Family Hubs: Peer Challenge Guidance Manual 2025

All families need support from time to time to help their babies and children thrive, whether that’s from friends, family, volunteers, or practitioners. Our ambition is for every family to receive the support they need, when they need it. All families should have access to the information and tools they need to care for and interact positively with their babies and children, and to look after their own wellbeing.

Local services, working together and in partnership with the voluntary, community and faith sectors, all have a vital role to play in supporting families. Professionals often face practical and organisational barriers to working together. Organisational geographical boundaries don’t always align when it comes to delivery of services, which can add to the complexity. Improving join-up between state and non-state services and taking a whole family approach better supports families to access the help they need. 

Evidence is clear that identifying risks early and preventing problems from escalating leads to better long-term outcomes. Universal services which are available to all local families who need them can help to spot and respond to issues before they develop into more complex problems. Some families with babies, children and young people will need additional, targeted help. Whatever the need, early identification support which is easily accessible, and strengthened relationships help to address problems before they get worse. Investing in supporting families to care for their babies, children and young people has an important role to play in reducing health and education disparities right from the start, and improving physical, emotional, cognitive and social outcomes longer term.

Family hubs are a place-based way of joining up locally in the planning and delivery of family services. They bring services together to improve access, improve the connections between families, professionals, services, and providers, and put relationships at the heart of family support. Family hubs offer support to families from conception and two, and to those with children of all ages, which is 0-19 or up to 25 for those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), with a great Start for Life offer at their core.

 From Family Hubs and Start for Life programme guide

The Government has recognised the essential importance of Family Hubs to their ambition to give all children the best start in life. In June 2025 they commissioned the Local Government Association to deliver the National Centre for Family Hubs role and this includes the delivery of peer challenges. 

Family Hubs peer challenges are available to Government Funded and non funded Local Authorities.

This guidance manual is designed to help build an understanding of the purpose and methodology of a Family Hubs peer challenge. It is not intended to be prescriptive as each challenge will have its own individual features but the steps set out in the manual provide a firm base for ensuring that each challenge can be conducted successfully.

The aim of each challenge is to help councils and their partners to reflect on their Family Hubs services that they provide and improve the outcomes for children and families.

The manual contains guidance for everyone involved in the peer challenge and specifically for the host council and the peer challenge team. 

It is important to remember that a challenge is not an inspection and should not be conducted like one by either the peer team or the host council. Rather, it is providing a critical friend approach that challenges the councils and their partners in assessing their strengths and identifying their own areas for improvement. The key purpose of the challenge is to stimulate local action about how the council and its partners can improve the outcomes for children and families.

The challenge is an interactive exercise. During the challenge the peer team will examine evidence from a number of sources. These will include:

• Introductory presentation by the local authority to give context
• Documents that outline the local area approach to Family Hubs provision
• A self-assessment prepared by the council and their partners
• Performance data  
• Interviews and focus groups conducted with staff from the council, partners and other stakeholders
• Observations of practice

The challenge will conclude with a presentation by the challenge team. This will provide the team’s views on the strengths of Family Hubs provision and areas for consideration. A feedback report covering the main points of the challenge will then be sent to the host council.

Over time the LGA will use the learning from the challenges to contribute to the developing body of good practice to be used by councils and partners in their own improvement journeys. 

The peer team will spend four days on site, three days facilitating meetings with the council and its partners, observing practice and seeking the views of parents and service users. This will be preceded by an intensive period of planning, organisation and preparation particularly for the council to produce a self-assessment, the challenge timetable and the documentation, evidence and information that will be requested. The LGA will provide support and guidance through this period.

The LGA expects to have a final report submitted to the council within five weeks of the final presentation, and often much sooner than this.

The Peer Challenges should aim to provide evidence of outcomes delivered that will contribute to overall programme aims. These should include one or more of the following:

1. Improved governance and leadership of Family Hubs
2. Greater co-production with parents, children and young people to develop and deliver Family Hub services and stronger parent carer panels
3. Improved monitoring and evaluation of Family Hubs services and analysis of impact  (e.g. outcomes framework)
4. Improved partnership working within Family Hubs
5. Improved accessibility of services for families and children
6. Improved digital offer for Family Hubs
7. Improved data sharing across key partners
8. Improved early identification of needs, early help support and safeguarding

The information in the table below sets out the basic stages in a challenge. 

The LGA will pull together a team to deliver each peer challenge. The team for an Family Hubs peer challenge will typically comprise the roles outlined in the table below:

The following points should be noted.

1. The above team is a ‘standard team’. In practice it may be necessary to add additional team members depending on the areas to be explored, local circumstance, partnership arrangements.
2. The indicative number of days should not be exceeded without prior approval from the LGA Programme Manager (Children’s Services).
3. In practice it has been found to be very helpful if team members specialise or lead in their own area of expertise in examining the themes.
4. In addition a project co-ordinator will be appointed to assist with logistical arrangements, accommodation bookings if required, expenses payments etc but they will not attend the on-site work. 

There may also be occasions when, for the purposes of gaining first-hand experience of a peer challenge, the LGA may request the permission of a council for another LGA member of staff or prospective peer to participate. This is at no cost to the council.

Team roles, ground rules and skills required

Although they will work as a team throughout, each member of the team does have specific responsibilities and there are basic ground rules under which the team should operate. Team responsibilities and ground rules 

Agreeing the peer team 

The LGA will pull together a peer team to ensure that the skills, expertise and background of the team matches the council’s requirements as closely as possible. However, the council will always be consulted to ensure they have the final decision on the team make-up.  

Where a team member withdraws at short notice the challenge manager will propose an alternative as soon as possible, taking into account that the availability of peers will be limited.

Document Distribution

All the information provided by the council and its partners will be uploaded to a designated group on a secure shared portal. This can only be accessed by the team, the host authority and the project co-ordinator.

The host council will need to identify a challenge sponsor and an organiser for the challenge.

The challenge sponsor should be a senior manager within the council (preferably the director or assistant director of children’s services). The challenge needs to be agreed by the council’s Chief Executive and Lead Member. The role of the challenge sponsor is to commission the challenge, ensure there is high level commitment to the process from staff and partners and agree the scope and themes for the challenge with the LGA. 

The role of the council challenge organiser is to be the ‘single point of contact’, to put in place all logistical detail, prepare the draft timetable, supply the required documents and be available during the on-site stage for requests from the team.

In addition, the council should be aware of its responsibilities in agreeing to and participating in the challenge process. Key council responsibilities

Confidentiality 

Each party (council, partners, LGA and peer challenge team) will keep all confidential information belonging to other parties disclosed or obtained as a result of the relationship of the parties through the peer challenge and will not use or disclose the same, save for the purposes of the proper performance of the peer challenge or with the prior written consent of the other party. 

The obligations of confidentiality will not extend to any matter which the parties can show is in, or has become, part of the public domain other than as a result of a breach of the obligations of confidentiality or was in their written records prior to the date of the peer challenge; was independently disclosed to it by a third party; or is required to be disclosed under any applicable law, or by order of a court or governmental body or other competent authority. 

As can be seen in the challenge stages there are parts of the challenge that may involve team members having access to personal data. It is vital that the following principles are understood by the council, partners and members of the peer team and adhered to at all times.

Data protection 

The council, partners, LGA and peer team members agree that data (including personal data) as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998, relating to the processing of the peer challenge, to the extent that it is reasonably necessary in connection with the peer challenge, may: 

1. be collected and held (in hard copy and computer readable form) and    processed by the peer challenge team and
2. may be disclosed or transferred:
   1. to the peer challenge team members and/or
   2. as  otherwise required or permitted by law 

The LGA Programme Manager will arrange a meeting with the director, or assistant director of children’s services, and they will act as the challenge sponsor.

The purpose of the meeting will be to confirm that a challenge is appropriate, consider the focus, additional key lines of enquiry, the timetable including arrangements for self-assessment, peer team requirements and any necessary background information. 

A formal proposal e-mail will then be sent by the LGA Programme Manager to the council confirming the discussion and proposed arrangements for the challenge.

Communications and publicity

The purpose of a challenge is to promote learning and improved outcomes. In this context, the council should consider communications across the partnership not only to share the findings but to also engage different parts of the Family Hubs sector in the challenge process.   ‘What’s it all about?’, example partnership briefing 

The final report is the property of the receiving council and is not published by the LGA, however it is expected that the council share the report with the appropriate networks and partners. 

The final report will be sent to the director of children’s services (DCS) and copied to the LGA Principal Adviser and Regional Children’s Improvement Adviser

During this stage the council and challenge manager must liaise closely and ensure that the following are prepared and supplied to the peer team in line with the agreed timescales:

• Pre-challenge documentation and performance information pre challenge documentation and information
• Data required for the challenge
• Key Lines of Enquiry Guidance
• Preparation Checklist
• What makes a successful peer challenge

The key features during the challenge phase are described below:

No surprises policy

This council will be provided with regular feedback on the key issues emerging during the meetings and focus groups. The team leader and challenge manager will also give the council’s challenge sponsor a good understanding of what will be presented at the final presentation. This gives the chance to resolve any outstanding issues and ensure appropriate language and wording is used. But this is not an opportunity to change the findings of the peer team.

First peer team meeting

The peer team will have its first meeting online  before of the challenge starts. The challenge manager will facilitate this meeting and it will cover introductions, familiarity with the methodology, the conduct for interviews and any initial thoughts that can be drawn from the pre reading.

Council overview presentation 

The start of Day 1 should include a short presentation from the council. This should last for a maximum of 20 minutes and consist of an overview of Family Hubs provision in the area; areas of strength; areas for development and any planned key actions and priorities.

On-site interviews, focus groups and observations

This will form the main activity for the rest of days one to three of the on-site stage. The focus of the interviews will be on validation and exploration of the evidence from the self-assessment and documentation. This will lead to discussion of the interviewees understanding of strengths and areas for the development across the Family Hubs agenda.

The feedback presentation

Following the remote meetings and focus groups and the on site day there  will be a feedback presentation by the peer team to the council. 

There is a standard format to the feedback presentation and each member of the team will contribute to the drafting. The presentation should identify good practice and suggestions for improvement, as well as the practice examples that the team think would be of wider interest.

Following the meetings and focus groups, the peer team will compile a report based on the peer challenge findings comprising:

• an executive summary of the key issues
• strengths and areas for further development identified throughout the process
• recommendations based on the findings and which will help the council and their partners to improve Family Hubs provision for children and families.

The challenge report will not provide a judgement and is not intended to make extensive recommendations.

Following the peer challenge and production of the final report the LGA Programme Manager will liaise with the council to agree any next steps and follow up activity. This might include:

• LGA National Centre for Family Hubs Regional Advisor to provide support
• LGA Children’s Improvement Advisor to provide or broker specific support to develop and deliver improvement plans
• LGA National Centre for Family Hubs work with the council to develop case studies of good practice for publication