguard adults in the future?
  6. Are you assured that individuals and agencies involved have been given the opportunity to comment on the factual accuracy of details contained in the report?
  7. Are you assured that any disputes, in particular regarding inaccurate factual analysis, alleged breaches of personal information, negligent misstatements and defamation have been addressed in line with relevant SAB guidance and governance processes? (This issue is picked up again in QM 14 on Publication and dissemination.)

• Open Those with delegated responsibility; the SAR subgroup or similar

  1. Does the report get beyond description and foreground deeper analysis about social and organisational conditions that help or hinder effective, personalised safeguarding?
  2. Does the structure of the report make it straightforward to distinguish any evaluation of the case from generalizable systemic issues deemed a priority for improvement?
  3. Is there adequate transparency in how the conclusions have been reached?
  4. Is the detail provided about barriers or enablers to good practice, and systemic risks specific enough to allow them to be shared and compared with findings from other SARs?
  5. Has everyone involved, including the person and family had adequate opportunity to comment on the Final Draft Report and all comments, queries or disputes been addressed?
  6. Does the report adequately manage accessibility and explaining complex professional and organisational issues?
  7. Is the Report formatted clearly, in plain English, with any opinions or quotes attributed to their owners and referenced?
  8. Is it clear in the report how views of the person and family members have been incorporated into the analysis, where appropriate?
  9. Is the tone and choice of words appropriate to the review?
  10. Does the amount of detail included about the person and the story of the case match what has been agreed, with input from the person and/or family themselves?
  11. Has all the data to be routinely collected (administrative data; SAR characteristics; case characteristics) been detailed in the preferred format of the SAB and appropriate for this particular SAR, be that in the report or via a centralized SAB data base or spreadsheet?
  12. Have you made it clear that the Final Draft Report is confidential, and not for distribution or public comment until the proposed publication date?

• Open Those conducting the review; Independent Reviewers

  1. Are you focused on producing a report that is succinct, accessible and useful to supporting improvements?
  2. Have you distinguished case findings and presented clearly your systems findings that explain particular practice problems which featured in the case and represent wider learning about enablers or barriers to good practice?
  3. Have you evidenced the barriers or enablers to good practice as strongly and with as much specificity as possible, given the range of data available to you?
  4. Have you avoided the temptation to articulate solutions to address the systems findings when these depend on factors and constraints outside the scope of the SAR?
  5. Have you included details of the person and events of the case as agreed, in such a way that they do not detract from the systems learning in the report about causal factors that help or hinder practitioners doing their jobs to optimum effect?
  6. Have you presented complex issues as straightforwardly as possible without over-simplifying them?
  7. Are you assured that all administrative data, SAR and case characteristics have been documented, if they are not included in the report?

• Open Those providing practical support; SAB Business Managers/Unit

  1. Have editorial arrangements been agreed?
  2. Have you reminded people to cross-reference the report with the commissioning specification?
  3. Have adequate arrangements been made to enable the person and/or family to convey whether or how they want to feature in the report