Agenda and minutes

• Archdeacon Catherine Pickford

Members are invited to declare at this stage of the meeting, the nature and existence of any relevant disclosable pecuniary or personal interests in the items on this agenda and to specify the item(s) to which they relate.

Personal interests were declared as follows:

• Councillor Sai Madabhushi – School Governor
• Councillor Ibrahim – works closely with the Safeguarding Team for a community organisation
• Councillor de Souza – governor for Central and North West London NHS Trust and school governor
• Councillor Unger – outgoing ward panel chair for Queen’s Park Safer Neighbourhood Team and Chair of NWL Patient Participation Group

To hear any deputations received from members of the public in accordance with Standing Order 67.

There were no deputations received.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 19 January 2026 were approved as an accurate record of the meeting.

There were no matters arising.

Prior to moving to the agenda items, the Committee received a short presentation from the Chairs of the Children’s and Adult’s Safeguarding Partnerships explaining their roles and remits within the context of safeguarding in Brent.

To consider the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) Annual Report covering the period from April 2025 to March 2026.

Councillor Muhammed Butt (Leader of the Council) introduced the report which presented the Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report for the period April 2025 – March 2026, thanking all partners involved in the safeguarding arrangements in Brent. He advised that, as Leader and the Cabinet Member with oversight for Adult Social Care, he met regularly with the Chief Executive, Director of Adult Social Care, and Chair of the Safeguarding Adults Board to ensure oversight and insight into safeguarding. He believed that the arrangements in place were safe and reflective of the needs of residents, but highlighted that, as demand for Adult Social Care increased, there would be more challenges on the Council, emphasising the importance of continued conversations with key partners in terms of how organisations supported each other and how services were provided to ensure oversight and that services were provided in places residents felt safe. He introduced Will Lexton-Jones (Detective Superintendent, Public Protection – North West Basic Command Unit (NW BCU), Sue Sheldon (Assistant Director for Safeguarding Adults and Children, West and North London Integrated Care Board (WNL ICB) and Nicola Brownjohn (Independent Chair of the Safeguarding Adults Board) to the meeting as key strategic partners to the safeguarding arrangements in place in Brent.

Nicola Brownjohn then introduced the Annual Report, highlighting the following key points:

• One of her highlights across the reporting year was going out into the community to hear directly from people with care and support needs. The engagement that had taken place had supported the planning for undertaking community engagement going forward.
• Work had taken place around the strategic plan priorities of self-neglect, housing and substance misuse, and learning from previous Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARS), and those priorities had now been closed and incorporated into business as usual.

• In relation to the work done around self-neglect, she highlighted that she had reviewed the referrals for self-neglect and identified the need to develop a multi-agency culture around addressing self-neglect, rather than practitioners making referrals to Adult Social Care where the case did not meet the threshold for statutory safeguarding. She had also worked with practitioners to launch a self-neglect toolkit to ensure the protocol was being followed across partners, and she had heard from partners over the year how that was working in practice through monthly lunch and learn sessions. She would be launching a survey across partner agencies to test how well that toolkit was working soon.
• In relation to the housing and substance misuse strategic priority, that had been established following a thematic review identifying housing as an issue in two safeguarding cases relating to substance misuse. Some good practice in the housing department and public health commissioned substance misuse service had been identified, and she had worked with partners to develop that further.
• In relation to learning from SARs, she confirmed that the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) had revamped the way referrals were considered, what happened when a SAR was commissioned, how they were publicised and how the learning was taken forward.
• The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To Consider the Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership Annual Report covering the period from April 2025 to March 2026.

Keith Makin (Independent Scrutineer of the Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership) introduced the Annual Report of the Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership Annual Report covering the period April 2025 – March 2026. In introducing the report, he highlighted the following key points:

·       The aim of the partnership was to receive assurance that safeguarding was making a difference and achieving positive outcomes for children and families in Brent.

·       Members’ attention was drawn to the timeline of activity detailed in the report which described in depth of various meetings and events that had taken place over the reporting period.

·       The Committee had previously raised the issue regarding the low number of Rapid Reviews, and he confirmed that the pattern had now changed and assured members that the Case Review Group (CRG) and partnership as a whole was constantly reviewing cases of concern.

·       A Multi-Agency Audit Group had been established to undertake audits of cases with particular themes in order to understand the learning from those cases to inform the whole system, with any learnings from audits picked up through the Learning and Development Programme and 7-minute briefings.

·       A Section 11 Audit Tool was in development to enable individual agencies to report back on safeguarding activity in an organised way, and next year’s annual report would include the results of that audit and what it had informed the partnership.

·       Brent had taken a lead in looking at the impact of online safety on children, hearing the views of children and young people through a dedicated young representative as well as families and parents through schools. As a result of the work, a Phone Pledge had been developed so that all schools in the borough took a similar approach to phone use and advice and guidance had been written for parents. Since then, the government had pledged to introduce legislation around phone use in schools.

·       In response to the Committee’s previous recommendations around the inclusion of data in the report, he advised that it was very difficult to compare boroughs because data may be collected in different ways, and trend data may portray false positives.

·       The partnership had worked closely with the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) around transitional safeguarding, which would continue into the following year.

·       The partnership had been involved in the development of the Families First Partnership Programme.

·       As Chair of the Safeguarding Children Forum, he was keen to hear the voice of children and young people, which was in the development stages. The next stage would be to appoint young scrutineers where young people were employed by the partnership to network with children and young people across the borough. He had seen this succeed in three other boroughs he worked with.

·       The partnership had reviewed the Learning and Development Programme and wanted to improve the relationship between what was being learned from local and national reviews and what services were delivering, jointly with adult partners.

·       Over the next 12 months, the partnership would be looking to focus on neglect, the Families First Partnership  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To receive the Scrutiny Recommendations Tracker.

The Committee noted the recommendations tracker and asked for a more proactive approach to reporting back on recommendations in the future.

Notice of items to be raised under this heading must be given in writing to the Deputy Director – Democratic and Corporate Governance or their representative before the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 60.

None.