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Contact: Simon Cann, Democratic Services Officer
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Items
| No. |
Item |
64. |
Apologies for absence
To receive apologies for absence.
Minutes:
Apologies had been
received from Cllr David Hitchiner and from Jan Frances (Co-opted
representative for families).
|
65. |
Named substitutes
To receive details of
members nominated to attend the meeting in place of a member of the
committee.
Minutes:
The committee heard that Cllr Liz Harvey had
stepped down from her role as vice chair of the committee and as
being a member of the committee. Cllr David Hitchiner would be
joining the committee as a member.
Cllr Harvey was the named substitute for Cllr
Hitchiner.
|
66. |
Declarations of interest
To receive
declarations of interests from members of the committee in respect
of items on the agenda.
Minutes:
There were no declarations of interest.
|
67. |
Minutes  PDF 224 KB
To receive the minutes of the meeting held on
Tuesday 18 March 2025. .
Minutes:
The minutes of the previous meeting were
received.
Resolved: That the
minutes of the meeting held on 18 March 2025 be confirmed as a
correct record and be signed by the Chairperson.
|
68. |
Questions from members of the public PDF 489 KB
To
receive any written questions from members of the
public.
Minutes:
There had been two
questions received from members of the public, which had been
published, along with responses, as a supplement to the meeting
agenda on the Herefordshire Council website
A record of a
supplementary question and a verbal response provided during the
meeting, are attached at Appendix 1 to these minutes.
|
69. |
Questions from members of the council
To receive any written questions from members
of the council.
Minutes:
There had been no questions received from
members of the council.
|
70. |
Child Exploitation PDF 625 KB
For the committee to understand the different
ways children are at risk of exploitation and to scrutinise how the
different agencies work together to tackle the issue.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Service Director, Early Help, CIN and
Safeguarding provided a brief overview of the report and then the
Chief Inspector of Weste Mercia Police and the Head of Service
Vulnerable Children in Need of Support and
Assessment delivered a short presentation on the topic. The Key
points were:
The Chief Inspector of West Mercia Police
provided the committee with broad definitions of child exploitation
including: child criminal exploitation (CCE) and child sexual
exploitation (CSE). Data and trends demonstrated that there was a
relatively low prevalence of child exploitation in Herefordshire
compared to other counties, which was largely due to the
county’s proactive safeguarding work.
It was pointed out that county lines was the
most common form of CCE in Herefordshire and that children were
often trafficked in from larger cities such as Birmingham and
Wolverhampton to distribute drugs.
A breakdown of the strategic framework in
place to tackle child exploitation explained that multi agency
child exploitation (MACE) meetings were held regularly:
- MACE 1 meetings focused on
individual children and direct support.
- MACE 2 meetings identified themes,
hotspots and recurring risks.
- An exploitation and missing subgroup
was in place to provide strategic oversight and to escalate
systemic needs.
The Head of Service Vulnerable Children in
Need of Support and Assessment explained the role of the Safe Team
in providing targeted interventions for at-risk and missing
children. It was explained that:
- The process for return home
interviews had been increased beyond the existing 72-hour
timeframe.
- A new protocol with Ofsted was in
place for early intelligence sharing around online
exploitation.
- A collaboration with health partners
meant a unique alert system within medical records was in place to
flag exploitation risk across health settings.
The Chair invited comments and discussion from
the committee in relation to the report. The key points of the
discussion are detailed below:
- The committee asked about the
current extent of child criminal and sexual exploitation in
Herefordshire.
- The Chief Inspector of West Mercia
Police explained that Herefordshire reported low levels of
organized CCE and CSE relative to other areas. However, local
agencies remained vigilant and exploitation was actively monitored
through MACE processes and safeguarding referrals.
- It was pointed out that county
lines, especially from Birmingham and Wolverhampton, were the main
form of CCE.
- The committee enquired about local
hotspots and trends in child criminal exploitation.
- The Chief Inspector of West Mercia
Police pointed out that most county lines activity involved
children from outside of the county.Drugs were trafficked into
Herefordshire and exploitation primarily occurred in private
properties used as distribution hubs.
- Local children were more likely to
be involved in low-level supply and usage, with hotspots including
parks, certain housing areas and colleges.
- The committee enquired as to why
Herefordshire was less impacted by child exploitation compared to
other areas.
- The Chief Inspector of West Mercia
Police partially attributed the lower prevalence of child
exploitation to proactive disruption, rural geography, and strong
local partnerships. It was expected that ongoing reviews and
force-wide and county-specific threat profiles would
... view
the full minutes text for item 70.
|
71. |
Work programme PDF 392 KB
To consider the work programme for the
committee.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The committee considered and agreed the work
programme as set out in the agenda. It was also agreed that the
committee would meet before its next meeting to discuss what it
could it bring to the programme and how it would work for the rest
of the year.
The committee considered the work programme
included at item 8 of the agenda and unanimously approved the
following recommendation:
Resolved that:
1.
The committee agree the work programme for the Children and
Young People Scrutiny Committee contained in the work programme
report attached as Appendix 1.
|
72. |
Date of the next meeting
Tuesday 24 June 2025, 2pm.
Minutes:
Tuesday 24th June 2025, 2pm
|
73. |
Appendix 1 - Public Supplementary Question and Response
Minutes:
Supplementary
questions from members of the public – Children and Young
People Scrutiny Committee, 27 May 2025
|
Question
Number
|
Questioner
|
Supplementary
Question
|
Question to
|
|
SPQ 1
|
Ms Reid
Hereford
|
The Constitution states:
“An answer to a supplementary question
will be provided by the member to whom the question was put
… [4.1.56].”
I would like the Chairperson to
answer.
The response to my public question mentions
scrutiny of Herefordshire Children’s Services by Ofsted, the
Children’s Commissioner and the Improvement Board but it
does NOT mention accountability for past wrongdoing.
The website - www.families4change.org.uk - of
the Families’ Alliance for Change (Herefordshire) - gives
rigorous and comprehensive information about past and current
wrongdoing. I consider that only a
statutory public inquiry would fully investigate the wrongdoing so
that lessons are learnt, recommendations made and
implemented. This would ensure that the
council’s resources would be focused on optimising
expenditure by Herefordshire Children’s Services.
Would you, Councillor Fagan, support a
statutory public inquiry into Herefordshire Children’s
Services? If not, why not?
|
Children and Young People Scrutiny
Committee
|
|
Record of verbal response from CYPSC Chair
provided during the meeting: Thank you for the question Miss
Reid. I would like to say that I have enormous sympathy for the
experiences of families in the past that have suffered at the hands
of Herefordshire’s children's services. However, I am not
convinced that a public inquiry is the way to go. I think that that
would be a decision that would be made by the Minister for
Education and as we are aware the Department of Education has
invested significant resources in the improvement journey in
Herefordshire. My concern is that in a public environment, where
finances are extremely tight, any diversion of resources to looking
at historic injustices will prevent us from actually moving forward
to a position where children's services are fit for current and
future generations. In my time as Chair I've spent a lot of time
with councillors from other authorities and I do not believe that
Herefordshire’s problems have been particular only to our
county. I think a lot of the problems have been structural with
social care for children in the UK. I think that we are going a
long way in Herefordshire to improve the situation through
restorative practice having been embedded in the service and a
renewed focus on early help and the acknowledgment that families
need support. While we cannot undo the wrongs of the past we have
had a family's commission look at the historic complaints and we've
had the previous director and the current director look at historic
cases in detail, and I think that we've gone a long way to actually
try to address the issues that have plagued the service in the past
and I feel that we need to really look forward and make sure that
the service is in a much better position to deliver for the
children of Herefordshire. Thank you.
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