Agenda item

The Director of Childrens Social Care and Community Safety submits The Leicester Safeguarding Children Partnership Board (LSCPB) 2022/23 yearly report.

The Children, Young People and Education Scrutiny Commission is invited to Comment on how effective the LSCPB Yearly Report has been in setting out what safeguarding partners have done as a result of local arrangements, and to seek any further clarification needed on any areas.

The Director of Childrens Social Care and Community Safety submitted The Leicester Safeguarding Children Partnership Board (LSCPB) 2022/23 yearly report.

The Children, Young People and Education Scrutiny Commission was invited to Comment on how effective the LSCPB Yearly Report had been in setting out what safeguarding partners had done as a result of local arrangements, and to seek any further clarification needed on any areas.

The Director of Education SEND and Early Help, the Director of Childrens Social Care & Community Safety and the independent Chair of the LSCPB attended the meeting to assist with the discussion.

The Deputy City Mayor - Social Care, Health, and Community Safety introduced the report.

The independent Chair of the LSCPB presented the report and presented slides as included with the agenda pack.  Other key points included:

• The annual report of the Partnership was a statutory requirement and needed to be produced on an annual basis to demonstrate the effectiveness of multi-agency arrangements and quality assurance practices across the partnership.
• Partners included the Police, health partners and Local Authority partners, who in turn worked with other partners as detailed in the report.
• The membership of the Partnership was far-reaching and focussed on households with children.
• The report set out work around the procedures, learning and development, the approach taken to assess impact, quality assurance (including Section 11 which was noted to be a good measure across the partnership), and the audits undertaken.  This had been triangulated with the data presented.
• Further to this, the report mentioned the information sharing agreement, the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review and importantly showed benchmarking against the learning form national reviews.
• The report also looked at work done against priority areas, safeguarding babies, child mental health and emotional wellbeing, the safety of adolescents, safeguarding children and young people form diverse backgrounds, and effective safeguarding in independent and out of school settings.
• This was a strong partnership with a clear focus on the outcomes for local children. 

The Committee were invited to ask questions and make comments. Key points included:

• It was suggested that it would be useful to have a section of statistics showing incidences of safeguarding cases year on year so that it could be seen if cases were going up or down.  The independent Chair of the LSCPB agreed to try and include this in future reports.  Further to this it was suggested that numbers coming down may not necessarily be a good thing as it was important to be aware of any safeguarding issues and if the Partnership were aware of more then they could help more and help earlier.
• It was raised that the number of early help assessments had gone down whilst the number of children in need had risen, and it was asked as to whether there was any correlation between early help assessments and escalation.  With regard to this it was suggested that it was possible that a drop in early help assessments could potentially lead to children coming into the system further along as children in need.  However, that the data would need to be analysed over a longer period of time and data continued to be monitored on an ongoing basis.
• It was further clarified that the increase in children in need was not unique to Leicester, it was a national phenomenon that had partly grown out of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s wellbeing.  The numbers in Leicester were not disproportionately high and Leicester was in the median range.  Further to this it was suggested that it was preferable to have children in need than children in care.  Further to this it was necessary to look at the issue in the medium term rather than the short term with the involvement of health and education staff in order to see where a reduction might sit.  Other organisations were worked with to ensure that staff had access to training to complete early help assessments.
• The potential consequences of any potential cuts to childrens’ centres and any associated knock-on effect would be considered.
• In response to a question about how children were medically assessed, it was explained that the Safeguarding Board focussed on children who were identified as having a need or vulnerability.  When such cases were identified, access to services were looked at, for example with public health nurses, or whether they were registered with a dentist.  When it was considered that the children did not have access to such services, the cases were followed up and it was ensured that systems were put in place.
• With regard to a query about GP details being taken when children registered at schools, it was clarified that whilst schools asked for medical information, if this was not provided by parents, schools could not push for it.  Gathering such information was up to individual schools rather than councils and such requests were not on the standard admissions form.  There were certain things that schools were not allowed to ask.
• Hospitals had designated safeguarding leads and as such could, if needed, refer patients to Childrens Services without a GP.  If a child was referred, GP details were asked for and through triage it could be ascertained as to whether a child was registered with a GP.  Additionally, all schools had a school nurse and often also had family support workers who could work with families to obtain information.
• With regard to a query about the challenges brought by Leicester having a comparatively high population density within the East Midlands, it was clarified that high population densities meant different priorities needed to be focussed on and as such these priorities needed to be identified.  Other challenges included workforce challenges and continuity challenges given the mobile nature of some of the population.
• With regard to a query about ways to redress disproportionality, work had been undertaken to understand the makeup of the population and the unique practices of the population, and looking at disproportionality and layering.
• It was noted that there was a disproportionate number of children in children's safeguarding from the white British population, as such it was necessary to understand whether there were enough safeguarding referrals from the diverse population in the city.  It was further explained that it was not always about trying to reduce in one area, but about having the confidence of reporting right across the city.
• Information on the methodology of the audit of Electively Home Educated children would be obtained.
• Regarding a query about how the use of Department for Education (DfE) Practice Principles tackled exploitation and extra familial harm to support a collaborative partnership response to safeguard adolescents, it was clarified that a broad set of principles were looked at in the application of the work.  An underlying philosophy was adopted when the work was undertaken.
• With regard to the ways in which young people’s views were collated for the Task and Finish Group for Safeguarding Children from Diverse backgrounds, it was explained that a range of methodologies were used rather than one approach. 
• In response to a query on how young people could become involved in the Safeguarding Matters Live online session, it was highlighted that the Partnership would welcome the opportunity to hear the views of young people, however it was clarified that the session in question was aimed at working with professionals regarding changes in practice and procedures.  However, there were other ways for young people to become involved in safeguarding reviews, and sessions had been conducted with young people looking at priorities for the safeguarding boards and how to take them forward.

AGREED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That comments and requests made by members of this commission to be taken into account by the lead officers and the independent Chair of the LSCPB.

The Chair agreed to an agenda variance, New Childrens’ Residential Homes was taken before Home to School travel for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.