Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to present the Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership (MSCP) Annual Report 2021-22 to the Committee. The report provides an overview of the work carried out by the MSCP in the last year. It sets out the key achievements of the partnership against its key priorities and gives an overview of the learning and improvement role of the MSCP including case reviews that have been undertaken. It also includes a section from the Independent Scrutineer, Rory Patterson

The report was presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board on 17 November 2022 and will be presented to the Community Safety Partnership in line with the Joint Working Protocol between the boards in Medway.

Discussion:

The Business Manager for Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership introduced the third annual report which detailed the work undertaken by the Medway Safeguarding Children’s Partnership over the last year.

The multiagency training offer which influenced the effectiveness of safeguarding children in Medway for professionals and volunteers working with children continued to receive high uptake. In the last year, virtual training sessions had taken place which was attended by over 550 delegates and over 360 delegates had attended conferences and learning events. The E-learning platform continued to be accessed by and increasing number of delegates with over 45,000 courses completed over the year.

Neglect remained a key area of focus and priority for the partnership with the importance of a whole multiagency approach at the forefront of its objective. The Neglect Strategy was published last year, and a conference was held. A champions network was launched to shared good practice and learning.

The Independent Scrutineer of the Safeguarding Children’s Partnerships added that Medway was ahead of other Local Authorities by including accountable officers in regular meetings and this had been important in providing line of sight and understanding of where and with whom accountability of safeguarding laid. While resources were tight, the partnership and the small business unit continued to be efficiently run by officers and partners who were passionate about sharing learning and improvement of practice. The quality of reports on serious incidents provided to the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review panel was commended. There were, however, challenges on how to evidence impact and what metrics would be used to judge the impact in areas of safeguarding, this was a national challenge that was not limited to Medway. Recruitment and retention remained an area of risk for Medway as well as nationally across the country and was a systemic challenge to safeguarding.

Members then raised comments and questions including the following:

Issues within the partnership - in response to questions on whether there had been any recognisable issues within the partnership or any challenge with transparency, the Independent Scrutineer said that the partnership was generally open and transparent, he had not found any resistance and was given access to explore all areas. The Independent Scrutineer had found that he was welcomed by all the agencies and when he experienced any instances of defensiveness, this usually dissipated quickly once entered into dialogue as to what they were trying to achieve. Medway Leadership Team was also very open and transparent. 

Engagement of school leaders – it was asked how, as stated in the report, what more could be done to enable headteachers to influence strategic direction of the partnership. The Independent Scrutineer said that the headteacher voice should influence the agenda as they worked with children every day in a way that strategic leaders did not. It was valuable to have that thinking to shape the safeguarding agenda in Medway, capture their views and enable them to influence the priorities set. It was vital to support headteachers to share views on how they think things could work differently.

Voice of Child - in response to a question on how the voice of the child was captured, the officer said that this was an important area of work and one that other partnerships had struggled with including at what level to get the engagements of children and young people.  The main way the voice of the child was captured was through the learning reviews, in particular family views. There were some implications to this in that it could often delay the process, but it was vital to be included in the audit.  The different agencies had their own means of engagement and performance management and the quality assurance subgroup asked agencies to provide a report to the MSCP detailing how they captured the voice of the child.

Expenditure/Budget – it was asked how the partnership knew they were cost effective. The officer said that the budget included in the report was scrutinised by the partnership. Over the last few years, they had looked at ways to make savings, with other local authorities, Medway was not over funded.

The Independent Scrutineer said that Medway was very lean in terms of support staff to run a big system and was getting a lot of positive work out of a well-formed business unit.

The Assistant Director Children’s Social Care added that the partnership group was very efficient. The volume of learning that was provided was extensive, with significant benefits form the resources despite the small budget which had a positive impact on the workforce. In order to prevent duplication of work, interface took place with the MSCP on how to use resources well to improve practice across the whole system, and also by looking at the programmes and not running sessions on the same topics.

Audits – it was commented that there appeared to be a delay in audits and the Officer said that as they were multiagency, they had to look at records of all the different partners that had an involvement in a case. The audits were completed on a quarterly basis and with each completed audit, a learning report as well as action plan was produced and shared.

Child Death reviews remained an issue on the risk register with the delays only in the final process, which was the audit. Each child death had its own individual review undertaken and completed to time. There were several factors that delayed completion of the audit, such as changes made at national level which resulted in Medway merging its process with Kent, as well as the impact of the Covid pandemic. There was now a plan in place to work through the backlog and the MSCP was monitoring this.

Increase in Child Protection (CP) Plans – it was asked how effectively the department was able to accommodate the increase in children with CP Plans. The Assistant Director Children’s Social Care said that it was expected that the improvement journey would impact on child protection plans as a lot of work had been done to address issues with drift of children on plans. The current figures were still below national average but if numbers increased there would be an impact on capacity and resources. The department was mindful of being purposeful with all its actions and moving work through whilst ensuring best outcomes for children.

The Head of Safeguarding added that nationally there was an increase in S47, and CP Plans, with this increase monitored and reviewed on a weekly basis in Medway. There were enough staff in place to review the plans and ensure that independent oversight was retained.

The Committee was informed that the Director of People, Children and Adults had requested a review of the partnership as an assurance function to ensure that the partnership was looking into what needed to be addressed.

Decision:

The Committeenoted the report and the minutes of the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting of 17 December 2022.