Scottish Government

Annex B Management Information Analysis

Introduction

1. This section presents the analysis of the Child Protection Line management information provided by the Essentiagroup. This information provides the context for the for the CPL in terms of supply and demand, in addition to providing an overview of the type of calls received through the line since its establishment.

Analysis process

2. The Essentiagroup operates the CPL, and collates and provides monthly monitoring data to the Scottish Government. The data utilised in this analysis will be presented under the following key headings:

• call demand;
• call outcomes;
• profile of callers;
• additional profile information;
• information calls.

3. Analysis of the management information related to the period February 2007 and October 2008. To allow comparisons to be made between demand for the line and the nature of calls received prior to and during/after the national marketing campaign the data has been analysed; providing a further breakdown between Feb 07 - Jan 08 (P1) and Feb 08 - Oct 08 (P2).

Data Issues

4. Analysis of the management information did pose some specific difficulties. Changes in the type of call information collected by the Essentiagroup during the development of the line hindered consistent analysis over time. We recognise that this was due to the line evolving over time and therefore present below some of the key issues faced and how these have been resolved or addressed during the analysis process.

Call outcomes data

5. A number of fields collected through the management information in relation to call outcomes were changed through the life of the Child Protection Line, meaning that it was not always possible to analyse all fields consistently across the months.

6. The 'incident in process' field was not included in the management information collation until October 07. Additionally in February and March 07 only the total number of callers was recorded rather than this being broken down any further.

Caller profile data

7. The format for collating data on area of concern was changed in August 08 to allow information to be collected on callers' concerns across the following main categories:

• adult behaviour towards a child or young person;
• child's behaviour/appearance;
• environment.

8. For the purposes of the analysis therefore the data available for these new categories from August 08 have been presented separately.

Call Demand

9. The table below presents call demand to the line, in total and before and after the marketing campaign was implemented.

10. The total amount of calls answered since February 2007 is 2,530, and the total number of calls lost was 403. This gives an overall strike rate of 86%. The average number of calls received per day is 4.03. The minimum daily call demand is zero, and maximum 48.

11. The volume of calls increased significantly after the launch of the marketing campaign. Total calls answered during and after the marketing campaign increased by 370%. Strike rates improved from 84% to 87%. The average number of daily calls more than tripled, with maximum daily call demand increasing significantly from 14 to 48.

12. The following sub-section will look into the outcomes of these calls in detail; including between Child Protection Committees.

Call Outcomes

13. The table below outlines the overall call outcomes across the seven categories.

14. Overall, child protection team transfers, whether successful or unsuccessful, account for the majority of call outcomes, accounting for 81% of calls. Information giving calls accounts for 9% of the total calls. 6% of calls were successfully transferred to the police.

15. In both periods, before and after the marketing campaign, the proportions of calls are similar. The proportion of callers successfully transferred to a child protection team increased slightly after the marketing campaign (an increase of five percentage points from 30% to 35%). However there was a significantly greater number of callers that could not be immediately transferred through to a child protection team. This increased to 51%, compared to 23% before the marketing campaign.

16. Transfers to police decreased after the marketing campaign, with the number of transfers decreasing from 28 (32%) calls to seven (1%). The proportion of calls abandoned without detail remained constant.

17. The table below outlines the level of referrals that were received in each Child Protection Committee area.

18. In general the overall trends are reflected within individual Child Protection Committees in relation to the increase in call volume after the launch of the marketing campaign. The Orkney Islands have not received any referrals through the line. Ten Child Protection Committees did not receive any calls prior to the marketing campaign, these were Argyll & Bute, Clackmannanshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, Shetland Islands, Stirling and Western Isles. All Child Protection Committees received calls during or after the marketing campaign.

19. The launch of the marketing campaign coincided with a large increase in call volume in the following areas: Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Dumfries and Galloway, East and North and South Ayrshire, Fife, Glasgow City, Highland, Midlothian, Moray, North Lanarkshire, Perth & Kinross, Scottish Borders, South Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire and West Lothian.

20. The numbers for each Child Protection Committee are too small to analyse with respect to each category of call outcome, but overall demonstrate increasing call demand following the marketing campaign.

Profile of Callers

21. This sub-section looks into the profile of the callers to the Child Protection Line. 72% (n=658) calls to the line were in reference to a specific child. This increased from 61% to 75% of calls during and after the marketing campaign.

22. 7% of calls between February 2007 and October 2008 were reported to be not about specific children.

23. Over half the calls were about one child (377, 60%) and a quarter about two children (155, 25%). Although the call numbers are vastly different before and after the launch of the marketing campaign, the trend of the number of children calls were related to remains similar. 68% of calls before the marketing campaign were about one child, this decreased slightly to 57% after the launch of the marketing campaign.

24. The proportion of calls about male and female children was very similar, and there were limited changes prior to and after the launch of the marketing campaign.

25. The majority of calls received since February 07 related to children aged 5 or under (268, 36%). This was slightly higher prior to the marketing campaign (40%) than after the launch of the marketing campaign (35%). Around a third of calls from February 07 related to children aged 6-10 (222, 30%) and 20% related to young people aged 11-15 (147, 20%).

26. As shown in the table below the majority of calls that had been categorised from February 2007 were concerns about unattended or unsupervised children (171, 17%), misuse of drugs or alcohol (103, 10%) or appearing hungry, tired or untidy (104, 10%). These trends were seen prior to and after the launch of the marketing campaign.

27. Overall, 30% of calls relating to areas of concerns had been categorised as 'other'.

28. There are some areas of concern that were introduced as categories within the management information since August 2008. This approach moved away from the generic area of concern information collation and moved towards categorising areas of concern as i) adult behaviour towards child or young person ii) child's behaviour/appearance and iii) environment. The table below presents the available data for these newly introduced categories for the August 2008 - October 2008 period.

26. Adults' behaviour towards a child or young person was raised as the key area of concern during this period (37%, n=42), followed by environmental concerns (36%, n=41). These three newly introduced categories are broken down further in the next three tables.

27. The table below outlines the specific adult behaviour raised as a concern by callers.

28. Just over a third (35%; n=14) of callers who had expressed a concern with adult behaviour towards a child reported witnessing verbal abuse/shouting. 25% of callers expressed a concern about a child been left unattended or unsupervised and 25% also reported that they had witnessed physical harm

29. Of the callers who specified a concern with a child's behaviour/appearance, 49% (n=17) reported that the child seemed hungry, tired or upset and seven callers reported that the child was out late at night. Four callers reported that the child was displaying sexually inappropriate behaviour for their age.

30. The table below outlines the environmental concerns raised by callers. The greatest proportion of callers reported parental substance misuse (49%), followed by a child being in an inappropriate environment (44%). Between August 08 and October 08 there were no concerns expressed about migrant children or child trafficking.

31. The majority of the calls to the line came from neighbours (196; 32%), and calls from other relatives accounted for 17% of calls. More neighbours made calls proportionately after the launch of the marketing campaign (24% to 34%).

Information calls

32. General information is provided in nearly two-thirds of calls (627, 61%), around a quarter are referred to a national agency (284, 28%) and a small proportion request literature (54, 5%) or receive campaign specific information (56, 5%). In comparison to after the launch of the marketing campaign, prior to the campaign there was a lesser proportion of callers requiring general information (46% to 65%), but more requesting literature (11% to 4%) or wanting campaign specific information (26, 13% to 30, 4%).

33. Since September 2007, two new categories were added to collate information on general calls. These would have small percentages if included in the overall figures, but still account for a relatively large number of calls. 78 callers rang the line to enquire about its remit and 61 callers were referred to the website.

Additional Profile Information

34. As the table below outlines a large proportion of callers to the line did not disclose their ethnicity (34%). Nearly two-thirds of people ringing up are of White ethnicity. After the launch of the marketing campaign more callers disclosed their ethnic origin, but the trend of the callers remained prevalent both prior to and after the launch of the campaign.

35. Callers reported the most popular media types for marketing as posters (15%) the website (15%) and when introduced, the phone kiosks (11%). There was much more success with the website and radio after the launch of the marketing campaign. Poster, press and radio and television sources are broken down into individual campaigns in the next four tables.

36. The most popular poster source was child protection 'help' (110, 71%), which had similar numbers both prior to and after the launch of the marketing campaign. See it..Hear it..Share it was introduced in September 2007 and encouraged 18 people to contact the CPL. The local press was the most successful press source (30, 48%), with the Daily Record also being popular (11, 17%). The local radio (16, 55%) was the most popular disclosed radio source, throughout both periods. The local television was the only disclosed source of encouraging people to call (13, 62%).

Website Information

37. The Scottish Government has provided statistics from the Child Protection Line website. The data covers the period from when the marketing campaign began (February 2008) until January 2009.

38. In the timeframe covered, 3,269 visits had been made to the Child Protection Line website. Of these, 78% (n=2,565) were unique visitors. This shows that 22% (n=704) visited the website more than once. The average time on the website was over 2 minutes, and in this time, the average number of pages viewed was around 5 (4.59).

39. The pages most viewed on the website was the home page (31%, n=4675). 'Children's Stories' and 'What You Can Do' pages sum to around a quarter of total page views (13%, n=2009 and 13%, n=1908 respectively).

40. The vast majority of visitors to the website typed the address in directly (86%, n=2795). A small proportion (n=252 and n=222) found the website through search engines or referring websites.

41. The websites that referred visitors to the Child Protection Line website were fairly evenly spread in terms of referral numbers. These ranged from 30 referrals (Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People) to 17 referrals (Care Commission).

42. From the search engines, it was found the top keywords were 'child protection line' (n=37).

43. Looking at the visitors by month, it appears that there are higher visitor numbers at the very beginning of the campaign (n=303 Feb, n=318 March), peaking again in October (n=291). The lowest visitor numbers to the website were in December (n=162). This may be explained by possible creative wear-out of the campaign.

44. The number of times the site was visited follows a downwards trend throughout the period, peaking in February (1.44 average visits per visitor) and having the lowest visits again in December (n=1.06 times average visits per visitor).