The Committee considered the reports of the Director of Children’s Services and Director of Adult Social Services in relation to the Children’s Safeguarding Annual Report.

The report indicated that Working Together to Safeguard Children defined that the Independent Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCB) were required to publish an annual report on the effectiveness of child safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the local area.

  The annual report for the Wirral Safeguarding Children’s Board (WSCB) 2013-14 is presented in two sections; the report looking over the past 12 months and the business plan looking forward over the next 12 months.  In Section 1 the WSCB annual report sets out the priority areas for 2013-14, the individual targets within those priorities and the progress made. This included an assessment of what remains to be done.

Section 1 also included the main findings from the Section 11 safeguarding audit undertaken by individual organisations, a summary of and the lessons learnt from SCR’s and other reviews, headline performance information and reports which reflect and assess how the WSCB had fulfilled its responsibilities.

Section 2 of the report sets out the business plan for 2014-15 and detailed the priority areas and work to be undertaken through the WSCB over the next 12 months.

The Committee further considered the report of the Director of Adult Social Services in relation to the Safeguarding Adults Annual Report for 2012-14.

The annual report considered the work of the Wirral Safeguarding Adults Partnership Board (SAPB) over the last two years.  This included how partner agencies work together to protect the safety of vulnerable adults. The report covered national developments with regard to safeguarding adults, the Board’s role and governance arrangements and the work of its sub groups. The report included information on safeguarding activity and outlines the contribution partners have made in their own organisation, to assure themselves that safeguarding practices are in line with procedures and best practice. The report provides the key objectives going forward for  2014/15.

The Corporate Safeguarding Manager introduced the reports and gave the Committee a presentation outlining the role and structure of the Safeguarding Boards and its sub-committees; progress against priorities; key activities and priorities 2013-14; source of safeguarding adults 2012/13 and  2013/14: Adult safeguarding Unit and the SAPB Business Plan priorities for 2014/15.

The Corporate Safeguarding Manager indicated that in relation to safeguarding children, the implications and findings of the Rotherham enquiry were being carefully considered by each local authority in Wirral, Children’s Services were scheduling focus groups with young people, social work staff and partners to establish what is effective in current practices and identify how improvements can be made. At a recent meeting, Taxi drivers had expressed their support in this tackling this issue.

In response to a Member, The Corporate Safeguarding Manager indicated that nationally there had been an increase in those children subjected to a Child Protection Plan and the Department continued to work closely with families and professionals and also made changes to the case conferences methodology to alleviate any risks. The Corporate Safeguarding Manager indicated that officers reviewed all cases carefully to ensure, when considering removing a child from a child protection plan, the risks had been safely addressed and that the likelihood of children needing to be made subject to a child protection plan again in the future is reduced.

In relation to circumstances of neglect, the Director of Children’s Services indicated that there had been a huge national focus on children subject to neglect, with a lot of awareness raising. The Corporate Safeguarding Manager indicated that Ofsted had recently undertaken a thematic inspection across the boroughs looking at how local authorities managed neglect cases of neglect; Wirral’s Neglect Strategy encompassed the comments of the Ofsted report.

In response to Members, the Children’s Services Director reassured the Committee that she and her department were doing all they could to learn the lessons from Rotherham; and there was never any room for complacency.

The Children’s Services Director indicated that a section of the Jay report in relation to Rotherham detailed a list of misconceptions of the types of children that had been sexual exploited.The Department and all its services and partners would be auditing children’s cases to ensure that they were working  as proactively as possible.

A Member commented that they were pleased to see the approach taken with taxi drivers and gave their support to more awareness raising training being undertaken.

RESOLVED:

That the Adults and Children’s Safeguarding Annual Reports be noted and Mr Garner and Ms Hassall be thanked for their informative presentation.