Agenda item

To receive a report which sets out the proposed decision to agree new multi-agency local safeguarding arrangements as a result of the changes to the Children Act 2004.

Mr Whittle (Director of Strategy, Policy, Relationships and Corporate Assurance) and Mr Thomas-Sam (Strategic Business Adviser) were in attendance for this item.

1.          Mr Whittle introduced the report which presented details of the proposed new multi-agency local safeguarding arrangements.

Mr Whittle and Mr Thomas-Sam then responded to comments and questions from Members, including the following: -

a)    Mr Whittle referred to theScrutiny and challenge group within the new partnership arrangements and confirmed that the statutory Director of Children's Services and the Lead Member for Children's Services would be Members of the group. He added that the annual report of the Children’s Safeguarding Board would continue to be submitted to full Council under the new safeguarding partnership arrangement.

b)    Mr Thomas-Sam confirmed that the minutes for KSCB Board meetings were available on the Board website.

c)    Mr Thomas-Sam confirmed that Kent Police and relevant partners would be a part of the Scrutiny and challenge group and consulted to ensure that the appropriate structure and representation for Kent’s partnership groups was being presented. Mr Whittle talked briefly about the discussions that had taken place between Kent County Council and Lead Chief Executives for district councils in Kent in relation to safeguarding responsibilities and role requirement.

d)    Mr Thomas-Sam talked about the number of Serious Case Reviews which had been carried out by The Kent Safeguarding Children Board and said that the numbers continued to vary.

e)    Mr Thomas-Sam referred to the new Child Death Overview arrangements that were in place and said that Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) and local authorities were responsible for the arrangements. He added that as part of the national arrangement, there was a requirement for each area to manage a critical level of numbers in order to be able to take the key learning points from such incidents and as a result, Kent and Medway had agreed to hold Joint Child Death Overview reviews. Mr Whittle added that he could provide further information to Members of the Committee outside of the meeting in relation to Serious Child Death case reviews and the number of cases. He confirmed that the Child Death Overview Panel was predominantly an NHS focused aspect of the safeguarding arrangements relating to the occurrence of child deaths and therefore was led by the NHS and driven by CCG's.

f)     Mr Whittle referred to the 2016 Wood review of local safeguarding children boards and said that the review had led to development of a National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (the replacement for serious case review), although it was not absolutely clear the capacity and the number of cases the national panel would handle. He added that the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel was chaired by Mr Timpson.

g)    Mr Whittle talked briefly about the national issues that counties faced in relation to the statutory guidance which provided a broad definition of what should be included in regard to Education safeguarding.

h)    Mr Dunkley referred to the Kent Safeguarding Children Board and the historic difficulty in securing a consistent and sufficient group of head teachers to sit on the Board. He added that the creation of the new safeguarding arrangements provided a specific education-focused sub-group which improved Kent’s coverage and communication with head teachers.

i)     Mr Dunkley mentioned the Wood review of local safeguarding children boards and the issues that were tackled within the review.

j)     Mr Whittle talked about Health and Wellbeing Board agendas and the need for Health and Wellbeing Board meetings to provide system assurance around health and social care integration. Mr Gough, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education, provided the Committee with some background information in relation to the creation of the Kent and Medway Joint Health and Wellbeing Board and confirmed that all meetings were held in open session and were webcasted.

k)    Mr Dunkley talked about the creation of the new multi-agency local safeguarding arrangementsand its relationship to the Kent Safeguarding Children Board and confirmed that the inter-agency arrangements in the new Safeguarding Board world be responsible for monitoring the cooperation and integration between services for the protection of children across Kent at all levels.

2.          RESOLVED that the proposed decision to be taken by the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education to agree the proposed new multi-agency local safeguarding arrangements, be endorsed.

(Dr L Sullivan and Ida Linfield abstained from voting and asked that the abstention be recorded in the minutes)