To receive the outcomes of the review; to agree the recommendations arising from the review; to approve the executive response to the scrutiny committees recommendations on the report of the review and to approve the peer on peer model guidance for use in all Herefordshire schools.

The cabinet member children and families introduced the report and repeated the apology previously made on behalf of the council for the mistakes that that been made in the past. She stressed that the council was committed to strengthening its support, guidance and engagement with families, schools and other partners to do all it could to protect children from further harm. The report presented was a genuine and detailed attempt to address the concerns. The cabinet member thanked the assistant director education development and skills for his work and asked him to present the report.

The assistant director explained the background to the report and that work continued on the points raised, including ongoing discussion with national experts. The assistant director had spoken with victims and their families from both within the county and outside and tried to accommodate their views in finalising the report.

In discussing the report cabinet members noted that:

·         there was a disproportionate impact on young females and the model guidance would need to ensure that this group was reached, an equality impact assessment would be needed once the final version of the guidance was ready;

·         the council had organised a number of conferences for schools on the topic and was doing more than many other councils in this regard;

·         officers were confident that schools knew what was expected of them and that they would revise their policies once the new guidance was finalised and distributed, it was recognised that this needed to be done as soon as possible;

·         the council had good relationships with both local authority schools and academies and did not anticipate any difficulty in getting them to accept the model guidance;

·         the flowchart in the model guidance was taken from national guidance and would be customised to create a local version;

·         regular audits of case records had begun and no concerns had been reported;

·         the council was also looking to influence national policy and guidance to improve how this issue was addressed across the country;

·         a new curriculum for relationships and sex education had been introduced for September 2020 but the implementation had been delayed by covid-19;

·         the number of cases reported were likely to be a small proportion of the total incidents that took place.

Cabinet members expressed concern that the additional advice and guidance available in 2017 had not been shared at that time and welcomed the forthcoming independent investigation. Cabinet members also expressed concern that it was not appropriate to say that no children were left at risk particularly as many of the records examined in this review were incomplete. It was suggested that the children and young people scrutiny committee be asked to review what the barriers were to accurate and contemporaneous record keeping.

Group leaders were invited to present the comments and queries of their group. The seriousness of the issues involved and efforts of families of victims were recognised. It was also noted that:

·         The appointment of the education safeguarding officer was welcomed;

·         Relationships with partners  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22