Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director for Children’s Services. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Children and Families]

The report outlines the way in which Haringey Council, Haringey Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and the Metropolitan Police (‘the safeguarding partners’) will work together with other partners to deliver the new multi-agency safeguarding arrangements in order to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in Haringey.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Families introduced the report, emphasising that safeguarding children is the highest priority of  a Council and seeking approval to the proposed new local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements to promote the welfare of children in the borough and to be referred to as “Haringey Safeguarding Children’s Partnership,

In considering the new safeguarding arrangements outlined in the report, it was noted that these were developed as a consequence of the 2016 Wood review and publication of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018. There was a requirement to replace LSCBs with new local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements to be determined by the local authority, CCG and the police. The arrangements, critically, required the three statutory partners of the Council, Police and Health working together to develop ways of working to safeguard children. All three partners were equal partners and would act as a strategic leadership group to ensure safeguarding arrangements were robust and working effectively.

The Cabinet noted the arrangement proposals included maintaining the role of the chair of LSCB and contained details about improving the review of a child’s death process, making this more robust. This was to support better learning from child deaths in order to improve care and outcomes, recognising that while the current process has its origin in safeguarding guidance, most preventable child deaths are not connected to safeguarding but largely medical in nature.

Cabinet further noted that, once the arrangements were agreed and published, they would be applicable across the north London boroughs.

In response to questions from Cllr Cawley – Harrison, the following information was noted:

• In line with the core element of the report, which was strengthening the arrangements in place for safeguarding, the three statutory partners would share the responsibility of communication rather than the local authority always being the focus when a communications failure was identified. The Director for Children’s services echoed this and added that there would also be a separate communications strategy for the strengthened arrangements, ensuring these were fully understood across all the staffing levels of the partner organisations.

• In response to concerns about the low number of schools attending the leadership meetings, the mechanism and pathways for all schools and relevant agencies accessing the arrangements and reporting safeguarding concerns was outlined. However, on a practical level, it was not possible to involve a higher number of schools at the leadership group meetings. The Assistant Director for Schools and Learning was a member of the group and would be the contact point, responsible for engaging with the schools and reporting concerns to the leadership group.

• Responding to the question about how safeguarding arrangements were applied to children and young people outside of the education system, there was a process in place to be informed of home-educated children. The local authority was able to make contact but powers were limited. There was also a robust process available through community safety procedures for children and young people moving through different boroughs. Over and above these pathways, there would be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 154