Agenda item

The Sub-Committee is presented with the Annual Report from the Croydon Safeguarding Adults Board and is asked to review the document, with a view to developing any recommendations it may wish to make.

The Director of Operations, Adult Social care presented the report and the following was noted:

·       The Annual report covered 2018/19 and included some update on Covid

·       The board has decided to keep the same priorities as the previous year as it was felt that enough progress had not been made in areas of making safeguarding personal, hearing the voice of residents and improving communication and engagement.

·       A new training and improvement subgroup has been established to engage with outcomes and recommendations that arise from any serious adult reviews, as the last serous adult review identified a serious gap in work across partner agencies.

·       Improved engagement with Black and Asian Minority Ethnic communities of Croydon was a priority.

·       Continuation of Brexit as well and Covid had increased pressures on services. There has been strong partnerships, good collaboration and cross party efforts to navigate through theses challenging times.

·       Areas that required improvement are mental health, vulnerable and missing persons which are all areas that impact greatly on police resourcing and it was important that they receive services tailored to their needs.

Following presentation of the report, the sub-committee was given the opportunity to pose questions to the partners.

The Chair took the opportunity to remind members that the purpose was to test whether the partnership arrangements in Croydon were robust and examine whether there was any evidence of good practice and delivery of service.

In response to a Member question on what the biggest challenges for the partnership was and where improvements needed to be made, officers said that the partnership relationship was robust and aside from evolving challenges from Covid, Austerity remained a concern. The volume of referrals was often a concern from an operational level and ensuring that risk assessments were conducted with the right decisions made in a timely manner. Additionally it was important that safeguarding be person centred with the voice of the person heard. It was important from the police point of view that they be well staffed and able to make the right risk assessments and judgements as necessary.

A Member asked what was being done to create a baseline to measure safeguarding equalities in a diverse borough as Croydon and what interventions were in place to minimise and respond to resident discontent and communication barriers. Officers said that work had commenced in January 2020 to meet with professionals who would act as representatives of the community as well as bring forward their own experiences to gather information on what needs to be done to tackle safeguarding inequalities and this work will be expanded further down the line to include gathering information from Croydon residents. In order to ensure cultural competence by professionals dealing with families that  present complex issues including faith and cultural differences, professionals were encouraged to attend workshops and training sessions to keep them informed , up to date and equipped to deal with the many people of different backgrounds encountered. Operation managers were responsible for ensuring that their staff receive the training required to fulfil their roles. To effectively manage any issues, the service is closely monitored through performance dashboard and holding to account as appropriate.

A Member questioned how satisfied the partners were that the staff in their respective service had the specialised training and knowledge needed to deal with difficult situations with autistic adults. Officers were informed that statistics following a survey in the national autistics society papers showed relatively low numbers of autistic adults surveyed felt that the police and social workers had a good understanding of Autism.

The Chair of the Board stressed that in terms of safeguarding, one of the reasons making safeguarding personal was a priority for the Board was due to the experiences of vulnerable sections of the community. It was important for the board that all parties seriously take into account the needs of the individual by creating an environment where they were listened to, were able to express their wishes and for those life choices to be taken into consideration in appropriately safeguarding the adult.

Officers went on to say that there was essential training for staff on the basic understanding of Autism but acknowledged that this was not sufficient and had to be built on by supporting the individual member of staff to enhance their skills in order to expand on their knowledge and skills of dealing with different vulnerable members of society.

Officers added that from the perspective of the Police there wasn’t sufficient bespoke training around people with vulnerabilities and it was often difficult to arrange and deliver training for officer who had to be on the front line on a daily basis. This was compounded with the fact that the police were now an emergency service that was presented with dealing with a range of societal issues that was not traditionally the responsibility of the police and were in the midst of a learning curve as an organisation. Officers agreed that a multiagency approach around training was essential and would continue to explore ways that this could be improved through sharing learning on. Increased awareness, recognition and lines of communication.

In response to a Member question on what the partnership could do to redress the fact that the police was spending a large proportion of their time dealing with and managing situations that required social services intervention. Officers said that the Board regularly engaged in dialogue as to how to improve operational services to enable each section of the partnership to fulfil their statutory obligations. It was acknowledged that the police were dealing in the first instance with high volumes of issues that would have previously been managed by other services. Officers said that in order to manage this , Police Officers were engaged in strategy discussions about working with partners and utilising risk management plans as appropriate to identify and minimise incidences of some of the known recurrent high volume users and the calls the police get from them.

The work that was being done to raise awareness and profile of the responsibility of professionals as well and the public on safeguarding was welcomed. The importance of working to improve the pathways for the public to voice their concerns was highlighted as an area that required more focus. Officers replied that they were keen to explore different ways to engage the public and explore ways to ensure that the voice of the public could be heard and be central to their service.  Input and suggestions from Members where possible would be welcomed.

The Chair thanked officers for their attendance and engagement with the Sub-Committee.

In reaching its recommendations the sub-committee came to the following conclusions:

1.     The Sub-Committee was reassured by the partnerships commitment and engagement with each other to safeguarding the vulnerable residents of Croydon.

2.     The attendance of all partners at the meeting was encouraging as the sub-committee was presented with a view of all partners’ involvement in the partnership.

3.     There was a lack of evidence of staff awareness and adequate training on communicating with and understanding the needs of with people with disabilities such as Autism.

4.     Whilst work had begun to unpick the experiences of the BAME community, Members were not reassured that the partnership yet has a clear pathway to manging the issues with communication and engagement with the BAME community.

The Sub-Committee made the following Recommendations:

1.     That a training needs assessment be carried out and for the partnership to continue to challenge its self on increased awareness of and improving the experiences of people with disabilities

2.     That a briefing be provided to the sub-committee on what steps the partnership will take on improving the experiencing of BAME.