Agenda item

To enable members of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to consider the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements annual report covering the period from April 2024 to March 2025.

Nicola Brownjohn (Independent Chair of the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board) introduced the Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report which covered the reporting period from April 2024 to March 2025. She advised the Committee that this had been her first full year as Independent Chair, and her role was to support the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) in gaining assurance about the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements for adults in Brent. She added this was done through various subgroups, focused on 3 strategic priorities agreed by the SAB in January 2024 which would continue until 2026. These priorities were; self-neglect; substance misuse and housing; and learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs).

In outlining the activity for 2024-25, Nicola Brownjohn advised that the report demonstrated the work done to strengthen the governance of the Board through the development of additional subgroups such as a Performance and Audit Subgroup to look at data focusing on specific areas to inform the work of the Board. Outstanding SARs had now been completed, where there had been a backlog before she had joined, and partner agencies had come together to complete a self-assessment, as detailed in the report.

The Committee was advised that Nicola Brownjohn used appreciative enquiry to assure herself of arrangements, working with the three strategic partners – Integrated Care Board, Police and Adult Social Care – to look at what was working well and what needed improvement. Her reflections over the past year, as detailed in the report, were that the Board was working well together with good attendance at meetings, stronger governance, and more impactful learning from SARs with a better quality of reports coming through. For example, learning from Adult G’s SAR identified the need to utilise the High-Risk Panel more, which featured in some other SARs, and now there was evidence that the High-Risk Panel was being used well from a multi-agency perspective.

The last year, the SAB had begun development of a Community Engagement Project, looking at how to improve community voice on the Board, and Nicola Brownjohn expressed appreciation to Healthwatch for the work they had done to help that project progress. The past year, the SAB had also improved its focus on transitional safeguarding and identified 3 cohorts to focus on; those with additional needs, care leavers, and those at risk of exploitation. There was an aim to establish and embed transitional safeguarding into the work of the SAB the following year.

Claudia Brown (Director of Adult Social Care, Brent Council) agreed that the SAB was working well, with an increased number of subgroups, which was resulting in an improvement in learning from SARs. She assured the Committee that there were structures in place to deliver learning and feedback from various stakeholders outlining what they had done as a result of learning from SARs. Both Sue Sheldon (Assistant Director for Safeguarding, NWL ICB) and Will Lexton-Jones (Detective Superintendent – NW BCU Met Police) agreed and emphasised the improved learning from SARs.

In concluding the introduction, Councillor Neil Nerva (as Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Public Health and Leisure) thanked Nicola Brownjohn for the work she had done as Chair of SAB, highlighting the difficult task of managing a complex partnership with a range of organisations. He highlighted the value of the partnership at a place-based level.   

The Chair thanked presenters for their introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Committee recognised the positives in the report and introduction, noting the comments about improved learning, and asked what lessons had been learned over the past year. Nicola Brownjohn highlighted that learning had helped confirm that mental health and housing were the right priorities for the SAB, particularly the importance of housing that was appropriate for individuals with drug or alcohol misuse, who were self-neglecting, or developing long-term chronic illnesses and unable to live independently. As a result of that learning, more thorough work with Housing was taking place, and the SAB was receiving regular reports relating to adults with substance misuse and their housing. Work was also being done with Public Health around housing need and substance misuse.

As a supplementary, the Committee asked where the police had a role in safeguarding those with substance misuse and how the partnership came together in these cases. Nicola Brownjohn explained that, for the particular SAR that was commissioned in relation to substance misuse, the police had not been involved in that. However, the SAB had worked with the Safer Brent Partnership where further work with the police was being undertaken around cuckooing, which linked closely with this theme.

In terms of learning from SARs, Claudia Brown added that a lot of themes that came out of SARs were around communication, partnership working, and ensuring there were processes and pathways for communication. She felt the SAB was now bringing organisations together well through Lunch and Learn sessions, 7-minute briefings, and feedback collected from partner organisations to highlight what had changed as a result of a particular SAR which was then fed back to the SAB and monitored over a period of time.

The Committee highlighted the need to see a more detailed assessment of the improvements made over the last year, and trends over time across a three year period, so that they could track improvements and monitor KPIs. Nicola Brownjohn advised that a subgroup had been established to look at performance, feeding specific data into the SAB, such as around self-neglect. Alongside the performance data that was now being fed in, she also got her assurance of improvements through talking with communities and practitioners and testing out whether the learning was being taken forward. Sue Sheldon added that the Integrated Care Board (ICB) worked closely with all health providers in Brent and saw the learning embedded when undertaking supervision and training. In relation to self-neglect, there was evidence of an increased awareness of and identification of self-neglect, and the Safeguarding Health Outcome Framework showed an increase in referrals for self-neglect which had previously been low, showing an increased awareness of the signs of self-neglect as a result of learning.

In terms of working as a partnership, the Committee asked how partners could evidence the multi-agency ethos having been embedded in the arrangements and organisations’ understanding of the value of working collectively as a partnership. Will Lexton-Jones advised that attendance at statutory meetings and contributions to them was evidence that partners were committed to a multi-agency ethos with strong representation at all levels. Darren Jones (Director of Nursing, NWL ICB) added that the ICB had established a quality group where all partners across NWL came together to talk about quality and what work should be taken forward as a system, such as through 7-minute learnings which were shared across NWL, including Brent. He felt that Brent and NWL had a very open learning environment, and partners were honest where things had not gone well and took learning on board. Claudia Brown provided another example of multi-agency learning through the High-Risk Panel, which was now seeing appropriate referrals from all agencies whereas before it was not.

In response to what partners would want to see from each other to make the partnership more effective, Will Lexton-Jones advised that he would want to see closer working with neighbourhood colleagues to take localism and expertise into neighbourhoods, and with Detective Superintendent Tony Bellis now leading on neighbourhoods he felt that there was potential to develop some greater investment through working closer with Neighbourhood Teams. In addition, he saw co-location as preferable where affordable. Many of these changes were dependent on a Met-wide position.

Regarding sections 3.2.8 and 3.2.9 of the report, which detailed the joint work between children’s and adult safeguarding looking at transitional safeguarding, the Committee asked what the current relationship between the Chair of SAB and Independent Scrutineer of the Safeguarding Children Partnership Arrangements was. Nicola Brownjohn highlighted that transitional safeguarding was a joint project between children’s and adults safeguarding, and she met regularly with the Independent Scrutineer for Safeguarding Children. Recently a seminar had been held for practitioners and managers to analyse transitional safeguarding arrangements. She was also leading a joint case review looking at the 3 particular cohorts of focus in more detail. Keith Makin (Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership Independent Scrutineer) echoed the points, emphasising the importance of transitional safeguarding, particularly for care experienced young people, where national experience demonstrated that many young people got lost in the system when transitioning to adulthood.

The Committee asked whether there were any common themes being identified for children and adults in the transitional safeguarding workstream. Nicola Brownjohn advised that, of the 3 cohorts being focused on (care leavers, young people with additional needs, and young people at risk of exploitation), it was likely that some of those children and young adults would feature across all 3 cohorts. When more information and analysis was available on that, it would be presented to the joint executive, who would then agree what needed to be embedded for 2026. Claudia Brown added that Adult Social Care now had a process where particularly vulnerable individuals were supported through the transitional pathway once they reached 18. The original focus of that had been on those with SEND, but this was now being expanded to children who were looked after where it was evident they would need additional support, such as those at risk of radicalisation.

The Committee noted the increase in self-neglect high risk cases, and asked how confident the Chair was that all partners were working together to ensure individuals were not falling through the net. Nicola Brownjohn explained that a previous SAR from several years ago, INDIRA, had identified that different agencies had been involved with the person and self-neglect had been normalised. The impact of that SAR had been to enhance the High-Risk Panel and focus on escalation guidance. She added that the SAB would not know about the gaps but expected awareness raising by everyone, to be assured that if someone identified self-neglect then it would be taken to the appropriate agency.

The Committee highlighted that there had been several high-profile national incidents related to safeguarding in the media over the past 12 months, and asked for assurance that the learning from those national cases was fed into the partnership boards. Nicola Brownjohn assured the Committee that learning from national cases did feed through the partnership. She advised that a ministerial letter about rough sleeping deaths now required Boards to consider this a safeguarding issue, and she had been impressed by how Brent’s partnership had came together to build a process around that with a Lead on rough sleeping deaths now sitting on the Board.

The Committee also asked how the SAB learned from other boroughs and whether the SAB actively worked with other boroughs around this. Nicola Brownjohn advised that Brent’s Annual Report was created much earlier than other Boards, so currently there was no benchmarking data that Brent could compare with other areas, but she confirmed there was learning from other Boards.

In terms of how the SAB and Chair was engaging with the community voice, the Committee heard that a project with Heathwatch was ongoing, looking at how community voice could be represented at SAB. Healthwatch had helped identify some cohorts to reach out to, and as a result the Chair had visited a Dementia Café, Autism Café and a group of Somalian women. She hoped more work would be done with Brent Health Matters and Healthwatch to identify other groups and identify any gaps. Nicola Brownjohn explained that, initially, those groups had been reticent to talk about safeguarding, but by the end of the sessions they were more open and feeding back in a helpful way. 

The Chair asked Katherine Shaw (CEO, Healthwatch Brent) to reflect on the experiences of service users in relation to safeguarding. She advised that Healthwatch had seen improvements this year in the strength of the partnership. One area of improvement from service users was around feedback, ensuring that when service users provided feedback they then heard about what had changed as a result. Nicola Brownjohn advised that the current community engagement project was underway but not yet completed, and confirmed that future work would include feedback to those communities. The project was due to finish in November, and she hoped an event would take place where the local community could be invited and that feedback could be shared. 

In drawing the discussion to close, the Chair asked what the key emerging priorities for the SAB for the next 12 months were. Nicola Brownjohn explained that the current strategic plan would continue until 2026 and after that the priorities would be shaped through themes coming from SARs and the national picture.

As no further issues were raised the Chair thanked officers for their time and responses and invited members to make recommendations, with the following RESOLVED:

i)               To co-produce a SAB priority with those with lived experience.

ii)              To commission a multi-agency safeguarding awareness campaign.

iii)             For future reports to list learnings and how they have been addressed.

iv)             For future reports to reflect on national reviews and how they impact locally.