Agenda item

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 new strategic plan had been agreed in March 2026 which would act as a short-term plan for one year due to upcoming changes in safeguarding. The priorities included safeguarding people with complex care and support needs, specifically around mental health and homelessness, and prevention of harm to avoid crises, with an underlying ‘golden thread’ around community engagement.
• The report outlined the timeline of activity across the SAB and its subgroups. She added that the Performance and Audit Subgroup was in its infancy and had been used to do a deep dive into Section 42 safeguarding enquiries to see what communities might be outliers, which had helped to identify a lack of LGBTQ+ referrals which would be further reviewed in the upcoming year. Additionally, there were low levels of modern slavery referrals which did not match some of the anecdotal data being received from partner agencies, so work would be undertaken to understand that data further. The subgroup would review the conversion rate of referrals to enquiries as well as feedback mechanisms.
• In relation to national data, she highlighted that this was incomplete, as it was only possible to record one primary abuse, such as ‘domestic abuse’, but not to record underlying abuse such as financial abuse in order to get richer data and identify common themes. As a result, the Performance and Audit Subgroup was looking to establish ways of recording that data in order to deepen the SABs understanding of the types of abuse in Brent.

The Chair thanked colleagues for their introductions and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following points raised:

The Committee was pleased with the level of activity being undertaken by the SAB and thanked partners on behalf of the residents of Brent. Noting that the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee received this report as a standing item every year, the Committee asked how the recommendations from the Committee meeting the previous year had been taken forward. Those recommendations included for the SAB to co-produce one priority with those with lived experience, to commission a multi-agency safeguarding awareness campaign, to identify learnings and how they would be addressed in future reports, and to reflect on national reviews and how they might impact locally in future reports. Additionally, the previous meeting had called for more Key Performance Indicators and data to demonstrate the multi-agency ethos having been embedded into the partnership. Nicola Brownjohn confirmed that the mental health and complex needs priorities had been established directly from speaking to people with lived experience, and awareness campaigns were delivered through National Safeguarding Adults Week. She would be happy to think about further awareness campaigns that the SAB could consider, particularly as the Community Engagement Group was now established. Going forward, she would be looking to have the voice of those with lived experience come through in the Annual Report with the help of the Community Engagement Group. In relation to national reviews and their impact locally, she confirmed that the multi-agency partnership considered the local impact and any learning and actions at regular lunch and learns, and as a member of the National Network of Independent Chairs she was able to disseminate information raised at those meetings also.

The Committee asked whether the Chair of SAB believed that cross-partner working was taking place effectively. Nicola Brownjohn responded that there was multi-agency working but she would want to strengthen that. She felt that partner working may have been weaker over the reporting period due to individual organisational changes across several agencies over the year, but there was always cross-partner attendance at the various subgroups and task and finish groups. Going forward with the additional subgroups introduced, she felt there was a need for strengthening that collaboration for partners to come together around those workstreams, such as transitional safeguarding.

The Committee felt it was difficult to understand some of the assertions made in the report regarding progress on the 3 strategic priorities without baseline data that could then be tracked year on year. They highlighted that baseline data would help the Committee to see where improvements were having an impact and resulting in positive outcomes. Nicola Brownjohn advised that the Performance and Audit Subgroup had been newly established in order to consider ways the SAB could gather and analyse more data. Rachel Crossley (Corporate Director Service Reform and Strategy, Brent Council) added that the Council produced a 6-monthly analysis of safeguarding data across areas of Brent, including an analysis of demographics and protected characteristics, which could be provided to the Committee.

Of the SARs completed in the reporting year, the Committee asked what the key lessons were and how they could be assured changes were happening on the ground in response to those learnings. Nicola Brownjohn advised that lessons learned around self-neglect focused on assuring residents that agencies were looking to work more collaboratively to support people who might be seen to be self-neglecting earlier and develop a relationship with those people before they developed a more serious risk of harm. For those with complex needs, the High Risk Panel was also looking at how those people could be reached earlier, as well as transitional safeguarding and identifying where there was a need to work more closely with someone to develop a transitional plan. Lessons had also focused on unpaid carers and hearing their voice, and national reviews related to safe discharge from hospital where there was a sole unpaid carer at home. In concluding her response, she assured members and residents that the SAB was there to learn from SARs and listen to partners and people with lived experience, and would challenge areas it was felt had gaps.

Noting the referral to enquiry conversion rate of 25-30%, the Committee asked for a further explanation of why adults were being screened out following a referral. Claudia Brown (Director of Adult Social Care, Brent Council) explained that practitioners had a stronger awareness of safeguarding now and therefore more cases were referred as it was felt safer to refer than ignore a concern. She confirmed that there was an effective triage process using prescribed criteria which needed to be met in order to convert a referral to an enquiry. Some referrals may progress through to care management whereas others may move to a Section 42 enquiry. She confirmed that the referrals that came in that met the criteria for a Section 42 Enquiry were very low. The Committee added that it would be useful to see that data in more detail, including where there were repeat referrals and what their outcomes were in terms of which referrals progressed.

The Committee asked how effective the resourcing of the arrangements were, highlighting the underspend detailed in the report. Nicola Brownjohn explained that it was important to ensure that there were reserves available should the need for a SAR arise, as SARs required a large amount resource, including payment for an independent reviewer and data gathering, which could take up to 20 days. She confirmed that the arrangements were manageable within the budget available, and was grateful for the uplift in contribution from the Met Police which local partnerships had lobbied for across London for several years.

The Committee asked what the SAB had found were the main barriers for effective partnership working, particularly information sharing. Nicola Brownjohn explained that the SAB was not involved with the specifics of a case, but there to question whether the right services were in place and delivering effectively, using a multi-agency approach where necessary. She confirmed that there was good attendance at the SAB with active participation, including some private housing organisations joining the Board which had been positive, particularly given the emerging themes around housing in adult safeguarding. Some challenges identified were within individual organisations where they may be covering multiple boroughs and footprints, to be able to give each SAB in each area dedicated time. In response to that, she had set up a group for Chairs across the health footprint in order to liaise with health. The SAB may then hear that a piece of work had already been done in another area, so Brent learned from that area, and vice versa, such as with the self-neglect toolkit which other areas now used. As such, whilst she and the SAB were focused on Brent and actions were Brent-specific, there was common ground with other areas in order to learn.

Will Lexton-Jones added that he had worked both on a borough-level and the area-based North West Basic Command Unit (BCU) that was the current model, and confirmed it was easier to work borough-to-borough where the area was smaller and relationships more straightforward, meaning individual officers could focus on a single partnership with better opportunities to invest in those partnerships such as through co-location, which became difficult when the configuration was mismatched. He advised that there was a need to be as cost-effective as possible whilst delivering core statutory responsibilities, and so the way the police was configured with the BCU model had taken those priorities first, and over time improvements had been made across the 10 years that model had been in use. The BCU had iteratively improved the way it worked in the multi-agency space, and he affirmed that there was a commitment to work in a partnership way, attend those meetings and meet partner responsibilities. Some of those improvements had been simple, such as investing in admin to ensure scheduling was effective and efficient, and other areas for improvement had been around IT systems and, linked to that, data sharing. He highlighted that officers had been required to learn a new IT system which had taken time to embed and which had caused multi-agency gaps, for example where the right series of buttons was not correctly selected when putting a vulnerable adult referral onto the system. Improvements were now being seen with officers getting better at using the system and system updates to allow useful automation, and despite those challenges he felt that the NW BCU had always managed to maintain a good borough-based approach to safeguarding.

Sue Sheldon responded that there had been challenges with the newly implemented Integrated Care Board (ICB) changes, but felt the ICB had always maintained a very good borough-based approach to safeguarding. She confirmed that the ICB was present at meetings where there was a need and where they could make a difference and have a view. She was hopeful going forward that the ICB would still have the presence in boroughs that it had previously had with the North West London safeguarding team designated professionals. There was now acknowledgement that Brent did not sit on its own but neighboured with Harrow and Barnet and there were ways some work could be brought together.

The Committee asked how the impact of the self-neglect toolkit would be measured and whether training had been implemented for its use. Nicola Brownjohn explained that training had been open to all agencies on the toolkit. There was a plan to do a survey across agencies to find out how it was being used and if it was found to be helpful. Will Lexton-Jones would discuss the toolkit with a colleague to ensure that it had been disseminated for use and feedback.

As no further issues were raised, the Chair drew the discussion to close and invited the Committee to make recommendations with the following RESOLVED:

i)               To recommend a more specific and overarching strategic priority on multi-agency partnership working.

ii)              For future reports to include additional data in relation to referrals, including demographics and outcomes. This should include infographics and tables for historic data to help visualise trends.

iii)             For future reports to include a section related to communications between agencies, including strengths and weaknesses.

iv)             For the SAB to reach out to all members of the Council to hear their feedback on making referrals and engaging with the safeguarding team.

A number of information requests were also made during the discussion, recorded as follows:

i)               To receive the last three years of safeguarding referral figures.