Agenda item

To consider the annual report and the Section 11 assurance submission to give assurance as to the level of the Council’s compliance with its safeguarding duty.

27.1          Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 105-127, 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 the Section 11 assurance submission attached at Appendix 1 to the report. 

27.2          The HR and OD Manager indicated that she was presenting the report in her capacity as the Deputy Safeguarding Officer and explained that, along with the report was the annual assessment which was submitted to the Assurance Panel at Gloucestershire County Council.  She advised there was an error at Page No. 111 of the submission in the response to standard 1 question 3 as the Whistleblowing Policy had been agreed by the Executive Committee on 5 February 2020 not 12 October 2016 as stated.  It was noted that Members had previously asked for an indication of the type of safeguarding issues that were raised and a sample of redacted cases had been attached at Appendix 2 to the report.  The report indicated that a new element of safeguarding had arisen for the Council this year in relation to migrants and asylum seekers and the Homes for Ukraine scheme had been a particular consideration for the authority. 

27.3          Paragraph 1.6 of the report stated that the Head of Community Services would attend the Assurance Panel in November 2022 to undergo further scrutiny of the Section 11 Statement and the HR and OD Manager advised that she had attended the Panel a couple of weeks ago.  It was always difficult for the Panel to understand the content of the statement in relation to a district council, particularly in terms of contact with children, but the meeting had generally gone well and Officers were always open to suggestions for improvements so she would be interested to receive the Panel’s feedback.

27.4          A Member drew attention to Page No. 123 of the report, and the organisation’s response to standard 3 question 5, which stated that the countywide Whistleblowing Policy needed to be reviewed and she asked when this would carried out.  The HR and OD Manager advised that the policy would be due for review in February 2023.  Another Member asked if this was overdue and was informed this was in line with normal procedure to review policies every three years unless there was legislative or regulatory change which meant that it needed to be done sooner.  The Member noted from Page No. 113 of the report that safeguarding refresher training needed to be a carried out across the organisation and she asked when that would take place.  The HR and OD Manager advised that the Council used modules provided by Gloucestershire County Council and she would be looking at a plan to roll out the training.

27.5          A Member pointed out that a lot of acronyms were used in Appendix 2 so it would have been helpful for these to be written in full or for a glossary to be included.  She was grateful for the examples and indicated that it would be nice to have an update on the cases at some point.  In terms of the case study at Appendix 3 to the report, the Member congratulated Officers on the outcomes and asked for clarification on the Guinness Partnership.  The HR and OD Manager advised that it was a housing partnership and, in terms of the examples in Appendix 2, the outcomes would be around passing on information or working with someone so Officers would not necessarily be aware of the end result.

27.6          It was

RESOLVED           That the annual safeguarding update and the Section 11 assurance submission , attached at Appendix 1 to the report, be NOTED.