Councillors and committees

Agenda item

SURREY SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN BOARD ANNUAL REPORT 2014 - 2015

The Surrey Safeguarding Children’s Annual Report 2014-15 reports on the effectiveness of safeguarding and child protection practice by partner agencies in Surrey and is presented to Health and Wellbeing Board for information.

Minutes:

Witnesses:

 

Elaine Coleridge-Smith, Independent Chair, Surrey Safeguarding Children Board

 

Key points raised during the discussions:

 

·         The Independent Chair asked the Board to note that the report was compiled by the previous Independent Chair of the Surrey Safeguarding Children Board (SSCB) which meant that there may be aspects of the Annual Report which she could comment not on.

 

·         The Annual Report was introduced by the Independent Chair highlighting that the SSCB had a statutory responsibility to coordinate efforts by partner agencies to safeguard children in the County. Members were further informed that four key priority areas had been identified which it will target to ensure effective coordination of safeguarding responses across Surrey. The criteria for what constitutes an effective Board were also being carefully considered to identify areas of improvement in how SSCB operated.

 

·         The Board was given an overview of the steps which had been taken to address the concerns raised by Ofsted’s inspection of SCC and its partner agencies. It was highlighted that a lot had been done to rectify the issues raised by Ofsted in their report although some of the areas of concern identified by inspectors required some time to correct. Ofsted was providing support to SCC in the steps being taken to deliver the necessary changes to Children’s Services.

 

·         The Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey Police advised members that Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabularies (HMIC) had recently concluded an inspection of Surrey Police and that the subsequent report was anticipated to express some concerns about Surrey Police’s response to child safeguarding. It was, however, stressed that HMIC were concerned about the Police’s secondary and tertiary responses to safeguarding rather than how they dealt with immediate safeguarding concerns that were brought to the attention of police.

 

·         The Independent Chair was asked to provide a view on whether children in Surrey are safer than they were in 2013-2014 and it was suggested that answering this question should have been the centrepiece of the Annual Report. The Independent Chair indicated that the data wasn’t available to provide a clear answer to this question but stressed that this would be given strong consideration for future annual reports published by SSCB.

 

·         It was agreed that a letter would be sent from the Co-Chairs of the Health and Wellbeing Board to the Chief Executive of each District and Borough Council asking them to formally respond to the findings and outcomes of the SSAB Annual Report 2014 – 2015.

 

·         Further information was requested on child safeguarding training and whether SSCB had given consideration to facilitating training for employees of partner agencies where it was felt that this could be beneficial. It was advised that there were particular challenges around evaluating the effectiveness of child safeguarding training and that any training provided needed to be multi-agency.  

 

·         The Independent Chair was asked to indicate what support Health and Wellbeing Board member organisations could provide SSCB. Members were advised that it was important for SSCB to have the support of senior leaders across all of the agencies helping to safeguard children in Surrey to ensure the delivery of a coordinated response to child safeguarding. Enabling SSCB to use offices for holding meetings and training events  also stressed as an important way that Health and Wellbeing Board could help member organisations.

 

RESOLVED:

 

To note the Surrey Safeguarding Children Board Annual Report.

 

Actions/further information to be provided:

 

Letter to be drafted from the Co-Chairs of the Health and Wellbeing Board to all District and Borough Chief Executives requesting a formal response to the outcomes of the Surrey Safeguarding Children Annual Report (Action Ref: A26/15).

 

Supporting documents: