RIEP

The South West Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (SW RIEP) was set up by authorities in June 2006 as a “hub” to drive innovation and progress against regional priorities and to share information and knowledge in conjunction with other public sector bodies and support agencies. Previously known as “LIFT SW”, it has a good track record supporting authorities to deliver change in the region.

The RIEP website homepage can be accessed by clicking here

RIEP Newsletters can be accessed by click here

The Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (SW RIEP) publishes a Databook which is an expanded version of the former SEN partnership benchmarking study. This is done annually and this year’s information gathering exercise is taking place now. It was decided not to print a hard copy book as in previous years but to make the information available on-line via the SW RIEP website. While this information is not confidential we have put it in the members area of the website rather than in a public area as it contains comparisons taken from authorities own data. There is also three years of trend data which will become four this year.

Also in the members area is a Data Toolkit which helps users to find information that is on other websites, mostly in the public sector.

The raw data provided for the Databook has been input to a Placement Directory which is a spreadsheet detailing every out of authority placement (without children’s names or identifiers). This permits a lot of further analysis by use of filters and pivot tables after downloading a copy. There is also a Provider Directory which we use to record factual information about all our providers. This is quite crude and is no substitute for the detail held in the Cross Regional Placement Database, but it does allow quick reference.

All of this can be found on www.southwestiep.gov.uk in the Members Area under the heading “Data and Information of use to Commissioners”. Access the Members Area requires a Username and Password which is available to Commissioners and Practitioners – e-mail john.lees@swcouncils.gov.uk if you do not have them. Regular users can download all of the spreadsheets onto their own computers – but then need to be careful not to miss updates.