Agenda item

To receive updates on actions agreed at the previous meeting.

 The Head of Service (Revenues, Benefits, Customer and Community) and the Community Engagement Manager provided an update on Safeguarding:

‘At the last meeting of this committee on 14 December 2023, the Mid-year KPI report was presented for ‘’Healthy and Strong Communities’’.

The action ‘’protect our most vulnerable residents with robust safeguarding processes’’ had an action status of ‘’Significantly Below Target’’.

As a result of this, it was proposed, seconded and AGREED that the Committee:

             1.         Review and scrutinise the performance against the Corporate Plan Key Performance Indicators in relation to the delivery of the Corporate Plan priorities and outcomes.

             2.         Use this report to inform and support the ongoing work programme of the Committee

             3.         For the Committee to receive a further report on a breakdown of staff training and the type of training they require, as well as the progress made against each service area, including contractors and the safeguarding process within Housing.

I would like to take this opportunity to update the Committee on the actions taken since this meeting.

On 19 January 2024, Carol Drury, myself, Jodie Archer and Sarah McQueen met to discuss the actions from the Committee meeting and agreed a formal approach to the training.

Officers felt that a cross team approach to be taken in regard to safeguarding would be the best way forward, to maximise and make best use of officer expertise. The following officers would have responsibilities for areas of safeguarding:

Ø Carol Drury

o   Review of information reported through ITrent (resulting in the figure within the KPI measure)

o  Training

§  Review current levels

§  Undertake awareness sessions with senior management

§  Provide in-person training to those teams who do not have access to a PC

§  Regular monitoring of progress for individual officers and against the KPI target

Ø Jodie Archer and Sarah McQueen

o  Are our dedicated safeguarding Officers

o  Leading on the Section 11 Safeguarding Children Audit

o  Presenting the annual safeguarding report to Governance and Audit on 13 March)

o  Day-to-day accountability for safeguarding (including supporting staff with referrals and understanding of their role in the process)

The KPI within Healthy and Strong Communities with the action to:

Protect our most vulnerable residents with robust safeguarding processes relates to the percentage of ‘relevant staff’ trained in applying effective safeguarding processes. This was reported to be at 45%.

The % reported is based on the number of officers from across the Council that have accessed the induction training “An introduction to Safeguarding Everyone in Lincolnshire” so there relates to a % of new starters.

Relevant staff are those who interact regularly with potentially vulnerable residents so the percentage reported should be based on that figure (and their levels of completed training) and not across the whole staff.

To clarify more generally, I will remind Members as stated at the last meeting of this Committee – all officers and elected Members are required to complete safeguarding training – relevant to their role.

Training

At this time, I am still awaiting some information on staffing but, based on the information I currently have, I have reviewed present levels and can inform Members that the actual percentage (at this time) of ‘relevant officers’ having completed some safeguarding training is 63%.  Still lower than we want it to be, but action has been taken to address this.

I have also reviewed the 6 year training pathway of both the LSCP and the LSAB and updated our training pathways as necessary.

I have produced spreadsheets across three levels of training.  They are for:

·       Officers with limited or no direct contact with the public

·       Officers with regular contact with the public – likely to make a safeguarding referral (these would be classified as ‘relevant officers’)

·       Safeguarding Leads.

I have attended a senior management meeting to update and inform and to share the requirement on them and their teams to undertake safeguarding training.

Following that meeting – the revised 6 year pathway and the spreadsheets have been shared for managers to disseminate to their teams.

In house training relating to safeguarding and the importance of professional curiosity will also be provided for staff members who have no access to a computers.

Going forward, I will monitor the progress of training completed and will provide the information required against the KPI.

A further update will be brought to this Committee to give assurance that actions are being delivered against for this important aspect of our work.’

The Head of Housing Services informed the Committee that the next session on Safeguarding on Members was due to take place on Tuesday 6 February at 6pm.

It was clarified that the KPI relating to Safeguarding training would only relate to relevant Officers. The total number of staff trained would be part of the annual report that goes to Governance and Audit Committee, which contained training levels for Officers and elected Members.

The target for Officers to be trained on Safeguarding was 90%.

In future, figures would be provided on by service area, relevant roles and levels of training required to be undertaken.

It was queried whether elected Members were included within the 63% completion rate.

The Community Engagement Manager clarified that the 63% related to only Officers. The annual report would contain the figure of how many elected Members had completed the training.