Agenda item

To consider the contents of the annual report to give assurance as to the level of the Council’s compliance with its safeguarding duty. 

42.1          The report of the Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 39-75, provided the Committee with an update on how the Council was fulfilling its safeguarding responsibilities and Members were asked to consider the content of the annual report as well as to note the Section 11 assurance submission.  

42.2          In introducing the report, the Head of Community Services explained that there had been significant changes to the landscape of children’s safeguarding in recent years and the report and appendix set out the arrangements for the Council and how it fulfilled its duties in terms of both children and adult safeguarding as well as the new methodology for Councils in providing assurance of safeguarding; Appendix 2 showed the old reporting system, Appendix 3, the new arrangements and Appendix 4 set out the actual submission for this year. In terms of safeguarding in Tewkesbury Borough, 15 cases had been raised internally by Officers over the last year and of those only two had been referred to the safeguarding unit at the County Council. Two cases had been referred to Gloucestershire Constabulary, one to the mental health crisis team and two to adult social care; the remaining cases had been dealt with in-house via multi-agency meetings with partners. It was felt that 15 cases having been raised demonstrated that staff had a good understanding of their safeguarding responsibilities which was great news.

42.3          The Chair welcomed the Business Manager for the Safeguarding Children Executive to the meeting to provide an update and to advise of the developments which were taking place. The representative explained that the legislation for safeguarding children had changed in 2018 when the primary responsibility had been moved from the County Council to a collective, shared and equal responsibility across all partner agencies. The arrangements had been published in April 2019 in the ‘Working Together’ document which could be found on the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children Executive’s website. The local arrangements intended to achieve collective effectiveness of local child safeguarding; the effective sharing of information to facilitate more accurate and timely decision-making; the statutory duty for child safeguarding practice reviews and child death reviews being met; the setting out and monitoring of multi-agency policies and procedures; schools and agencies being held to account under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 and Section 175 of the Education Act 2002; and multi-agency learning being promoted and embedded. The structural architecture of safeguarding in the County was now different than it was 12-months ago, with the initial change over from the Children’s Safeguarding Board to the Safeguarding Children Executive having been relatively soft and it had taken a year to really understand what the future for safeguarding ought to be. The structure had been approved in November and set out the intention that the Safeguarding Children Executive would become the Safeguarding Children Partnership Executive. The other major development was that over the last 18 months the Executive had worked closely with the District Safeguarding Network and had formed a sub-group of the safeguarding structure which would be held to account by the Executive and would have administrative support. Under the old arrangements the local board would have had an independent Chair but the new regulations did not have that requirement. The first Section 11 process under the new arrangements had been undertaken the previous day and had been very successful. An effective partnership would have wide and active engagement in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements with the right shared priorities; agencies understanding their respective roles and thresholds; support and challenge within the multi-agency system; continuous learning and development; an environment in which effective multi-agency practice could flourish; good systems for information sharing, which professionals were confident and knowledgeable about; and effective, ambitious child-focussed leadership within and across partners. In terms of the local arrangements for independent scrutiny, this would provide independent, objective scrutiny of the effectiveness of multi-agency arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare and wellbeing of all children in Gloucestershire. The county had an independent scrutineer as well as a Lay Member and independent reviewers were utilised for child safeguarding practice reviews and multi-agency audit. Further exploration on the ‘voice of the child’ would be a focus in 2021.

42.4          Members thanked the representative for his thorough presentation and felt there was a lot of cohesive work ongoing which was great news. In response to a query regarding timings, the representative explained that the reviews used to be bi-annual but, since the Section 11 process had come into the business unit, it would be undertaken annually and it was anticipated it would also be themed.

42.5          Having considered the report and information provided, it was

                 RESOLVED           That the contents of the annual report on the Council’s                                            safeguarding arrangements and the Section 11 assurance                                      submission be NOTED.