Agenda item

Di Smith, Interim Independent Chair of Croydon Safeguarding Children Board, was in attendance for this item.  She explained that she was an experienced Director of Children’s Services, and that she had extensive experience of working on children’s services improvement plans with various councils.

Di Smith explained that the Annual Report of the Croydon Safeguarding Children Board predated the recent Ofsted inspection of children’s services, in which the annual report had been found not to be fit for purpose. It had been criticised for its lack of evidence and evaluative rigour.

The covering report produced by Di Smith sought to emphasise current activity and progress in improving children’s services. A key objective of the Croydon Safeguarding Children’s Board will be to develop effective partnership work between the council, the police and health service providers and a steering group bringing together representatives of each of these authorities has been created to take this work forward. In addition, a development day bringing together key stakeholders was recently held, in which all present acknowledged the safeguarding partnership had failed and that measures had to be taken to ensure that children’s safeguarding became more effective. Partners worked on prioritisation, ways of evidencing respectful challenge and of achieving “effective impact” as urged by Ofsted.

Members were advised that improvements would need to follow the latest government guidance on “Working Together to Safeguard Children”. 

Members asked how partners would balance action and statutory reporting responsibilities. They were informed that the priorities set out in the 2016-17 annual report would be maintained and that partners would have to implement the objectives set out in the Ofsted improvement plan. As regards statutory reporting on performance, the Interim Chair acknowledged that this could take up significant amounts of officer time and that this needed to be better balanced with implementation of improvements.

Members asked how they could access agendas and reports of the safeguarding board as they wished to compare new agendas and minutes to documents published before the Ofsted inspection. They had noticed that older agendas had been significantly overloaded and wondered whether this had improved. The Executive Director (People) stated that agendas should usually be published on the web, although this was not always the case.  Members were also reminded that the CSCB was not a council body and had different publishing procedures. The Interim Chair explained that she would have to work with partners to agree to publish their meeting papers on a regular basis. Members expressed the hope that this could be achieved so that they could monitor the work of the Safeguarding Board and satisfy themselves that its challenging role was becoming more robust.

Members asked for health and police partners to attend future scrutiny meetings focusing on the work of the children’s safeguarding board, as their role in this work was critical. They stressed the importance of scrutinising the effectiveness and impact of their partnership work to safeguard children. The Interim Chair stated that she was willing to coordinate the attendance of health and police representatives alongside herself and council officers at future meetings discussing the work of the Safeguarding Children Board.

Members asked how the structure of the safeguarding board was going to change. They were advised that this had not been finalised and that the board was not yet fully active. Draft proposals should have been drawn up by February 2018, however. Priorities will also need to be agreed and funding identified to implement them.

Members asked whether reserve officers attended safeguarding board meetings if the usual representatives were unable to do so. The Interim Chair undertook to enquire whether this was standard practice.  As regards representation from schools, members were advised that their staff agreed among themselves to share out attendance at a wide variety of different networks including the safeguarding board, and to provide feedback on discussions at head teachers’ meetings.

Members asked whether the safeguarding board had any representation from special schools.  While this was not the case on the main board, members were advised that there was a very active education sub-group in the CSCB, which was regularly attended by about 60-70 school representatives. In addition, Ofsted Improvement Board meetings are attended by primary, secondary and special school representatives.

Members asked who would represent the police on the board and were advised that this had not yet been finalised because of an ongoing reorganisation. The Borough Commanderwas currently involved in the safeguarding board. 

Members asked what the partnership planned to do to improve children’s safeguarding. They were advised that the partnership was focusing on developing a multi-agency approach to neglect, and was planning to adopt a tool developed by the NSPCC to do this work.  The partnership was also reviewing serious case reviews carried out in the last two years to identify learning points and include them in the improvement plan developed after this summer’s Ofsted inspection. Members welcomed this approach and asked that officers should evidence how lessons had been learnt and applied to improve children’s safeguarding procedures and practice.

Asked to provide further information regarding the tool developed by the NSPCC, officers explained that this resource, which helps social workers with their decision-making, was called “Graded Care Profile 2” and had been identified through the activity of a Task and Finish group focusing on tackling the needs of neglected children. Three teams have volunteered to pilot the new tool and five “champions” are being trained to train teams to use it, with a view to rolling out the tool to 500 practitioners.  

Members informed the Interim Chair that they had previously been prevented by officers from observing Safeguarding Board meetings. They asked for these hurdles to be tackled so that they could monitor the activity of the Safeguarding Board and familiarise themselves with its work.

Members highlighted a number of projects which had been implemented in past years to provide improved support to troubled families and children, such as the Strengthening Families programme, the Troubled Families programme and the social work academy. They asked what these initiatives had achieved and whether any lessons had been learnt and implemented. Keen to ascertain whether there had been continuity of learning and understanding from these initiatives, they urged officers to find and share information on them.

The Interim Independent Chair of Croydon Safeguarding Children Board was thanked for her answers to members’ questions.

Resolved that:
- health and police partners be invited to the next meeting scrutinising the Croydon Safeguarding Children Board
- Information be obtained on the achievements and lessons learnt from the Strengthening Families programme, the Troubled Families programme and the social work academy, to be enshrined in future good practice