Agenda item

Report of the Head of Legal and Governance

Chris Cook, Independent Chair of the Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Board (NCSCB), John Matravers, Service Manager for Safeguarding Partnerships (NCC), and Alison Michalska, Corporate Director for Children and Adults, were in attendance to present the Nottingham City Safeguarding Board Annual Report for 2017/18.

To support the thorough Annual report and also with reference to the next agenda item on Proposals for replacing Safeguarding Children Board arrangements, a detailed PowerPoint was delivered which is included in the initial publication of the minutes.

Chris Cook briefly outlined the purpose of the NCSCB and highlighted the following points:

(a)  as a reflection of the expanding risks to children, the NCSCB headline statement now also refers to online activity: ‘We want all the children and young people of Nottingham City to be safe from harm, inside their home, outside their home and online’;

(b)  the aim of the Board is to involve all agencies in working together in partnership to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of children by providing scrutiny to ensure the effectiveness of policies and practices across the partnership;

(c)  the second annual NCSCB ‘Every Colleague Matters’ event on ‘Empowering the Workforce to deliver Excellence in Safeguarding Practice’ was attended by more than  350 practitioners from across the safeguarding partnership;

(d)  one of the issues raised was changing the culture and mindset with regard to missing appointments in that this should be considered as a flag requiring further investigation, particularly within the health sector where ‘was not brought’ should raise professional curiosity. Nottingham CCG commissioned a promotional animation which has been well received by partners and welcomed by Chairs of other Local Safeguarding Boards and their partners;

(e)  the Quality Assurance Sub-Group of NCSCB has completed audits on Child Sexual Exploitation, out of hours referrals to Children’s Social Care, quality of plans for cases where the concern was physical abuse and medical neglect;

(f)  emerging issues such as the use of online media and forums, county lines drug trafficking, child sexual exploitation, modern slavery and radicalisation are issues where awareness is raised with partners. Initially several Police forces were treating children involved in county lines activity as compliant criminals whereas now there is a better understanding that they are exploited victims;

(g)  child neglect is a very complicated issue with wide ranging elements. Domestic violence can be very closely associated to child abuse and there is a lot of very effective partnership working to prevent female genital mutilation.

Questions from the Committee were responded to by Chris, John and Alison as follows:

(h)  the Police and Crime Commissioner regularly attends regional safeguarding meetings, particularly when there are issues such as exploitation;

(i)  although every effort is made to ensure that every child is known to the systems and can be monitored, realistically no absolute guarantees can be given that this is the case. Children from traveller communities are usually identified only if their parents or carers apply for a school place, medical treatment or benefits. Where children are known to be home schooled then their education (and welfare) is followed up as formally they are considered as ‘children missing education’. Education colleagues work with the parents to ensure that home schooling meets the required standards although the standard of some home schooling is excellent. If access to home schooled children cannot be gained, then safeguarding powers are utilised, with the assistance of the Police if necessary, to gain access and ensure that the children are safe. It is only possible to respond to what is known about but it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure the safety of children. Alerts or concerns can be raised anonymously but do need to be reported;

(j)  in practice, risk can only be minimised and not eradicated, but with all partners, including in the county, networking, working together and communicating, then minimised risk can be achieved;

(k)  there are designated GP Leads for safeguarding who also link with staff at QMC. The CCG is very proactive in safeguarding and promotes training and education amongst staff and partners, including funding the ‘was not brought’ film which highlights the need to proactively respond;

(l)  schools have been very proactive in promoting safeguarding practices and approximately 700 school Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL) meet three times a year to share information and highlight emerging concerns. Use of the Internet can be positive but protection and education is required regarding some elements;

(m)  it can be difficult to raise issues and concerns with parents without alienating them. A common thread has been raised that people don’t want to ruin positive relationships with parents and so where there is any level of doubt surrounding suspicions, they say nothing. One aspect of much of the training provided to partners is taking a mutually caring approach in finding common ground such as ‘we both want your child to be safe  but maybe we won’t always agree on the best way to do this’;

(n)  online safeguarding concerns have been raised by the DSL Network and whilst it’s important that safeguarding bodies don’t attack the online world, the risks need to be highlighted. The NSPCC regularly attend events and promote ‘staying safe online’. Online organisations such as Google are doing some positive work to promote safeguarding, but awareness still needs to be raised;

(o)  the City and County Safeguarding Boards have a joint exploitation subgroup focusing on online concerns and the Police are also very active. Young people and children easily access social media and other roots of influence via phones and iPads and whilst the risks from social media continue to develop, it’s important that the safeguarding mechanisms can speedily identify and either address or highlight as a risk the areas of concern;

(p)  further information on the work of NCSCB, including information and training and how to raise safeguarding concerns, can be found here:

  https://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/children-and-families/nottingham-city-safeguarding-children-board/ or via twitter and Facebook with links available to other agencies such as the Nation al Crime Agency.

RESOLVED to note the Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Board Annual Report.