Agenda item

This report provides an update on the progress of the review and the updated Safeguarding Policy 2024 – 2027 for review.

The Cabinet Member for People and Communities presented the report that provided an update on the progress of the review and the updated Safeguarding Policy 2024 – 2027for review.

 

The Children Act 2004 and the Care Act 2014 placed responsibilities on the Council to safeguard vulnerable people from harm.  As a District Council there was a general duty of care and statutory requirements in relation to the safeguarding of both children and adults.  Safeguarding was the responsibility of all staff and elected members, so the Council had to ensure that staff and members had access to support, were trained, were able to recognise signs of safeguarding issues and, most importantly, act upon concerns.

 

In October 2023 the Council identified the Head of Housing Services as the Designated Lead for Safeguarding.

 

The Community Engagement Manager informed Members that the policy had a timescale of three years and should however, be reviewed annually to ensure that it remained up to date and even more frequently if required to embed any changes to legislation.  The policy was made up of 11 chapters.  Updates included:

 

·       Amendments had been made throughout Chapter 3 Safeguarding Children and Young People to reflect updates to statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children.

 

·       The chapters relating to Domestic Abuse (Chapter 5) and Prevent (Chapter 6) had been updated in relation to the introduction of, or changes to, the law.

 

·       Amendments had been made to Chapter 11 – Transient Families

 

·       Appendix B – Training Structure and Programmes had been updated to meet the requirements of the 6 year training pathways of the LSCP and the LSAB to ensure we meet national competency standards.

Working Together to Safeguard Children was statutory guidance updated in December 2023 – it was last updated in 2018.  Many of the changes to Working Together related to partner organisations such as Lincolnshire County Council – Social Care, Care Leavers, Child protections etc and Health including changes around procedures relating to child death, for example.

 

The importance of multi-agency working was highlighted to ensure successful outcomes for children and young people.  This would relate to cases of early

help through to child protection.

 

The Domestic Abuse Act brought in a number of changes most of which related to criminal behaviour and therefore within the responsibility of the Police.  From the perspective of the Council it created a statutory definition of domestic abuse, emphasising that domestic abuse was not just physical violence, but can also be emotional, controlling or coercive, and economic abuse.

 

Other changes were brought in that related specifically to housing and duties around providing accommodation-based support to victims of Domestic Abuse and their children.

 

The Safeguarding Policy covered Domestic Abuse in generic terms.  It provided the definition, outlined signs of and types of abuse and gave guidance on what to do if anyone had a concern.

Any housing related responsibilities connected to the Domestic Abuse Act were covered in housing policies and the housing-specific Domestic Abuse Policy.

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The Prevent Duty for local authorities had been updated.  Prevent fell within the safeguarding arena.  The Council’s responsibilities included helping to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.  This was the safeguarding equivalent of grooming.  The updated Duty included the need to tackle ideological causes of terrorism by limiting exposure to radicalising narratives, both online and offline and to create an environment where radicalising ideologies were challenged and not permitted to flourish.  This was known under the Duty as reducing permissive environments.

 

This duty extended out beyond the Safeguarding arena and into other areas of Council function.  For example, we needed to ensure that the Council was not hiring a venue to a group that espoused a terrorism-related narrative and Officers also needed to ensure the Council’s IT could be used to access information related to terrorism or proscribed organisations. 

 

The Council had, separately, put together a venue hire policy that met the requirements of the Duty and were consulting with colleagues on this now and IT was working with our firewall provider to ensure we can block access to information relation to proscribed groups.

 

Previously the Prevent Duty had referred to vulnerable people being radicalised but it was now recognised that people didn’t need to be what we would define as vulnerable in terms of safeguarding to fall victim to radicalisation. The definition now discussed people that are susceptible to radicalisation.

 

Chapter 11 of the Policy –titled Transient Families was previously known as Mobile Families.  The basic content of this chapter was much the same as it was before, however, the title had changed and there was now a wider list of children and families that would fall within the definition of Transient Families.  Transient families were identified as those who experienced frequent changes of address and included those who are in temporary accommodation. 

The content was taken directly from the LSCP’s policy and procedures manual which now listed children and families who moved most frequently between local authorities as:

·       homeless families

·       asylum seekers and refugees

·       gypsy and traveller families

·       looked after children

·       people in the criminal justice system

·       families experiencing domestic abuse

·       families who move to coastal areas for the summer

·       families that move within the private rented sector

·       military families.

 

This policy of the LSCP was introduced as a direct response to a Serious Case Review which involved a Lincolnshire family.

 

Appendix B of the Policy related to training.  This had, as previously stated, been updated to reflect training requirements outlined in the 6-year training pathways of the LSCP and the LSAB to ensure the Council met national competency standards.  There were four levels of training.

 

This was broken down to show who, from within the Council should undertake which level of training. Those listed in group A were required to attend briefings. These were generally provided in house.

 

There were then 3 further lists of training related to groups:

 

B – Officers with limited or no direct contact with the public. This comprised a 3-year pathway. These officers required less training.

 

C – Officers with regular contact and likely to make referrals.  This was the training undertaken by community facing/visiting officers. Statistics relating to the completion of training by these officers determined the % of completed training by ‘relevant’ officers in the KPIs reported to this committee.

 

D – Training required by Safeguarding Leads within the organisation.

 

Both of these follow the 6-year pathway, which included a requirement to refresh training on a three-yearly basis.

 

The requirements listed in the training policy had been reproduced into spreadsheets that can be used by individual officers and had been shared with managers to cascade to their teams. Managers had been requested to build  Safeguarding training requirements into the appraisal process so that each year’s appraisal provided a reminder to staff to complete their training and provide evidence of completion to the officer maintaining the central training map for safeguarding.

 

It was confirmed that there were 63 relevant officers across Housing, Public Protection and Revenues and Benefits.  The current percentage of relevant officers having completed or who were undergoing year 1 training now stood at 84%.

 

Lincolnshire was currently in the process of its 3-yearly Section 11 Safeguarding Children Audit.  This related to the Children Act 2004.  It placed a statutory duty on key organisations to make arrangements to ensure that in discharging their functions they had regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

 

The Audit had 11 sections, comprising 39 questions.  The Council was required to provide an overview narrative and supporting evidence for all of these questions to prove its compliance. 

 

The Audit had two stages – a self-assessment which was completed by the end of February.  Evidence was uploaded onto a web-based toolkit and RAG rated.  This was followed by peer moderation which took place in March 2024.  This provided the opportunity for our self-assessment to be challenged if the moderator felt we had not provided sufficient evidence.  The moderator also interviewed a member of staff to question their understanding of safeguarding, data protection, whistleblowing and information sharing procedures.

 

A further update to this Committee was to be provided once official confirmation of our status was received.

 

Members raised the following points during discussion:

 

·       The report was welcomed and the team were thanked for their work.

 

·       It was acknowledged that safeguarding was everyone’s responsibility.

 

·       How was the Council able to keep track of transient families?

The Community Engagement Manager confirmed that a multi-agency approach was essential in assisting transient families.

 

It was proposed, seconded and AGREED that the Committee:

 

1. Noted the contents of the report and the updated Safeguarding Policy

 

2. Recommended to Cabinet the approval of the updated Safeguarding Policy