Agenda item

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 Programme and capturing the voice of children and young people. 

Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children, Young People and Community Development, Brent Council) added that there was a lot of policy development initiatives coming through from the Department for Education (DfE) currently, which included the Families First Programme, and there was an expectation to bring safeguarding partners together to create Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams, which would be developed over the next 12 months in collaboration with all statutory partners. Palvinder Kudhail (Director of Early Help and Social Care, Brent Council) further added that Brent was ahead of the game in implementing some of the requirements from the Families First Programme as some of the reforms had been implemented prior to local authorities being asked to do this work. She confirmed that partnership working around this was very strong, and education colleagues also played a key role in governance arrangements and at an operational level going forward. In terms of external validation for the work of the partnership, Nigel Chapman cited the positive Ofsted inspection that happened in April 2026 where the Council was judged ‘good’ across the board.

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

The Committee recalled the 6 recommendations made at the previous year’s meeting considering the 2024-25 annual report and asked what progress had been made towards them, particularly around working with youth organisations and engaging with Healthwatch. Nigel Chapman advised that much of the work with youth organisations was done through the Young Brent Foundation (YBF) which formed part of the Youth Justice Board, and officers met with them regularly to review the youth offer across Brent. He confirmed that the YBF was the umbrella organisation responsible for youth organisations across the borough and provided support to those organisations. He added that all youth organisations in the borough had access to the Learning and Development offer, of which there was reasonably good take-up. Specifically in relation to safeguarding, some of the youth organisations in the borough were the Jason Roberts Foundation, Hilltop Circle and United Borders, who worked closely with the Community Safety Team to carry out work across the borough and met stringent criteria on safeguarding. He felt it was useful to have community safety closely tied with the children’s work. In relation to engagement with Healthwatch, Keith Makin confirmed that this had not yet been actioned, but he would follow up on that.

Noting the intention to bring education in as a fourth safeguarding partner, the Committee asked how that would work in practice and whether there would need to be changes to current arrangements, such as around data sharing. Nigel Chapman confirmed that there was now a dedicated education role within the Brent Family Front Door for issues in schools and settings as a single point of contact, and the partnership already received direct input from education partners at the Safeguarding Forum from Designated Safeguarding Leads in schools. Following the reforms, a lead from the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) Network would be invited onto the Statutory Safeguarding Executive Group which already included the police, health and the local authority. He highlighted the challenge in identifying a representative to speak for education due to its fragmented landscape, so there was a need to invite someone capable of talking across the whole education landscape.

In response to a whether any changes to information sharing were needed across partners, Palvinder Kudhail explained that Phase One of the Social Care redesign to meet the government reforms had been to bring Early Help and Social Care together internally, which had given greater access to Early Help resources and connections with the respective Family Wellbeing Centre (FWC). The next strand had been to implement Family Group Decision Making which had been done. Now work was being done around Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams. This would mean all new referrals meeting the threshold for a strategy discussion would happen in the front door with all statutory partners situated, as well as additional partners such as adult services, housing services and Advance Domestic Abuse services where required. Standards for information sharing had also been introduced for all agencies, but further work was underway to strengthen that process.

The Committee asked whether there were any particular safeguarding trends or repeated risks over the reporting period. Nigel Chapman confirmed that there had been a range of safeguarding issues across the year. There were four categories of safeguarding considered when deciding whether a child should be on a Child Protection Plan which spanned neglect, physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse, with no one particular category being more prevalent than the other during the reporting year. As a partnership, the issue of neglect had been prioritised for the following year because it was difficult to tackle effectively when there was no single incident that would result in a service becoming involved with the child or family, and it was a long-term issue that required effective partnership work to tackle. The second cohort he wanted to focus on during the upcoming year was vulnerable adolescents at risk of criminal exploitation or involved in gang-related activity. The Council was working closely with other partners, particularly police colleagues, in that space.

Will Lexton-Jones (Detective Superintendent, NW BCU) agreed that safeguarding themes had not demonstrably changed year-on-year, with chronic risks around criminal and sexual exploitation recognised by partners yearly. He added that another common safeguarding area that the police were looking to address was the prevalence of repeat missing children as a symptom of exploitation, and the police had invested in this area to improve outcomes through the implementation of Local Missing Hubs. The North West Basic Command Unit (NW BCU) had commissioned an analysis into missing children data in order to understand the broader risks around where they were, who they were with, and what other risk factors were contributing to repeat missing episodes. Additionally, investment had been made to appoint a Missing Persons Co-ordinator in each of the three NW boroughs, who liaised with partnerships to raise awareness of how to report and respond to missing episodes. Having one officer per borough would help to better understand the risks and how the partnership could contribute to addressing those and preventing exploitation and repeat missing episodes.

Further discussing exploitation risks, the Committee asked how police liaised with Brent around that. Will Lexton-Jones responded that the NW BCU’s Exploitation Team reported to him and he liaised daily with that team. Palvinder Kudhail added that the Council employed a Contextual Safeguarding Lead to work across partners to convene Exploitation, Violence and Vulnerable Panel (EVVP) meetings where all partner agencies discussed individual children at risk of exploitation. That meeting conducted smart mapping for individual children based on their peer networks and reviewed that regularly, whilst commissioning interventions for individual children at risk. Those cases were then reviewed to understand the impact of that bespoke work. Other partners also supported that process, such as disruption activity by the police and location assessments to see what improvements could be made to the environment with co-ordinated work across all partners.

Noting the intention to prioritise neglect over the coming year, the Committee asked how data from that work would be tracked and presented to show progress and outcomes. Nigel Chapman advised that there were various avenues to track data for children subject to Child Protection Plans where neglect was a factor. For example, the number or rate of children still subject to a Child Protection Plan with neglect as the main factor could be reported, and professional confidence and awareness in identifying and responding to neglect could be surveyed. Take-up of Early Help by parents could be an indicator of greater promotion of early prevention work for families. He added that training and development across the partnership would be key to deliver this priority over the year. In terms of identification of neglect, he advised that this was easier when children were seen and visible and there was professional awareness. Over the age of 5, children were in school where professionals who saw children every day could identify whether children were well-fed, clothed and clean or whether they had became withdrawn or demonstrated a sudden change in behaviour. Under 5s where children were not in nursery or child-minded were much harder to identify and could be hidden, which was why he felt the work by the Early Years teams was key to identifying children who may or may have been seen by health visitors or a GP, with multi-agency work essential to flag those early warning signs.

The Committee asked how Brent’s Phone Pledge would differ from the DfE guidance around phone use in schools, and how Brent’s pledge could influence neighbouring boroughs to implement similar standards, particularly where Brent children might be attending out of borough schools. Palvinder Kudhail explained that the now statutory guidance from the DfE applied to all schools but was limited to activities taking place at school during lesson time. In Brent, the DSL network had developed the pledge looking at the whole school across all technology, not solely phones, as it was recognised that young people could find other ways to use technology. It was a voluntary pledge that all schools were encouraged to sign up to and follow up work had been delivered in some schools that had requested that. Nigel Chapman added that some Brent children did attend schools out of borough including Westminster, Camden and Hammersmith and Fulham, and Brent worked closely with colleagues in those areas. There were a number of London-wide approaches and initiatives to promote good practice, including through the Safeguarding Adolescents Forum, and practical working with Camden, Westminster and local schools to deliver online safety activities during the summer programme for children. As such, he confirmed there was cross-border work and collaboration around this.

Further discussing online safety and particularly the development of AI, the Committee asked how the partnership was responding to potential safeguarding risks. Keith Makin advised that guidance to parents had been developed to help them navigate their children being online and understand what their children were doing online. Will Lexton-Jones highlighted that the risks around online safety happened behind closed doors and raised concerns that AI lowered the bar to entry for people looking to exploit children. He advocated for guidance to schools and parents. He felt that partners added value here when observing signs and symptoms when in contact with children, asking the right questions of children, parents and schools to identify any risks. Palvinder Kudhail added that the Early Help and Social Care assessment tool was being revised to include prompts around online safety.

In relation to transition from children’s to adult’s services, the Committee asked how often cases were referred on and how that process worked. Palvinder Kudhail responded that, for children known to the department, such as those known to the disability service, the Council worked with a range of services including education and adult social services to ensure that transition to 18 was smooth. A database tracking children receiving services was in place form 14 years old to enable early planning for the transition to Adult services, including care planning and agreeing a package of care. For care leavers, children’s services worked with them up to the age of 25 to support them into independence, with close liaison with housing colleagues to ensure their access to accommodation and early planning for their future lives into adulthood. In terms of other partner involvement, Will Lexton-Jones shared that the police had a light-touch presence on transition but would provide any data necessary. Nicola Brownjohn (Chair of the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board) detailed the joint children’s and adult’s transitional safeguarding project which was looking at 3 cohorts; care experienced young people; those with additional needs; and those at risk of exploitation. In starting that work, it had been found that care leavers did not experience the same ‘cliff edge’ from services because they had packages of care in place for additional known needs, and the project was now looking at those with additional needs where they did not have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and those at risk of exploitation.

Highlighting the current waiting lists for neurodiversity assessments, the Committee asked how the partnership was managing any safeguarding risks related to that. Nigel Chapman explained that assessment timeliness for EHCPs was a priority for all partners involved. Brent was above the national average for meeting the 20-week timescale for completing EHCP assessments, but he highlighted that the level of growth in the SEND system over the last 5 years had doubled the number of EHCPs, with over 4,000 children now on an EHCP, and many individuals who came to the attention of services at risk of exploitation also had SEND needs. He felt there were more risks at play where children and young people went undiagnosed or where issues were identified as behavioural instead of a SEND need. He added that the government had launched a new initiative for SEND reforms and an ‘experts at hand’ offer that the Council was working with schools on in order to identify issues as early as primary school, to get support in place much earlier. The Committee asked for the data on waiting times, escalations, and support being offered.  

Noting the intention to appoint young scrutineers, the Committee asked how they might influence the partnership’s decision making and learning. Keith Makin advised that in the other boroughs where he had worked with young scrutineers, a better connection with children and young people’s networks had been achieved and therefore a better understanding of their daily lived experience had been developed. This had influenced the way annual reports were written, with children and young people directly contributing their reflections.

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 recommend that partners worked together to agree what data would be useful for the Committee to receive across both the children’s and adult’s partnership.