Agenda item

Plus the Child Death Overview Panel Report

Derek Benson, Independent Chairman of the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children's Board gave an overview of Board's Annual Report.

He felt that following the Ofsted report on services for Looked after Children in Worcestershire, care services had been particularly scrutinised, but the Annual Report of 2017/18 showed the Board was further forward than the previous year and improved engagement with schools was promising. Other promising areas were work with other organisations on child sexual exploitation, Section 11 reports and domestic abuse.

Further work was required at a Strategic Level regarding private fostering, early help and children with disabilities. The Boards priorities in 2017/18 were around neglect, domestic abuse, exploitation and early helpand they were concentrating on how they heard the voice of the child.

There was an underspend on the budget as less was spent on Serious Case Reviews and a new member of staff was off on long term sick leave and their salary was not spent. The Chairman of the Safeguarding Board assured the HWB that the money would not be lost and discussions were happening on whether the money was given back in year or contributions were given for future work.

There was a strong commitment to Safeguarding children across the partnership in Worcestershire. By September 2019 the Children's Safeguarding Board would cease to exist in its current form and Safeguarding Children would become the responsibility of the Safeguarding Partners; the Local Authority, the CCGs and West Mercia Police.

Felix Borchardt, explained that the Child Death Overview Panel had been notified of 25 deaths in 2017/18 and carried out 14 reviews.  11 reviews were pending.  40% were found to have modifiable factors. Ways to address such issues included informing teenagers that it was not a betrayal of trust to tell someone if their friend was having suicidal thoughts, promoting the safer sleeping policy through midwives and health visitors and increasing communication between agencies.

The report highlighted that information and data sharing with the Coroner as well as the Rapid Response teams had improved.

The Panel welcomed the move of National Oversight from the Department of Education to the Department of Health.

There was evidence that the Panel's procedures were good and would be included in new guidance for all Panels.

In the following discussion various points were raised:

·       The decision to stop providing e-learning in the future had been considered carefully by a sub-group of the Safeguarding Board, however it was decided that they were not getting the benefit for the expenditure. Some training would continue to be provided in other ways

·       The Chairman of the Safeguarding Board pointed out that he had experience of CDOP reports in other areas and the Worcestershire one was better than elsewhere. It was hoped that the professionalism and strengths of the Worcestershire CDOP could be retained in the future

·       The issue of exchanging information between the Safeguarding Board and the Corporate Parenting Board was raised as it was felt it could be improved. It was pointed out that giving feedback on reviews was difficult as it could be misconstrued as being the forerunner of retribution. Following LGA training at the Corporate Parenting Board the previous week, the Corporate Parenting Board had agreed that there should be some way of Serious Case Reviews being directly reported to them to help Councillors to fulfil their role as Corporate Parents

·       The Chairman of the Safeguarding Board highlighted that the Safeguarding Board was actively looking at prevention with projects such as preventing abusive head trauma.

The Chairman thanked Derek and Felix for their presentations and agreed that the report had been more positive than the previous year as communication and information sharing had improved.

RESOLVED: that the Health and Well-being Board

a)     Noted the key headlines and conclusions from the 2017/18 Annual Report;

b)    Considered the points which may inform future work of the HWB in respect of its strategic priorities; and

c)     Identified cross cutting themes where the HWB had a role to play in reducing risks to children