Agenda item

To receive the Annual Report of Local Safeguarding Children Partnership.

 

The Croydon Safeguarding Children partnership (CSCP) Independent Chair & Scrutineer introduced and outlined the report in a Presentation.

 

The Chair thanked the CSCP for their annual report and presentation. Members expressed disappointment that there was no representative from the police, one third of the partnership, whose nonattendance was a historical pattern.

 

Vulnerable Adolescents Priority Group

 

In response to a Member asking what the quantifiable measures of successful outcomes there were for the Vulnerable Adolescent priority group, where a Public Health approach would usually be taken linking into violence reduction, the Head of Quality Assurance and Safeguarding stated that the need for qualitative and quantitative measures had been discussed at that priority group meeting. There were some measurable outcomes, such as missing children, however the Group needed to develop more areas and be clear in what they wanted to achieve in those.

 

In reference to Recommendation 9 of the Vulnerable Adults Review published in 2019, a Member stated that a Fair Access Panel was significant in the journey for many vulnerable adolescents and asked when the multi-agency response would be extended.

 

Recommendation 9: The model of an integrated holistic multi-agency response should be extended to include consideration of the risk management panels. Consideration to be given to how schools, including the Fair Access Panel, can be included (Page 59, Vulnerable Adolescents Thematic Review).

 

The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion replied that they were actively considering this initiative and were now in a place where the could operate. They had experienced a number of staff changes in the admin team for Fair Access Panel but were now able to continue that work. The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion told Members that he would be happy to meet to discuss with Members the model going forward outside of the Sub-Committee.

 

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Learning told the Sub-Committee that there was work being carried out by the Curriculum for Change Board to change and improve the representation of the curriculum, which was run by teachers in the borough. The focus of the Board emerged from the Black Lines Matters agenda and has now extended to look at the issues around exclusions. The Chair of the Board would be joining the Children’s Race and Equality Review Panel, which sat in care and directly linked to the CSCP.

 

A Member asked what the Terms of Reference were for the Task and Finish group in response to schools needing to be at the heart of multi-agency prevention. The CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer replied that it was the Chair of the Vulnerable Adolescent Priority Group, Detective Superintendent & Business Change Manager at Metropolitan Police- Head of Safeguarding who was not in attendance, who lead that priority group and could respond to that question. They would take notes on points raised today for the Vulnerable Adolescent Priority Group to review.

 

The Executive Director Children Families and Education stated there was work for Children’s services following the Review to ensure a more integrated approached was developed and measures discussed today were built on which will be addressed by the CSCP.

 

Neglect Priority Group

 

A Member questioned why the targets for neglected children had only been partially achieved. The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion replied that they would find out what that meant in more detail, particularly in reference to the outcomes of the ‘Seen’ category being ‘Partly achieved’ and the ‘Helped’ category ‘Not yet achieved’.

 

Members asked how the partnership itself was functioning and the effectiveness of their arrangements; what challenges the whole partnership and specific partners experienced on the subject of neglect; where the partnership lacked traction; and what had the partnership learned from the last year which had influenced any change in approach.

 

The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion responded that firstly, neglect could be difficult term to navigate, and sometimes hear and accept by its very nature. There had been a shift from to positive parenting messages, and there needed to be focus on the tools which professionals and families could use to identify themselves. The biggest challenge for partners was the capacity to train enough staff and they had reached a position where they had a number of staff that were trainers, where training could now cascade down to agencies.

 

In response to a Member asking how the partnership responded to feedback and if there was their an aim to react and change to challenges from partners at the meetings, the Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion said that the partners had grasped a better understanding and responsibility of neglect to take improvements forward. This was in terms of culture changes, away from responses to specific incidences. In response to a Member asking how changes were brought into a partnership meeting in light of different partners facing different challenges, the officer said that an executive of each of the priority groups headed a branch of the priory group meetings which effectively escalated issues across agencies. This was more strategic than previous arrangements. The Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG stated that governance was now more streamlined since the priority group meetings were established, which enabled real time conversations, and they were on the right track.

 

The CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer stated that it was important to view the appraisal within the report in relation to measuring the progress made. Before the ‘Good’ Ofsted rating, there was a major lack of awareness of neglect, where since significant progress had been made, namely a common language for partners to refer and build upon.

 

The Chair commended the child wellbeing screening tool, although added that the it was an opportunity to collate more information from the tool in order to monitor results and progress. He asked data was being collected to capture those aspects. The CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer replied that the audit activity which was undertaken measured the frequency of when the graded care profile was used by agencies. They also recorded how many people were training and leading the cascade down of training using the graded care profile, which they could provide details. The Chair replied that he was more interested in the outcome rather than the inputs.

 

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Learning raised that in the findings of the Vulnerable Adolescent Review, it was young people with ethnic backgrounds, particularly young black people, who were disproportionally represented. There should be consideration into why they were more vulnerable and an investigation into how that pattern linked to county lines activity.

 

Disabilities

 

In response to a Member asking what examples there were of ensuring children with disabilities were communicated with and listened to in the interest of outcomes and aspirations since the partnership was established, the Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG stated that the priority group aimed to increase awareness and engagement. Disabled children were particularly at risk of low engagement with stakeholders and they were increasing data collections, training and a development tool for agencies to utilise. It was agreed that a more granular response of what activities would be pursued and examples of good practice would be taken to the Sub-Committee in twelve months.

 

A Member asked firstly if all young people with autism were treated as disabled and secondly if they understood the autism experience well enough and if there was enough data held to hear the voice of young people who had communication and social barriers. This was important in the context of autistic young people having difficulties speaking to neuro typical adult whom they had not relation with and could not read typical signals. The Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG replied that the Member was asking for operational data which could not be currently provided and highlighted that the role of the priority groups of multi-profession colleagues across the partnership was to raise awareness amongst practitioners. It was agreed that Councillor Fitzpatrick would meet with the Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG to discuss how to record autistic experiences to address the needs of autistic young people using evidence based knowledge.

 

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Learning told the Panel that it was flagged over the lockdown period that young people with autism were negatively affected by the major changes to their routines.

 

In response to the Chair asking what information there was available on assessments and interventions in the framework, the Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG said that this was collated across the strategies and work was being underdone to link the data together.

 

Health Visitors

 

In relation to health visitor developmental checks, Elaine Jones highlighted that the report stated the service had never fully being recruited to and asked how Croydon was affected by this problem in comparison to other boroughs. The Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG responded that this issue was not exclusive to Croydon and suffered from complexities related to pay and conditions, where some junior colleagues choose to work in other areas of the service. The health visits which were carried out were prioritised in terms of need and vulnerability.

 

In respect to the early identification of SEND, Elaine Jones asked what role did the health visit play, what were the risks in missing those visits and what would be the effect of staff shortages. The Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG replied there were a number of metrics to identify SEND alongside health visitor services, including GPs and Early Years.

 

A Member asked how early were vulnerable mothers identified during the ante-natal period, what structures were place to support those visits and lastly what were the provisions for non-English speaking mothers. The Joint Chief Nurse for Croydon Health Service NHS Trust and NHS Croydon CCG replied that when a woman presented they were seen and assessed by midwives and there was a clear clinical path into identifying vulnerability. Additionally, she said that there were robust systems for non-English speaking users across the care sector. The Chair stated that the numbers of ante-natal visits in Croydon scored notably very low on the Health Survey Visitor Metrics for Q1 2019/20 compared to other London boroughs and asked what was being done to increase the number of visits and improve the service.

 

Evidence of collaboration

 

The Chair stated that the bulk of partnership funding was provided by Croydon Council and questioned the funding balance, in light of the council’s current financial situation.

 

The CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer stated that each partner provided a sustained level of service support for the partnership, but the lower financial contribution to the partnership from the police was historically noticed and regularly challenged. The police funding was a MET decision and was viewed in a pan-London context. The Executive Director Children Families and Education stated that unequal funding from partners occurred nationally, which should though was not appropriate when accountability was even. The contributions needed to be addressed in Croydon and the council’s financial challenges will give a focus to change.

 

Taking into account the partnership was relatively new, a Member asked if there was anyone to challenge the quality of work of the Quality Improvement Group (QIG) and had oversight on what evidence the QIG were looking at from each agency. The CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer stated that there were QIG representatives from each partner undergoing multiagency casework audit activity to monitor how partners were working together with families. She noted it was difficult to quantify better working together of the partnership, but they did collect partnership data including attendance at conferences and timeliness of health assessments. The Executive Group focussed on particular elements where data had raised concern, which a data set usually attributed to a particular agency, so trends attributed to the partnership as a whole were less visible. A multiagency audit was required to measure how well partners were working together.

 

The Chair stated that when the CSCP was established, it was decided that a review would be taken one year on to test the set-up and to scrutinise its work. The Sub-Committee would play a role in that process, and the Children’s Improvement Board, however there must not be any duplication of work so dialogue was required to harmonise the reviewing process going forward. It was agreed that the Chair would meet with the CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer to discuss how scrutiny of the children’s safeguarding functions would interact going forward and the next steps of how the improvement journey would be managed.

 

In reaching its recommendations the Sub-Committee came to the following Conclusions:

 

1.     There was lack of assurance on the following points, that:

a.     As there was not a police representative at the meeting and no informed deputy was sent as a substitute, no judgement could be made on their involvement with the partnership.

b.     The targets were not quantifiable so tracking progress and results achieved was difficult to measure

c.      There was a lack of evidence to show how children in disability groups were being meaningfully communicated with and how their experiences were understood.

d.     There was insufficient evidence to indicate whether children at risk had any influence on how the outcomes were measured.

2.     The antenatal visits in Croydon were significantly lower than the majority of London boroughs and felt that there was neither recognition of this or detail on how performance would be improved.

3.     There were unequal portions of funding between the partnership despite a model of equal accountability

4.     The Children & Young People Sub-Committee and the Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership needed to find a synergy in their work, as there was a risk of duplicating their scrutiny functions.

5.     As the targets for neglected children had only been partially achieved, there was insufficient context in the report to explain the reasons for this.

6.     As there thought to be an increase in child poverty in borough, it was concluded that further work was required to understand the scale of the issue and how it would increase demand for safeguarding services.

The Sub-Committee resolved to Recommend that:

 

1.     That the Partnership is invited to 19 January meeting of the Children and Young People Sub-Committee to provide further assurance that the significantly low number of antenatal visits in the borough was being recognised, understood and that action was being taken.

2.     The Chair of the Children & Young People Sub-Committee meets with representatives for safeguarding arrangements and the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Learning to discuss a forward course of action to ensure the bodies work productively alongside each other in fulfilling their functions.

3.     That a written briefing be prepared for the Children & Young People Sub-Committee providing further information and assurance on what the partly achieved and not achieved outcomes meant for the children and how they were being addressed.

When the Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership returns to the Children & Young People Sub-Committee in 12 months additional information is provided on how the objectives for the children in the disability priority group were being put into practice and achieved.