Agenda item

The report was presented by Alan Caton, Independent Chair of the Islington Safeguarding Children Board.

The following main points were noted in the discussion:

·         Safeguarding children was a challenging and complex area of work and the Safeguarding Children Board worked to ensure the effectiveness of local safeguarding mechanisms. It was emphasised that safeguarding children was everybody’s responsibility.

·         The safeguarding issues affecting children in Islington included neglect, child sexual exploitation, and domestic violence. The Board was also acutely aware of the increase in serious youth violence in recent years and had developed a multi-agency gang protocol to support interventions which sought to prevent and minimise gang violence.

·         The Board had been reassured by an independent review that the council’s Early Help services were effective and well-funded; however the Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board emphasised the importance of continuing to monitor the progress of such services.

·         The importance of listening to children and young people was highlighted, particularly in the context of child protection conferences.  The Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board had met with the Youth Council alongside partners from the Metropolitan Police to talk about knife crime and other issues.

·         It was noted that very few private fostering arrangements were known to the council. The Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board commented that there were likely to be many such arrangements which were not known to local agencies and highlighted the safeguarding risks associated with private fostering. The Safeguarding Children Board had called for Islington Council to be proactive in investigating such arrangements.

·         The Board considered that health partners should be further involved in children’s social care strategy discussions, as health colleagues were only involved in four out of ten instances. Systems had since been implemented to improve this.

·         Two serious case reviews had taken place in 2015/16 and work was underway to disseminate learning from those reviews. A review of knife crime had recently been completed.

·         The Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board advised that changes to safeguarding frameworks had been proposed through the Children and Social Work Bill. It was important to ensure that oversight of local safeguarding arrangements remained robust through any transition period.

·         The Committee commended the Safeguarding Board for producing a focused report which clearly communicated the safeguarding achievements and risks in Islington.

·         It was queried how local agencies were working to tackle CSE in the borough. In response, it was advised that there had been too few successful prosecutions in the past and work was underway to both raise awareness of CSE and to bring perpetrators to justice.

·         It was queried how effective working relationships were between local agencies involved in safeguarding. In response, it was advised that it had previously been a challenge to engage the CPS in safeguarding issues however this was improving.

·         It was commented that a recent inspection of the Metropolitan Police’s safeguarding activity had been particularly poor and it was hoped that their safeguarding procedures would improve as a result.

·         In response to a query on how to increase the input of young people in safeguarding matters, in was advised that members of the Safeguarding Children Board had met with young people at a local primary school to discuss their concerns and how they perceived safeguarding risks. It was thought that increasing the frequency of such meetings would be useful. It was also suggested that a shadow safeguarding children board comprised of young people would help to ensure that young people’s views were embedded into services. 

·         It was queried how the Safeguarding Children Board engaged with harder to reach communities. In response, the Chair of the Board commented that he was not aware of any problems in engaging with different sectors of the community, however acknowledged that certain outreach work needed to be appropriately targeted to ensure it reached its intended recipients.

·         A member of the public queried the systems put in place to increase the engagement of health partners in strategy discussions. In response, it was advised that a health practitioner was now located in the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub.

·         It was noted that the Police made a relatively small contribution towards the budget of the Safeguarding Children Board. It was advised that all London Safeguarding Children Boards had written to the Commissioner about the Police’s financial contribution; and the Leader of the Council had also requested increased funding. It was hoped that the recent inspection of the Police’s safeguarding activity would be a catalyst for increasing their contribution.

The Committee thanked Alan Caton for his attendance.

Councillor Ismail left the meeting.