Agenda item

The Independent Chairman of the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership (WSCP) had been invited to present the WSCP Annual Report for 2020-21.

The Independent Chairman advised that this was the second annual report of the WSCP since it replaced the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Board in September 2019. This report covered the period October 2020 to September 2021. He reminded the Panel that there were three statutory safeguarding partners in a local authority area, these being the Chief Executive of Worcestershire County Council, the Accountable Officer of Hereford and Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning and the Chief Constable of West Mercia Police who have to ensure arrangements were in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in their area. In Worcestershire the WSCP has the role of supporting the three partners to fulfil that responsibility. The three partners were required to publish a report at least once in every 12-month period to set out their progress including specific feedback such as evidence of the impact of work carried out and analysis of where further progress was still needed. There was also a statutory obligation to share the report with the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.

The Independent Chairman advised the Panel that he chaired the WSCP’s Executive group which was the strategic decision-making body which met regularly to ensure that agencies were working well together and contributing effectively. A key role was for the group to identify emerging issues and problems and respond to them promptly. The Executive group was made up of representatives of the three statutory safeguarding partners and chairs of the support groups. The Executive was supported by four support groups as follows:

·       Get Safe Partnership group which focused on how partners could contribute to joint working. The Group had completed a profile of child exploitation in Worcestershire for use in multi-agency training. Further work had also been carried out on an action plan to introduce the GET SAFE approach and this had led to a network of services working together to support children and young people at risk of exploitation. Adding to this strong base, guidance had been produced during the year for professionals working with vulnerable young people in the 18-25 age group, under the GET THERE initiative. The Independent Chairman advised that he had previously run advisory sessions for councillors on child exploitation and he was planning to set up further sessions to set out the challenges ahead.

·       Quality Assurance Practices and Procedures Group (QAPP) which worked to ensure that the Levels of Need guidance was understood and properly applied by all agencies and that child protection processes were of a high quality. Performance Indicators and audits were used to enable the quality of practices to be assessed and responded to effectively. During the year two serious allegations of abuse in education settings had been looked at.  In conjunction with the University of Worcester, the group had also been reviewing the effectiveness of all aspects of early help services via interaction and feedback from 40 families.

·       Children’s Safeguarding Practice Review (CSPR) Group which carried out three rapid reviews of serious cases resulting in the commissioning of two child safeguarding practice reviews, which were still ongoing. Learning from previous reviews had also been implemented. A Child Safeguarding Practice Review had also been published in April 2021 and the learning since followed up.

·       Headteachers Education Safeguarding Steering Group which supported the links and understanding between education settings, the Family Front Door, Early Help, the audit of safeguarding arrangements in schools and monitoring of Elective Home education.

Members asked a series of questions, which are set out below:

·       In respect of the visit by Ofsted in May 2021 as part of their rapid review of sexual violence and sexual harassment in schools, a Member queried why Worcestershire was selected for this visit. The Independent Chairman advised that it was a random selection process which had been directed by the Department for Education DfE) in response to negative national headlines. Ofsted had been looking for best practice and that the zero-tolerance message was being adhered to. They were looking at whether the agencies were fit for purpose and that CYP were confident in the reporting processes. As part of the above process Ofsted had spoken to hundreds of CYP. 

·       Asked about his own main areas of concern, the Independent Chairman  highlighted:

o   the importance of getting thresholds right so that responses were appropriate and timely. The effectiveness of the Family Front Door was paramount in this to ensure that focus was placed on those most at risk and he felt that decision-making was strong. He advised that the Get Safe Partnership group had scrutinised the Family Front Door arrangements and found them to be good.

o   Being reassured that when lessons were learnt that this was then being embedded into people’s understanding and practices. He looked for evidence as to what had changed. He questioned whether there could be confidence that the same issue wouldn’t re-occur. He also queried ways in which staff knowledge could be kept updated in light of the National review Panel’s September 2021 report ‘The Myth of the Invisible Man’.

·       The Independent Chairman confirmed that the representatives from alternative provision schools had been included in the Education Safeguarding steering group work.

·       In response to a query about the completeness of information able to be supplied by agencies during a rapid review, the Independent Chairman advised that full information was not always available, but with an understanding of the culture of Worcestershire Children First, he was very confident of the honesty and transparency that was embedded within the organisation and had never been unconfident on this matter.

·       The question was raised as to whether the Independent Chairman was assured that all was being done to keep children safe in Worcestershire. He responded by providing an assurance that all was being done that could be done and that the systems and procedures were in place to ensure this was the case.