Agenda item

Verbal feedback to the committee following the recently established cross-party meeting which looks at safeguarding children in Brent.

Councillor Wharton (Lead Member, Children and Families) provided a verbal update for the Committee on the recently established cross-party body looking at safeguarding children in Brent. In the aftermath of the Baby Peter case Brent Council had set up a members’ review of child protection, attended by the leaders of the three main parties, the parties’ education spokespersons, the Chair of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and Councillor Wharton, as Lead Member for Children and Families.

Councillor Wharton reported that recent legislation had increased the requirements on Councils in relation to corporate parenting, and it had been decided that, as the key relevant officers and members were already meeting to review child protection, they should also take on the issue of corporate parenting. The Council was required to establish a council for children in care to meet regularly with and make representations to members. This had duly been established, and the children themselves had chosen the title Brent Care in Action. A participation worker was working with the children, and the members’ meeting had reviewed the structure and terms of reference of Brent Care in Action.

The members’ group had reviewed the GCSE results of children in care. Historically, these had been poor, but investment a few years previously had led to increased resources to the teacher team supporting children in care, and the results had been much better in 2009, with 11 young people out of 40 having gained five A-C grades, including English and Maths. These results compared well with those of other London boroughs and with those of Brent in the past.

Child protection indicators had also been considered by the members’ group, which had noted a doubling of referrals over the past three years, particularly in the aftermath of the Baby Peter case. The number of children with child protection plans had doubled over the same period, although this could be as a result of better recognition of risk factors, as opposed to increased abuse. For example, the police now had much better child protection training, and were now making more referrals. The members’ group also took note of serious case reviews, set up when it appeared that something had gone wrong and from which the Council needed to learn lessons.

Asked whether the number of referrals had increased because of the aftermath of the Baby Peter case, leaving fewer resources then available to prevent the cycle of neglect, Councillor Wharton told the Committee that he felt that the number of cases had been rising anyway, with better police training, but there had also been a sharp rise since the Baby Peter case. He felt that there was an element of nervousness. However, while it was not the case that more children were being taken into care, extra resources were going into the increased number of investigations. However, the Council had already put extra resources into the current budget to strengthen investigations, and Councillor Wharton did not feel that that resources used for investigations were necessarily taken from other areas. However, he acknowledged that, although the number of children in care was stable, there had been an increase in court proceedings, and this was likely to lead to an increase in the number of children in care.

The Committee was concerned that the balance of resources between investigation and prevention be monitored, and Councillor Wharton agreed to take this issue back to the members’ group.

Krutika Pau (Assistant Director, Children and Families) added that the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) was now being used in co-located early intervention teams and that it should be apparent within a year that quick decisions were being made in relation to the social care threshold. Up to now many cases had been referred that did not meet the threshold. The Committee noted that locality-based social care would be discussed by the Committee at its meeting in March 2010.

RESOLVED:

that the verbal update be noted.