Issue - meetings

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Education, John Matravers, Head of Safeguarding and Partnerships, and Ailsa Barr, Director for Children’s Integrated Services, presented the report and delivered a presentation and highlighted the following:

(a)  Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Partnership was established in accordance with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018.  It provides the safeguarding arrangements under which the safeguarding partners and relevant agencies work together to co-ordinate their safeguarding services, identify, and respond to the needs of children in the city, commission and publish local child safeguarding practice reviews and provide scrutiny to ensure the effectiveness of the arrangements;

(b)  the safeguarding partners responsible for the safeguarding arrangements under the Partnership are Nottingham City Council, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board and Nottinghamshire Police. An Independent Scrutineer acts as a constructive critical friend to the Partnership, encouraging reflection on practice. Other relevant agencies also support the Partnership;

(c)  the strategic priorities of the Partnership in 2022-23 were to promote, monitor, coordinate and evaluate multi agency effectiveness in safeguarding children across the child’s journey, to strengthen and support a competent and equipped workforce that is committed to learning and developing safeguarding practice with the assurance that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, and to evidence the impact of the Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Partnership (NCSCP);

(d)  the Partnership’s Business Plan has 7 priorities: tackling and reducing Child Exploitation, implementing the Harmful Sexual Behaviour Action Plan, ensuring that the voice and lived experience of children is integral to the development and delivery of services to children and families across Nottingham City, recognising and responding to the diverse population of Nottingham City’s children, delivering the Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Partnership Neglect Strategy, understanding the impact of Covid-19, and providing leadership and ensuring core duties are met in line with Working Together 2018 and other relevant legislation;

(e)  the Partnership has developed a Threshold of Need Toolkit, to strengthen the effectiveness of practice and support the need for a child and their family;

(f)  tackling neglect must continue to be a priority if children’s life chances and poor outcomes later in life are to be improved. A toolkit and a number of informative videos have been produced to promote this message. The Partnership has also developed a video resource on Professional Curiosity to further strengthen practice and knowledge in response to learning emerging from Domestic Homicide reviews;

(g)  the Partnership has held the Council to account in relation to the recent Ofsted Inspection and assurance visits, and is working together to address some of the key areas of improvement and to ensure system oversight and engagement in the improvement plan;

(h)  in 2023-24 the Partnership will re-focus scrutiny on the issue of safe and supportive transitions from children’s to adult’s services. The pace and impact of the Learning and Development Sub-group will be developed so that learning can be disseminated quickly using a range of methods to those who need it.

In response to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14