Minutes:
Alison Michalska, Corporate Director for Children and Adults, Nottingham City Council, gave an update on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. She highlighted the following information:
a) The Inquiry included looking into historic failures to protect children in the care of Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council. This part of the Inquiry focused on three areas:
i. Institutional responses to disclosures of allegations of sexual abuse in relation to Beechwood since 1967 to the present and the barriers to disclosure of such allegations;
ii. Institutional responses to disclosures of allegations of child sexual abuse by foster carers and the barriers to disclosure of such allegations; and
iii. Institutional responses to disclosures of allegations of sexual abuse carried out by children against other children in the care of the Councils and the barriers to disclosure of such allegations
b) The Inquiry’s report relating to historical failures to protect children in the care of Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council was published in July 2019 and contained two recommendations for Nottingham City Council;
c) The Council is required to publish its response to these recommendations within six months, which it will do;
d) The first recommendation relates to assessing the potential risk posed by current and former foster carers provided directly by the Council and those provided by external agencies in relation to sexual abuse of children. Progress on this is well under way and the Council is reviewing all allegations that it has dealt with to review what was done and whether the right steps were taken. Where is it identified that the Council’s response was not robust enough then that will be explored, with disclosure if necessary. The work required with independent fostering agencies is being done jointly with Nottinghamshire County Council. All agencies that have been used will be written to, requiring them to satisfy the local authorities on these issues;
e) The second recommendation relates to carrying out an independent, external evaluation of practices of the Council and its safeguarding partners concerning harmful sexual behaviour. Proposals for undertaking this work are being considered by the Safeguarding Partnership on 30 September 2019 and if approved the NSPCC will be commissioned to undertake the independent evaluation. Once the evaluation has been completed, arising recommendations will be reviewed by the Partnership;
f) The Council’s action plan will be wider than just the response to these two explicit recommendations and will reflect other areas for improvement identified;
g) The action plan will be considered by the Council’s Executive Board at its meeting in October 2019;
h) In addition, work continues to engage with victims and survivors of sexual abuse to ensure that they are able to get the right support and access their records;
i) The Council also continues to offer its apology to anyone harmed as a result of child sexual abuse whilst in the care of the Council;
j) With partners, the Council will explore the outcomes of the needs assessment being carried out by Lime Culture and will use this to inform the future commissioning of services;
k) One of the issues highlighted by the Inquiry was that senior managers and councillors were not always aware of the extent and nature of allegations of sexual abuse. To address this, there will now be quarterly reporting of allegations to the Safeguarding Partnership and a specific section in the Independent Reviewing Officer’s Annual Report about allegations that have been made to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are better sighted on the extent of issues;
l) The Council continues to engage with ongoing criminal investigations;
m) Progress on the action plan will be reported to the Safeguarding Partnership and updates will also be provided to this Board and the Council’s Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee.
The Board thanked Alison Michalska for her work on this, and other issues during her time as Corporate Director for Children and Adults.