Agenda item

To consider the annual report to give assurance as to the level of the Council’s compliance with its safeguarding duty and to note the Section 11 self-assessment submission to the Assurance Panel, attached at Appendix 1.

37.1          Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 74-82, which provided the annual report to give assurance that Tewkesbury Borough Council was fulfilling its safeguarding duties.  Members were asked to consider the report and to note the Section 11 self-assessment submission to the Assurance Panel, attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

37.2          The Head of Community Services advised that the Section 11 process was a statutory requirement and an integral part of the self-assessment which focused on four areas: leadership and accountability; staff safe recruitment, induction, training and development; safeguarding policies and procedures; and listening to children and young people.  He had attended the Assurance Panel on 16 November 2021 where he had been questioned in relation to the content of Tewkesbury Borough Council’s submission and was pleased to report that no issues had been identified.  He drew attention to Page No. 76, Paragraph 4 of the report which set out that 14 safeguarding cases had been raised internally during the year 1 April 2020-31 March 2021 of which two needed to be referred to social care, two had been dealt with in partnership with the neighbourhood policing team, two multi-agency meetings had been called by the Council in light of the concerns raised and four cases had become ongoing child protection cases which had been attended by a member of staff to advise from Tewkesbury Borough Council’s perspective.  The 14 cases raised came from a good cross-section of Council departments which demonstrated that Officers had a good understanding of their safeguarding responsibilities.

37.3          A Member recognised that a lot of the areas covered by the Section 11 self-assessment were outside of the remit of the Borough Council but he was pleased to note that cases were being referred by Officers when safeguarding concerns came to light.  He indicated that he would like to see the information that had been sent to the Assurance Panel if possible and, in response, the Head of Community Services confirmed that was as set out at Appendix 1 to the report; whilst the Local Safeguarding Partnership did not discuss individual cases, he was able to gain insight and an overall feeling for how things were going and he would be happy to have a conversation with the Member outside of the meeting if he had any specific questions.  Another Member expressed the view that it would be useful to have an idea of the safeguarding issues that had been raised and the sort of things that came up in general terms.  The Head of Community Services expressed concern that, due to the small number of people involved, any detail could make them easily identifiable; nevertheless, he would discuss this further with Management Team to see if it was possible to provide some general case studies setting out how the matter had come to light and what the outcome was etc.  A Member expressed the view that this was important from a learning point of view as it could help to identify warning signs.

37.4          It was

RESOLVED           That the annual safeguarding update and the Section 11 self-assessment submission to the Assurance Panel, attached at Appendix 1 to the report, be NOTED.