Agenda item

Context:

To scrutinise the Wales Audit Whole Authority Review of Children’s Safeguarding report and the Council’s Management response.

Key Issues:

The Wales Audit Office had concluded that the children’s safeguarding policy and procedures have recently improved, but there are shortcomings in some critical areas of policy and operation.

Proposals for improvement were identified as follows:

Proposal 1

Integrate safeguarding across the Council’s policy framework. In particular:

a.    Produce a ‘project plan’ identifying the underpinning work required and associated timescales to fully incorporate the Council’s approach to integrating child and adult safeguarding.

b.    Re-frame the strategic risk register, to enable a smarter approach to measuring impact of actions taken in mitigation of identified risk.

c.    Strengthen safeguarding policy and guidance in the areas identified in the report. Including:

-       data protection arrangements and guidance linked to safeguarding.

-       embed whistleblowing policy arrangements through training and awareness raising.

-       revise taxi licensing arrangements strengthening health and safety requirements.

Proposal 2

Embed all aspects of safe recruitment, induction and training consistently. In particular:

a.     Improve training records on safeguarding to show why the person received that particular level of training, when the training was received, and when it needs to be reviewed.

b.     Ensure all people who have a specific role in safeguarding undertake appropriate training.

c.   Clarify when enhanced DBS checks are required and ensure these are obtained in line with guidance.

Proposal 3

Ensure control arrangements are consistently applied and improve performance monitoring arrangements around safeguarding to include all areas of service operation to address all gaps in accountability. This should include issuing clear guidance to managers on information on safeguarding that should be included in reports to Members.

Proposal 4

Improve the Council’s commissioning and contracting arrangements in relation to safeguarding children by finalising guidance on commissioning, contracting and volunteering from a safeguarding perspective.

The Management response to the Wales Audit Office report was outlined.

Member Scrutiny:

·         There is a need for further scrutiny in respect of safeguarding / wellbeing issues of children regarding home to school transport provision with a view to identifying where responsibilities lie and that this matter be added to the Select Committee’s forward work programme. Taxi services that transport children to school should also be included to address any potential safeguarding issues.

·         There are two areas that could assist in addressing safeguarding issues around home to school transport provision. Firstly, when services are being procured and secondly, the Head of Public Protection can pick up this area of potential risk.

·         With reference to the Service Improvement Plans (SIPs), there is going to be a much stronger emphasis in the newer iteration around the safeguarding element of service areas. To enhance this, a system called a ‘safe’ has been established which is an audit of each of the service areas, carried out with safeguarding in mind. As a safeguarding unit, the lead has been taken to support all directorates in managing their safes.

·         As part of the Whole Authority Safeguarding route, the issues around bed and breakfast and the appropriateness of that provision for supporting families with young children and young adults is an area that has been looked at and some of the responsibility for scrutiny around this issue has been tightened.

·         It is fundamentally important how the Authority arranges its home to school transport policy and ensures that the children are safely taken to school and are accompanied by appropriate people.  It is acknowledged that there are significant challenges being faced due to the rural nature of the County.  Further information on this matter could be presented to future meetings of the Select Committee via the Whole Authority Safeguarding Group.  It was noted that a parent had written to the Authority stating that her 11 year old child had to take two separate bus journeys to school with a 20 minute wait between the two bus services.  This matter needed to be investigated further as a part of the safeguarding issues being looked at in respect of home to school transport provision.

·         The Chair of the Audit Committee considered that the Audit Committee should look at the implementation of the recommendations of the Wales Audit Officer Whole Authority Review of Children’s Safeguarding report with an invitation being extended to the Chief Officer for Social Care Safeguarding and Health being invited to attend the Audit Committee when this matter is scrutinised.

·         The Performance Manager stated that the report was sent to the Children and Young People Select Committee due to the report relating to the remit of the Committee to scrutinise children’s safeguarding. The Audit Committee has a role in tracking implementation of proposals for improvement from the Wales Audit Office (WAO) and the implementation of the management response to the proposals will form part of the six monthly progress report on all proposals for improvement from the WAO performance audit work that is reported to Audit Committee.

·         There are many arrangements for reporting Council performance to select committee scrutiny of Council performance, for example, from arrangements being established to monitor performance against the Council’s Corporate Plan to the range of performance reports from services. The Audit Committee has a specific role in assurance on the effectiveness of the Council’s performance management arrangements, which clearly support the Council’s performance.  The Authority can think about how to ensure Audit Committee feels sufficiently sighted on the Council’s actual performance in addition to the Council’s performance arrangements.