Briefly describe the initiative/ project/service; please include your aims and objectives

In January 2025, North East Lincolnshire Council became the first Local Authority in the country using the Liquidlogic system, to have access to live data dashboards in their Integrated Front Door, reporting on children and families who need urgent support. The Integrated Front Door (IFD) in North East Lincolnshire is a team made up of 6 Initial Contact Point (ICP) Workers, 6 Social Workers, 3 Practice Supervisors and a Service Lead. The team cover the full geographical area of North East Lincolnshire and responds to all requests for service, whether this be Family Help, or safeguarding. The IFD, have a number of co-located colleagues from Family Help, Police, Health and more recently Education, all of whom consider risk/need for our children and any risks.

This approach supports multiagency decision making, ensuring that our children are placed at the heart of any decision making and receive the right support, at the right time, by the right person.

The data shows immediately on a live dashboard the children who have been referred to the service due to safeguarding concerns, or where information, advice and guidance is required to support families, or to support appropriate professionals in their support of children and families.

The system was built from scratch, with innovation and development from members of the Council’s Integrated Front Door (IFD), the Local Authority ICT and Digital Service and SystemC project leads. The project group worked tirelessly to ensure that the system was right for children and supported professionals to make informed decisions about children and families. It ensured that data was available quickly, to be understood and utilised in the support and safety of our children.

The initiative provides a scalable replicable model for digital transformation in safeguarding, highlighting the importance of genuine co-design between operational teams, IT developers and suppliers. Embedding frontline expertise allowed for rapid, tailored iterations and built strong user trust.

What are the key achievements?

Our live reporting allows Social Workers and Managers to see “live” information about all referrals made into the IFD with data being available on digital boards in the IFD.

As at December 2025 on average 99% of safeguarding contacts reported into the Integrated Front Door were progressed within 24 hours. Before the live reporting system went live, we averaged 79% timeliness.

Key successes during the project included setting clearer procurement standards, defining “live data”, ensuring access to supplier APIs, and embedding robust service levels in contracts.

Overall, the key achievement is that the system, in tandem with our staff, is facilitating quicker decisions for children, for their families, and for our partners.

How Innovative is your initiative?

The Council is the first local authority using Liquidlogic to develop and deploy a live data reporting system. The system, in tandem with our staff, is facilitating quicker decisions for children, for their families, and for our partners through real time insights.

The dashboards allow Social Workers and Managers to see “live” information about all referrals made into the IFD. Having access to such information supports with understanding children’s needs, demand drivers, themes and patterns, meaning that they can identify any emerging issues facing our local children and young people, and see a snapshot of the workload, meaning that faster decisions can be made.

This approach supports multiagency decision making, ensuring that our children are placed at the heart of any decision making and receive the right support, at the right time, by the right person. Within 12 months this project went from a pilot to a reality and is a valuable resource to the service.

The system was built through a collaboration between the IFD, ICT and Digital and supplier project leads with rapid iteration, tailed to operational needs and created strong user trust and relationships.

What are the key learning points?

This initiative provides a scalable and replicable model for digital transformation in safeguarding. Co-design with services is essential – Service leads repeatedly provided functional feedback on dashboard behaviour, data issues and operational needs. Co-design ensured rapid iteration and adoption. Strong relationships and flexible supplier management are crucial, we saw frequent deployment of fixes within hours, the prompt improvement cycle built confidence across the teams.

Live data reporting is high risk without a stable architecture, this project learnt that the risk of attempting live reporting on top of operational systems without dedicated supported APIs or feeds is problematic.