Decision details

The Board will receive a report.

Reg Pengelly, Independent Chair of the BANES Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) presented its Annual Report and Business Plan.  He explained that the LSCB was a statutory body which was not accountable to any particular group.  He explained that a 360 degree feedback system to feed back on the performance of the Independent Chair with an annual multi-agency “Challenge and Review” Panel was now in place.  It was noted that the LSCB was supported by a number of sub-groups who carried out a great deal of work and Mr Pengelly congratulated these groups and thanked them for their support.

The following issues from the report were highlighted:

·  A multi-agency safeguarding hub would be set up to provide more robust handling of issues and more effective risk assessment.

·  Mr Pengelly was also Chair of the Local Safeguarding Adults Board which strengthened the link between the two bodies.  A pilot training group had been established to provide training for both groups.

·  A schools audit had been carried out to find out how effective safeguarding processes were in local schools.  Every school in the BANES area had responded and advice from the LSCB had been provided where necessary.  LSCB members had also visited some schools.  The aim was to repeat this exercise and to build on it in future years.

·  There was a large amount of data in the report.  A sub-group of the LCSB audited routine cases and outcomes.  The Board aspired to strengthen this data in the future.

·  There had been an increase in children with child protection plans.  Figures tend to fluctuate year on year and the Board would continue to monitor these figures.  149 children were currently “looked after” in BANES and this was consistent with national figures.

·  No serious case reviews had taken place this year.  Some local reviews had taken place.

·  A fundamental review of the role and functions of LCSBs had been carried out by Alan Wood.  The Government has now published a brief response to this and it may result in changes to the way serious case reviews are carried out. There would be a meeting in October to discuss future changes to the LSCB structure.

·  Mr Pengelly paid tribute to those member agencies such as the Health and Wellbeing Board who had not withdrawn funds or staff in spite of their own funding pressures.

·  With the disbandment of the Children’s Trust Board it would be helpful to establish a system of mutual challenge with the Health and Wellbeing Board.

The Board then asked questions as follows:

·  Are there any particular emerging themes that threaten children’s safety?  Mr Pengelly responded that one of the main issues was child sexual exploitation although the main risks to children were from within their own families.

·  In response to a question from John Holden it was confirmed that in future the executive summary of the report would be printed at the front of the document.

·  How is the LSCB addressing Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?  There was work taking place under the CAMHS transformation plan, some work with schools was being carried out and the CCG transformation fund was also involved with this issue. 

Dr Ian Orpen supported the idea of multi-agency safeguarding hubs and noted that any resulting training would require some time commitment.

Ashley Ayre explained that OFSTED dictated a good deal of the report content and noted that it covered a huge range of work.  He pointed out that often the longer a child had a child protection plan in place the less effective the outcomes were and noted that schools also tracked child protection plans.  He commended the work undertaken by Reg Pengelly and Lesley Hutchinson in order to produce this report.

Councillor Vic Pritchard summed up the debate by highlighting the good work carried out by the LSCB and commended its aspiration to obtain an excellent rating.

RESOLVED to note the report.