Agenda item

Alan Caton, Independent Chair of the Islington Safeguarding Children Board, presented the report which summarised the Board’s work in 2015/16.

The following main points were noted in the discussion:

·         Safeguarding children was a complex and challenging area of work. Although the local authority played a role in safeguarding children, protecting children was everybody’s responsibility.

·         It was important for safeguarding work to contribute to the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and for the Safeguarding Board to work with partner boards, such as the Health and Wellbeing Board, to ensure that actions were not duplicated.

·         Over the last year the Safeguarding Board had focused on complex areas such as serious youth violence, radicalisation and the Prevent agenda.

·         It was important for the Safeguarding Children Board and partner organisations to engage with young people effectively. The Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board had attended meetings of the Corporate Parenting Board and the Youth Council.

·         The council needed an increased awareness of private fostering arrangements. Only five cases were known to the council, however it was suspected that there were many more.

·         Multi-agency audits informed action plans and helped to develop partnership working. Following a review of a child falling from a balcony, an audit of housing protocol for children living at height found that a new protocol between children’s social care, housing and health was working well. However, another review found that health partners were only appropriately involved in children’s social care strategy discussions in 4 out of 10 cases. As a result systems had been put in place to make improvements.

·         Multi-agency training was being held to disseminate learning from case reviews and child death overview panels. 

·         The Health and Wellbeing Board noted the key messages for partner agencies and the Safeguarding Children Board’s priorities as set out in the report.

·         Following the government response to the Wood report on Local Safeguarding Children Boards, it was expected that the national safeguarding framework would change in the near future, which would impact on the role of the Board and how it operated. 

·         Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board commended the Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board for the Board’s sustained focus during a challenging year in which there were a number of child fatalities due to knife crime and police pursuits. Violence was considered to be a serious risk to young people’s health.

·         A member commented on the risks to those aged 16 to 19 missing from education. It was confirmed that the council did work to engage with these young people and that the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee was carrying out a review of Post-16 Education, Employment and Training. 

·         It was noted that NHS England had not contributed funding to the Safeguarding Children Board for the past two years. The Chair of the Safeguarding Board explained that NHS England understood that funding responsibilities had passed to Islington CCG; however the CCG did not recognise this. The CCG members present advised that this would be investigated and it was suggested that the Health and Wellbeing Board could make representations to NHS England if required. The Board requested that an update be provided to the next meeting.

RESOLVED:

(1)  That the work of the Islington Safeguarding Children Board be noted;  

(2)  That an update be provided to the next meeting on the Islington Safeguarding Children Board’s funding arrangements.