Agenda item
Brent Local Safeguarding Children Board Annual Report
The purpose of this report is for the independent chair of the Brent Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) to present the LSCB annual report to members.
Minutes:
Councillor Colwill welcomed Mike Howard, independent chair of the Brent Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) to the meeting.
Mike Howard stated that he had been newly appointed to the role of chair on 1 June 2015 and it was his responsibility to present the annual report of the LSCB. Having outlined the statutory guidance underpinning the LSCB, Mike Howard referred to aspects of the annual report dealing with:
- children missing from education, which showed a reduction in the number of cases and that the Quality, Audit and Outcomes sub-group now included this data set,
- domestic abuse, where more emphasis would be placed on establishing the impact this had on children, and
- private fostering, which was felt to be under reported and action would be taken to improve the data set supporting this.
Under the heading of Governance and Accountability, Mike Howard explained that he had made a number of changes to the meeting frequencies and structure of the sub-groups. Referring to the budget contributions, he had raised the feeling that the Metropolitan Police contribution could be more but acknowledged that this was governed by the Mayor of London’s office. Turning to the Board’s priorities, Mike Howard referred to the thematic inspection carried out in October 2014 by OFSTED which had refocused the work on child sexual exploitation (CSE). He stated that a lot more work was needed on harmful practices, especially female genital mutilation (FGM). With reference to the training programme, Mike Howard stated that significant progress had been made utilising Learning Pool and further work was going into evaluating the effectiveness of the training.
Members of the committee asked a series of questions of the Chair and the officers supporting the Board. It was explained that the OFSTED inspection concerned CSE and had been a thematic one with Brent being one of ten authorities involved. It had found examples of some good front line practice but the Board needed to strengthen its oversight of the issue. With regard to appendix C of the report, it was explained that membership of the groups changed during the year and that partly explained why some members had attended fewer meetings. An undertaking was given to supply the number of incidences of CSE reported to the Council and whether any convictions had resulted. In response to a comment, Mike Howard agreed that the report in future needed to include more information on the impact of the work of the Board.
Referring to the school section 11 undertaken and those schools that had not completed the audit, it was explained that efforts were being made to engage more with schools and colleges to ensure they all kept their child protection procedures up to date. Using the example of landlord licensing it was stated that a number of Council officers had cause to visit properties and it was confirmed that there was a requirement for all such staff to be aware of safeguarding issues for both children and adults and to report any concerns they had. In response to a question about the funding cuts faced by the Metropolitan Police and how this would impact on the work of the Board, it was explained that as with all the agencies dealing with cutbacks, it affected their ability to attend meetings and free staff to support the work of the Board.
Although NHS England was now starting to collect data from GPs on incidents of FGM, it was asked if Brent had any current data. Mike Howard undertook to look into this and inform members accordingly. With regard to work on anti radicalisation, it was explained that this was the responsibility of schools and colleges and the role of the Board was to be aware of the activities and monitor their impact. The Council had undertaken a range of creative work with schools and colleges on this matter and the Board would seek engagement with the schools as partners in this work.
Members expressed concern that the Board did not have a specific strand of work on looking at the welfare of those children who were homeless. It was felt that children who moved around the country as a result of a lack of permanent housing faced issues around health and welfare. Members were re-assured that the Board sought to capture children in such circumstances and a representative of the housing service sat on the Board. In addition the housing service and children services worked jointly on assessing the impact that the housing situation and the welfare reforms were having. However, it was acknowledged that there had not been specific work carried out on the impact of the housing crisis on children. The Committee recorded its concern over the issue of transitory families and the effect this could have on children and that all the partner agencies were fulfilling their responsibilities in this area.
In response to questions regarding the outcome of the work of the Board and the evaluation of the training, Mike Howard explained that information was sought by asking people and data was collected to measure activity. The effect of the training was in how it impacted on performance and he stated that it was resource intensive to capture this. Nevertheless it was an area that was being looked at and the suggestion of asking staff three months after their training what difference it had made was noted. It was confirmed that the work around children missing from education included those missing from home and care as well. It was requested that figures be supplied on children missing from education divided between the primary and secondary sectors.
Mike Howard was requested to return to the Committee in spring 2016 to report on the outcome of the Government’s spending review announcement and what impact this was having on the work of the LSCB.
In recognition of the overlap between the work of the LSCB in overseeing the effectiveness of child safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Brent and the role of the Council’s children services, the committee requested that an item be included in the Committee’s work programme on the report due from the recent OFSTED inspection of children’s social services.
Requests for information
· number of incidences of CSE reported to the Council and whether any convictions had resulted.
· the data held by the Council on FGM.
· figures on children missing from education divided between the primary and secondary sectors.
RESOLVED:
(i) that the LSCB annual report be noted;
(ii) that the Committee’s concerns regarding the welfare of children within transitory families and temporary housing be passed back to the Board.
Supporting documents: