Agenda item
Children's Safeguarding Partnership Annual Report
A presentation to be made at the meeting.
Minutes:
Mr James Thomas, Corporate Director for Children and Culture introduced the Children’s Safeguarding Partnership’s Annual Report. He said Mr Keith Makin, the Independent Scrutineer would be presenting his views in relation to the progress made, however wanted to state that the statutory changes made in 2019 to the partnership shifted the onus of the partnership on all three stakeholders and strengthened the partnership with the appointment of an independent scrutineer.
Mr Thomas said the partnership had begun to make progress and had effectively learned from the rapid reviews relating to serious concerns. He said the partnership had completed its first local child safeguarding practice review, which had been done to a high quality. Mr Thomas said the systematic multi-agency quality audits of safeguarding practice meant the partnership had a much stronger scrutiny of data sets. He said the local system was relative to others in London and nationally, and meant they were able to provide effective support to families in the majority of circumstances. He said there were relatively low numbers of children in care or those subject to protection plans, but these had increased during the pandemic. Mr Thomas continued stating the partnerships response to the Covid pandemic had resulted in the partnership working closely together. Mr Thomas said they had appointed three young scrutineers to be part of the partnership and had peer reviewed themselves with other Boroughs.
The Sub-Committee then heard from Mr Keith Makin, the Independent Scrutineer of the Safeguarding Partnership. Mr Makin explained his role and said he is the ‘critical friend’ to the partnership. He said he brought his London and country wide knowledge and challenges the partnership to perform better. He said the Partnership’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic had led to fortnightly meetings to pick up on immediate issues and he was impressed with the responsiveness of the partnership.
Mr Makin said one of the challenges the partnership needed to address was the training profile. He said this needed to be strengthened however there was a process underway to do that. He said the appointment of the three young scrutineers was something different because they were in the 14-16 age bracket and not 20 plus as other partnerships had appointed. Mr Makin stated he was also impressed with the young people’s voice being heard at the Scrutiny sub-committee and said that was what the partnership was aiming to do.
In relation to the wider partnership there was work underway to engage with the education sector and specialist provision, as well the independent and voluntary sectors plus the business sector. Mr Makin said the partnership aspired to make links with all these sectors who are involved in a young person’s life. He said this was a journey, in which good progress was being made.
Lastly, Mr Makin said a good start had been made to engage with adult services, with a joint conference planned on domestic abuse in November 2021. He said the Adult Safeguarding Board was a statutory Board whereas the Safeguarding Children Board had evolved into a partnership. However, the arrangements meant they were still trying to work closely despite their different focus and were trying to move in the same direction.
In response to questions from members the following was noted:
- Mr Makin said over the past six to eight months, the partnership had made good progress linking up with other council services and the voluntary sector. He said each stakeholder of the partnership was using their existing networks and connections to reach out to these sectors so meaningful engagement could take place. He said one of the challenges was to make links with the business sector which he hoped could be achieved over time.
- In response to how quickly lessons are learnt from rapid reviews as opposed to serious case reviews, Mr Makin said quicker progress had been made. He said the there was a much quicker turnaround, with the final production of the report being published within DfE guidelines.
- Mr Thomas added it was vital for the partnership to triangulate the information from different sources. (1) the data and what this can teach you (2) Quality Assurance and Auditing and (3) the voice of the young person and parents, and their experienced. Mr Thomas said weight should be give to all three aspects when assessing cases.
- Councillor Wood stated it would be useful to have a data set showing the number of rapid reviews and the outcomes of these, as well as other key performance indicators that are presented to the partnership.
- ACTION: The Sub-Committee agreed it should receive a dashboard of data on a number of key issues such as looked after children numbers; and figures on the number of children subject to a child protection order. The Chair asked members to inform her of the key areas they’d like to see data on.
- ACTION: The Sub-Committee to invite the three young scrutineers to a future meeting of the Children and Education Scrutiny Sub-Committee, once they have been appointed and have experienced the work of the partnership.
The Chair thanked Mr Thomas and Mr Makin for their presentation.
Supporting documents:
- Item 4.3 - cover Background reading papers - Copy, item 4.3 PDF 166 KB
- THSCP Annual Report 20-21, item 4.3 PDF 878 KB