Agenda item

To consider the annual report of the Haringey Safeguarding Adults Board for 2022/23.

Dr Adi Cooper, Independent Chair of the Haringey Safeguarding Adults Board (HSAB), presented the Board’s annual report for 2022/23 noting that it had continued to be a challenging environment for all partners in maintaining the good work being done in Haringey. The report set out the work that the board had done in terms of meeting statutory duties and priorities and there had been a major project in developing a revised strategic plan after the previous plan had come to an end, with support provided on the formal consultation and co-production from the Joint Partnership Board. The co-production work had aimed to work with representatives of different voices of people with lived experience in the borough to influence the direction of the plan from the beginning.

Dr Adi Cooper described the changing infrastructure below the Board which now included an engagement and partnership group, a practice improvement group and a reconfigured quality assurance group. Over the longer term there would be a greater priority on engagement to inform prevention work. There had also been deep dives on data including on safeguarding referrals from people in supported housing and on neglect and financial abuse. This had been initiated because of variations in the data but the deep dives had not suggested issues with the practice going on.

Other issues described in the report included the joint work with partners such as the regular meetings with the Children’s partnership, including on transitional safeguarding. Each year the Board undertook a self-assessment to ensure that it was still effective and that partners were all deliveries on their responsibilities.

Dr Adi Cooper then responded to questions from the Panel:

• Cllr Brennan described concerns about inadequate communication channels and support in relation to an individual case involving a resident in sheltered housing. Dr Adi Cooper said that, while she could not comment on individual cases, she would be happy to discuss this outside of the meeting to understand the concerns and the agencies involved. Asked by Cllr Connor whether there were any particular improvements that could be made around communications, Dr Adi Cooper said that most Adult Safeguarding Reviews typically identified communications as an issue at some point and also that communication between boroughs were sometimes not as good as could be expected in relation to cross-boundary cases. She noted that there had been an issue in Haringey in the past where communications back to people who had referred concerns to the local authority had been poor, but she felt that this had now improved. Another issue to be considered was the churn in staffing in the public sector which did not make for easy maintenance of relationships and communication. Cllr Mason commented that communications between boroughs could be a particular problem in domestic abuse cases when people moved boroughs.
• Cllr Mason raised concerns about homelessness and the safeguarding concerns associated with this, noting a recent increase in street homelessness cases coming in via the food bank in her area and that local homelessness agencies were struggling to deal with the demand with limited support from statutory agencies. Dr Adi Cooper acknowledged that this was an area of huge concern and increasing need, not just in Haringey but in other London Boroughs. She commented that long-term contributory factors included national policy changes such as the withdrawal of the Supporting People grant that supported vulnerable adults to sustain tenancies, recent actions to fast track some asylum seekers’ decision making before they could claim Universal Credit. She added that there was much to be proud of in relation to the work done in recent years in Haringey to raise the profile of safeguarding and the relationship with homeless people, including those in temporary accommodation as well as street homelessness. However, the housing supply in London was nowhere near good enough and the severity of the housing crisis in London was causing safeguarding issues. She said that, as HSAB Chair, she had limited leverage in terms of escalation because her remit was to ensure that partners in Haringey performed their safeguarding duties as well as possible with the resources that they had. She could see that there were colleagues struggling in the current circumstances and that individuals and families were suffering but that there was no easy solution to this. Cllr Mason proposed that, due to the seriousness of the issue and the and the impact of government policy on residents that had been highlighted, a summary of these points should be referred to Full Council/Cabinet. (ACTION)
• Helena Kania thanked the HSAB on behalf of the Joint Partnership Board as this had enabled the voices of a lot of a vulnerable people to be heard.
• Helena Kania asked about the new Section 136 arrangements for mental health cases now that police intervention was largely excluded and asked about the new NHS and Police roles and how this was being monitored in terms of safeguarding. Dr Adi Cooper clarified that the specific questions about roles would need to be directed to the agencies in question but added that the Police still had the same duties in relation to any criminal incidents. She explained that, with the Metropolitan Police’s implementation of the ‘Right Care, Right Person’ approach, the Police had been required to report in to HSAB meetings on developments and the HSAB would continue to monitor this implementation and the impact of changes in policy on safeguarding risks. Beverley Tarka, Director of Adults, Health and Communities, added that a new joint mental health and policing group had been established to address the partnership approach to these changes and included various sub-groups, with work including the development of regular communications updates. Cllr O’Donovan expressed concern about the capacity of mental health trusts and local authorities to deal with this extra work. Helena Kania suggested that it would be useful for the Panel to understand how this process was playing out in the months to come and Cllr Connor requested that further information/feedback on this could be provided as part of the HSAB annual report item next year. (ACTION)
• Asked by Cllr Brennan whether the Police was still responding to mental health related calls where there was a risk of suicide, Beverley Tarka said that the joint mental health and policing group would be considering a range of scenarios.
• Cllr O’Donovan raised concerns about the overrepresentation of black people in safeguarding Section 42s Dr Adi Cooper said that there were often deep dives into data on various factors including on different demographics and communities. However, this particular statistic hadn’t been covered in the annual report so she would need to look into this further. (ACTION)
• Cllr Iyngkaran noted the 24% decrease in Section 42 enquiries and asked whether this was positive or a possible sign of underreporting. Dr Adi Cooper said that interpreting the data could be challenging and that this should not be considered as performance data. The reduction in this situation was likely to be a result of quality assurance mechanisms providing alternative pathways for concerns to be dealt with rather than using a Section 42 enquiry pathway. The HSAB had received more detailed information on this, including case file audits, and was confident that practice was on an improving trajectory. Vicky Murphy added that, since January, there had been an in-person duty team which was able to respond to concerns quicker.
• Asked by Cllr O’Donovan about modern day slavery and sexual exploitation, Dr Adi Cooper explained that the numbers on this were quite low and so any fluctuations in the data were not hugely significant. However, she added that the reporting of it was helpful as there was more work to be done in this area and it was also important to be aware that there had been concerns arising nationally, though not in Haringey, about modern slavery in the adult social care provider sector. Cllr Connor suggested that modern slavery could be added as an item to the Panel’s work programme as the HSAB annual report had highlighted a fall in referrals in Haringey and it may be useful to explore this issue further.Cllr Mason suggested that it would be useful to understand what training the Police had in dealing with this issue as part of any future agenda item. (ACTION)
• Asked by Cllr O’Donovan about whistleblowing, Dr Adi Cooper said that the Board would be looking at policies with all partners on dealing with abuse by people in positions of trust as part of its programme in the coming year, which would include mechanisms for people to raise concerns.
• Cllr Connor proposed that a day could be reserved in future as part of the Work Programme for the Scrutiny Panel to scrutinise safeguarding issues in more depth. Beverley Tarka suggested that a deep dive on a specific area could work better than safeguarding as a whole. Dr Adi Cooper added that it would be necessary to coordinate this with issues likely to appear in next year’s annual report as the work on this would begin some months earlier. It was agreed that a further conversation outside of the meeting would be arranged. (ACTION)