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ITEM CA13
CABINET
– 21 MARCH 2006
OXFORDSHIRE
SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN BOARD
Report by
Director for Children, Young People & Families
Introduction
- Section 13 of
the Children Act 2004 requires every Children’s Services Authority to
establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) in its area by
1 April 2006. This duty springs directly from recommendations made by
Lord Laming in the report of his inquiry into the death of Victoria
Climbié in February 2000.
- Area Child Protection
Committees (ACPCs), the current equivalents, have existed for many years.
These have been deemed effective but limited in power and capacity.
Unlike ACPCs, LSCBs have been placed on a statutory footing.
Government
Requirements
- The work of the
new LSCBs will fit within the wider context of the "Children’s Trust"
arrangements, with the aim of improving the overall well-being of all
children in the county and with a particular focus on aspects of the
‘staying safe’ outcome.
- Whereas the Children
& Young People’s Board (Oxfordshire’s approach to the Children’s
Trust requirements) will have a wider role in planning and commissioning
services, the LSCB objectives are to coordinate and ensure the effectiveness
of what member organisations do individually and together for the purposes
of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Oxfordshire.
The LSCB members will be senior officers, from all of the key agencies
and sectors, collectively and individually promoting and ensuring high
quality safeguarding services and practice.
- In addition the
LSCB is responsible for holding the Children & Young People’s Board,
and all of its constituent and partner agencies, accountable for the
effectiveness with which safeguarding services are being provided to
Oxfordshire’s children. It may be commissioned, by the Board, to undertake
specific tasks, and will report to the Board on its activities, work
programme, and highlight issues of concern, as well as of good practice.
- The remit of the
LSCB reaches beyond that of the previous ACPC (which was primarily concerned
with Child Protection responses for children at risk of significant
harm), to include such areas as:
- safer recruitment
practices;
- safe arrangements
for home-school transport;
- bullying and
racial incidents in schools;
- private fostering;
and
- the welfare
of children living away from home.
- Safeguarding and
promoting the welfare of children is defined as:
- Protecting children
from maltreatment;
- Preventing impairment
of children’s health or development;
- Ensuring that
children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision
of safe and effective care; and
- Undertaking
that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances
and enter adulthood successfully.
LSCB
Functions
- The LSCB has a
list of prescribed functions and responsibilities. These include:
- Developing policies
and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
in the area of the authority, including policies and procedures.
- Training - ensuring
that multi-agency training on safeguarding and promoting welfare that
meets local needs is provided. The Board is also responsible for quality
assuring training provided by individual organisations and checking
that the training is reaching relevant staff within organisations.
In Oxfordshire there is an existing service level agreement with the
NSPCC to coordinate this training in the county.
- Communicating
to people and bodies in the area the need to safeguard and promote
the welfare of children, raising their awareness of how this can best
be done, and encouraging them to do so.
- Monitoring and
evaluating the effectiveness of what is done by the LSCB partners
individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare
of children and advise them on ways to improve.
- Participating
in the local planning and commissioning of children’s services to
ensure that they take safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
into account.
- Undertaking
reviews of cases where a child has died or has been seriously harmed
in circumstances where abuse or neglect was known or suspected and
advising on lessons that can be learned from this.
- From 1 April 2008
each LSCB will be required to put in place procedures for ensuring that
information about each unexpected child death is collected and analysed,
with a view to identifying any matters of concern affecting the safety
and welfare of children in the area or any general public health or
safety concern arising from deaths of such children.
Set Up
and Operation
- The LSCB is required
to form a view of the quality of local activity and to challenge organisations
where necessary. It must speak with an independent voice. To ensure
that this is possible the LSCB must have a clear and distinct identity
within local "Children’s Trust" governance arrangements. It will not,
for example, be subordinate to the Children’s & Young People’s Board.
It is envisaged that the Oxfordshire LSCB will be chaired by the Director
for Children, Young People & Families.
- The organisations
which are required to co-operate with the Children’s Services Authority
in the establishment and operation of the LSCB have shared responsibility
for the effective discharge of its functions. For Oxfordshire these
are:
- District Councils
- The Police
- The Probation
Service
- The Youth Offending
Team
- The Strategic
Health Authority, Primary Care Trusts and NHS Trusts or NHS Foundation
Trusts in the county
- The Connexions
Service
- CAFCASS (Children
and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service)
- Huntercombe
Young Offender Institution.
- All of these agencies
have nominated LSCB members and some members of the forerunner organisation,
the ACPC, have been included in order to ensure continuity. The District
Councils have, as guidance permits, agreed to share representation,
as have the PCTs. LSCB members must be people with a strategic role
in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children within
their organisation and be able to speak for their organisation with
authority, commit their organisation on policy and practice matters
and hold it to account.
- The Guidance,
issued under s.7 of the Local Authority (Social Services) Act 1970,
explicitly precludes elected members from having a seat on the Safeguarding
Board. This is to ensure that the Board can be properly accountable
to all of the Governance structures responsible for the partner agencies,
and to ensure that the agencies are held accountable, through the Safeguarding
Board’s work, for their efficacy in safeguarding children.
- In its formative
stage, the members of the Safeguarding Board have invited the Lead Member
for Children, Young People & Families to act as an observer at Board
meetings, to enable her to satisfy herself, with regard to her statutory
responsibilities, that the Board is properly constituted and is set
up to be effective in delivering improved outcomes.
- The LSCB is also
required to secure the involvement many other organizations, for example,
state and independent schools, GPs, independent healthcare organisations,
and voluntary and community sector organisations, faith groups, the
armed forces and the Immigration Service.
- Strategic link
arrangements must be made with other organisations, for example those
involved in dental health services, domestic violence forums, drug and
alcohol misuse services, housing, culture and leisure services. The
LSCB is also required to link with the Coroner, sports services, the
Crown Prosecution Service and service user representatives.
Ways of
Working
- An operating manual
"Safeguarding Matters" has been drafted and has been agreed by the identified
LSCB members. The LSCB will have a clear work programme, including measurable
objectives, based on relevant management information. This will enable
the LSCB’s work to be open to scrutiny.
- Sub-groups and
local inter-agency panels will be established, working to agreed terms
of reference and with explicit lines of reporting, communication and
accountability to the LSCB. An initial sub-group structure has also
been proposed and agreed.
- The LSCB will:
- put in place
arrangements to ascertain the feelings and wishes of children about
the priorities and the effectiveness of local safeguarding work; and
- make a major
contribution to the "Stay Safe" section of the Children & Young
People’s Plan, as well as influencing the wider implementation.
Finance
and Staffing
- Government guidance
makes it clear that to function effectively LSCBs will need to be supported
by member organisations with adequate and reliable resources and that
in order to be effective they will need to be staffed so that they have
the capacity to:
- Drive forward
the LSCB’s day to day business in achieving its objectives, including
its co-ordination and monitoring / evaluating work;
- Take forward
any training and staff development work carried out by the LSCB, in
the context of the local workforce strategy;
- Provide administrative
and organisational support for the LSCB and its sub-committees, and
those involved in policy and training.
- Section 15 of
the Act sets out that statutory LSCB partners may make payments or contributions
in kind. Member organisations’ funding should be committed in advance
to a pooled budget.
- Set out below
are the minimum necessary requirements for the LSCB, agreed at the meeting
of the LSCB Development Group, to be able to deliver its statutory responsibilities:
| Projected
costs (existing): |
|
| Inter-agency
Training Project |
£56,322 |
| 24 hour
Child Protection Register |
£10,000 |
| Total
|
|
| Projected
costs (new): |
|
| Administration
& Business Management |
£20,000 |
| Policy Development
& Support |
£40,000 |
| Miscellaneous |
£20,000 |
| (incl. contingency
for Serious Case Review; Web-site maintenance; Procedure and public
information
publication, etc) |
|
| |
|
| Total |
£146,322 |
- The statutory
funding partners for the Board include the County Council, Thames Valley
Police, the PCT, Probation, and CAFCASS (the Children and Family Court
Advisory and Support Service). It is the intention, as the Board develops,
that all participating partners will be making an appropriate in kind
or in cash contribution to the LSCB operating costs.
- As part of the
budget setting process, an allocation of £60,000 was made, representing
the Council’s (Education, social care) contribution towards the costs.
Progress
To date
- Two preparatory
meetings of Oxfordshire LSCB members took place in January and February
to familiarise members with the duties of the LSCB and to begin to address
key issues such as structure, linkages with agencies and structures,
resources and business planning.
- Council officers
will service the LSCB initially, whilst partner funding agreements are
reached, enabling the development of dedicated staff to support the
LSCB’s roles. Key roles will cover administration, policy development
and support, and inter-agency training.
Conclusion
- This is a challenging
agenda requiring new partnerships and accountability arrangements to
be established and for time and resources to be committed.
- The history of
safeguarding and protecting children from harm in Oxfordshire is a good
one. There is no room for complacency, however, and the safeguarding
of children remains a key priority for the Council, the Children &
Young People’s Board, and for all of our partners in all agencies and
sectors. The Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board will be a vital
element in improving services and outcomes for the County’s most vulnerable
children.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- The Cabinet
is RECOMMENDED to:
- endorse
the arrangements set out in the report for the establishment,
from 1 April 2006, of the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children
Board;
- authorise
the Director for Children, Young People & Families, in consultation
with the various partner bodies, to agree the detailed arrangements
for the implementation of (a) above including, in consultation
also with the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People &
Families, formal terms of reference for the Board.
KEITH
BARTLEY
Director for
Children, Young People & Families
Background
Papers: Nil
Contact
Officer: Andy Couldrick, Head of Early Years and Family Support
Tel: 01865 815833
March
2006
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