Issue - meetings

Councillor David Mellen, Leader of the Council, and Alison Michalska, Corporate Director for Children and Adults, presented a report on the published findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The following points were discussed:

(a)  IICSA was established as a statutory inquiry in March 2015 and launched thirteen investigations into a broad range of institutions. It was announced that inquiry would look into the failures to protect children in the care of the Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Councils in November 2015. A significant number of allegations of historical abuse in children’s homes were made, including physical and sexual abuse, dating back to the 1940s. Across this period, the homes had been operated by both Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council, amongst other organisations. As a result, there have been a significant number of both criminal and civil cases;

(b)  the initial scope of the inquiry was to investigate children’s homes, in response to disclosures of allegations of sexual abuse since 1967 at the Beechwood children’s home, and the barriers to the disclosure of these allegations. It then expanded to cover the disclosure of allegations of child sexual abuse by foster carers, and the disclosure of allegations of sexual abuse carried out by children in care against other children in care. The investigation in Nottingham ran from 1 to 26 October 2018 and collected a wide range of evidence, including statements from survivors and both senior Council officers and elected members. The Council invested a great deal of staff time into participating with the investigation, to ensure full openness and transparency;

(c)  IICSA published its findings on 31 July 2019. It put forward two specific recommendations to the Council, to be responded to within six months. Firstly, the Council should assess the potential risk posed by its directly employed current and former foster carers, in relation to the sexual abuse of children. The Council should also ensure that current and former foster carers provided by external agencies are assessed by those agencies. Any concerns that arise should be referred to the appropriate body or process, including the Disclosure and Baring Service, the local authority designated officer or equivalent, the fostering panel and the Police;

(d)  secondly, the Council and its child protection partners should commission an independent, external evaluation of their practice concerning harmful sexual behaviour, including responses, prevention, assessment, intervention and workforce development. An Action Plan should be set up to ensure that any recommendations are responded to in a timely manner and progress should be reported to the City’s Safeguarding Children Partnership;

(e)  a draft Action Plan has been produced to address these recommendations for agreement by the Safeguarding Children Partnership on 30 September, and to be approved by the Executive Board at its meeting in October;

(f)  in relation to the first recommendation, the records of all staff who worked at Beechwood have been reviewed and all of the decisions made at the time in relation to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13