Agenda item

To approve the revised Safeguarding Policy.  

That the revised Safeguarding Policy be APPROVED, subject to amendments being made where necessary to refer to ‘children, young people and vulnerable adults’ rather than just ‘children and young people’; and that future amendments to the Policy be delegated to the Deputy Chief Executive.

62.1           The report of the Interim Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 77-102, attached a revised Safeguarding Policy which the Committee was asked to approve.

62.2           The Interim Head of Community Services explained that the Council’s original Safeguarding Children’s Policy had been approved in 2013 and scheduled for review this year. That review had now been undertaken and had looked at the wider safeguarding responsibilities which the Council had under the Care Act 2014; those were reflected in the Policy before the Committee which now included the welfare of vulnerable adults as well as children. The role of the Council and its Officers in this respect was to gather information and report any safeguarding issues to the appropriate agency; the Council did not make any judgements in respect of safeguarding itself. The Interim Head of Community Services explained that the Council was also engaged with the monitoring of duties of the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children’s Board and was currently undertaking a Section 11 audit to ensure it was discharging its functions correctly by having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. The results of that process would be reported to the Audit Committee in December and Internal Audit would be carrying out an audit of safeguarding in quarter four.

62.3           A Member congratulated Officers on a comprehensive and concise report which she felt effectively drew attention to the detail of what to do if a Member or Officer had a safeguarding issue. She hoped that everyone would read the policy to ensure they knew what the guidance was and was pleased that the document set out contact details by post rather than Officers names so everyone knew who they should speak to.  There was one area that needed amendment and the Member explained that the document should refer to children, young people and vulnerable adults throughout; there were currently a number of places where ‘vulnerable adults’ was omitted and this would need to be changed before it was published.

62.4           In terms of the need to ensure all Members, as well as staff, were kept informed it was suggested that a link to some online training could be forwarded to Councillors as well as them being invited to the staff briefings which took place on the subject. A Member felt that this would be a good idea as it needed to be recognised that safeguarding was everyone’s job not just the responsibility of the County Council. In response to a query regarding how well the Council worked with partner agencies within the Public Services Centre on this issue, the Chief Executive advised that, within the building, the relationships with the police and other agencies were superb and, given the seriousness of the issue, there was a focus on this across all partnerships. The policy was communicated to all partners and had been reviewed with County Council colleagues so it was considered consistently across the County; although it should be borne in mind that there were different versions of it depending on the particular function that each organisation had within the process.

62.5           It was felt that it would be helpful to provide all Members with an email and hard copy of the Policy and, accordingly, it was