To consider the annual report of the Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (HSCP). This item was deferred from the meeting of 28 February 2023 to allow for full responses to Committee questions from the Independent Scrutineer.

 

The independent scrutineer introduced and gave a summary of the report. It was explained that there had been a pressing need to reset the partnership and that this had been recognised and acknowledged by the partners.

 

It was explained that governance of the partnership had been complicated, especially with an improvement board involved. There had been significant work involving alignment between the boards and synergy between the relevant plans.

 

The report focused on the lived experience of families, children and young people in Herefordshire.

 

It was stated that there was a shared and equal responsibility between the council, care board and police constabulary to ensure safeguarding arrangements were in place.

 

In putting the report together various pictures of Herefordshire had emerged and there were real signs that Herefordshire was trying to change. It was noted that 82% of early health assessments were done by other partners, which was healthy in terms of the strength of partnership working.

 

The independent scrutineer brought the board’s attention to several key areas where things had changed:

 

-          The MASH had definitely improved and this was backed up by new data and assessments from Ofsted.

-          There had been a real challenge made to the police regarding the MASH and the police had changed their practice as a result of this.

-          There had been a challenge to health, particularly in relation to initial annual health assessments for looked after children

The independent scrutineer concluded that there was more to do in 2023-2024, but that green shoots of change and improvement were in evidence. The committee was invited to ask questions about the 2021-22 report and forthcoming 2022-23.

 

The committee lamented the closure of ‘No Wrong Door’ and enquired how the voices of young people in the city centre and rural communities were being captured. The question was asked whether it was possible to get the partnership to look at youth work and request that the partners invest in youth work in Herefordshire.

 

The independent scrutineer explained that many local authorities including Hereford had reduced/ceased funding for young people’s services and that this had come back to haunt them. However, the first thing the partnership needed to focus on getting in place was the relationship between the partners.

 

The corporate director for children and young people explained that the safeguarding partnership was not a commissioning body in terms of services. Over a period of many years funding for youth services in Herefordshire from the partnership had ceased. It was stated that part of the improvement plan in the long term was to create a child friendly Herefordshire and to achieve this it would be necessary to open the door for conversations with partners about what that meant for young people.

 

The committee pointed out that there were various youth services, such as Close House, South Wye Police Boxing Club and the Scouts doing some excellent work with young people locally and that if savings were made within the budget it would be good to see finances being redistributed to these types of services.

The committee pointed out that many youth clubs/services were funded and operated by volunteers, but had a weekly or monthly subscription, which meant some families were locked out via costs. It was felt this could potentially be fixed by a local authority subsidy.

 

The committee also noted that not all children like uniformed and organised activities, and that perhaps youth drop-in centres would be helpful. The city council had done good work in this area and the question was raised as to whether the local authority owned any assets that could be used for such activities in geographically isolated areas and small parishes.

 

The independent scrutineer acknowledged that assisting with youth services was undoubtedly important and would reap benefits, but these issues needed to be raised when the partnership was in a more mature state and that building the partnership up to maturity from a reset was the current priority.

 

The committee enquired as to what level of maturity the partnership was at and when would it be mature enough to engage in wider activity such as those being discussed.

 

The independent scrutineer explained that this was a case of going to back to basics and that the partnership had already developed from where it had been in September 2022, by resetting its governance and priorities. However, although the board meetings set good ambitions and reports, not enough was happening in relation to work and progress being made by the sub groups.

 

The independent scrutineer suggested that it could be a matter of sub groups having too much to do with limited resources. It was therefore necessary to nail down the basics. Reducing the number of priorities, aligning them with the improvement plan and then delivering on them was key to continued growth and success.

 

The independent scrutineer explained to the committee that a decision had been taken earlier in 2023 to ensure that if Ofsted returned and exclusively looked at whether the partnership was delivering Working Together 2018 then the partnership would be in  a position to demonstrate this was the case. It was anticipated that it would probably take another six or, more likely, twelve months until the partnership had achieved the desired level of maturity.

 

The committee referenced the deep dive into peer on peer abuse, which highlighted how partners were not communicating with each other. The question was asked as to whether there were too many partners involved and whether or not a process of rationalisation needed to occur to aid in the triangulation of information.

 

The corporate director pointed out that the safeguarding partnership was a statutory partnership, but the independent scrutineer was there to assess whether it was effective. The director of public health was currently looking at the children and young people partnership and there was a live debate on how partnerships should be structured and how they should fit in with the Integrated Care Board. Potentially there might be opportunities to reduce/streamline the number of boards and meetings officer and councillors were required to attend.

 

The partnership itself was also looking at the way it worked. An example was cited concerning how MASH progress had, until recently, been being reported to multiple boards, but was now being monitored by one group within the partnership and then disseminated from there.

The committee asked where, other than to scrutiny, did the partnership report go and whether or not it went to Cabinet.

 

The independent scrutineer stated it was good practice for the report to go to scrutiny, but that there was no requirement for it to go anywhere else, although it could. Working Together 2018 did not specify how the report should be delivered, but did state that the delivery of effective safeguarding arrangements must be demonstrated.

 

The committee asked if the independent scrutineer felt effective changes had been made.

 

The independent scrutineer responded that they felt the changes that had been made were positive and that everyone involved was committed to playing their part to improve things. However, there were still some concerns that needed to be discussed in relation to the pace of delivery. It was stated that the next report was due around autumn and mid-September 2023.

 

The committee suggested that it would like to see more support for small towns, as many services in geographically isolated areas had to be funded by parents.

 

The corporate director suggested this was a potential issue for discussion as a future agenda item, but pointed out that the safeguarding partnership did not organise or commission services. It was there to measure the effectiveness of the partnerships’ response to safeguarding risks.

 

The committee welcomed the report looking at altering the police process for referrals as this had been an issue for a long time.

 

The committee expressed befuddlement at the resources section. It was felt the lack of detail about how each of the partners worked and how much each partner brought to the table in terms of resources, made it difficult to determine how and if things were working effectively. The ‘No Wrong Door’ service was used as an example of how there was no way of seeing what the plan for that service was at the end of its external funding period.

 

The independent scrutineer explained the focus within the report was on the fact that the partners had a statutory duty to adequately fund the safeguarding arrangements and that that tended to focus on the business unit support given to make sure they were complying with Working Together 2018. The challenge in this respect was that there was no national funding model to guide on what the appropriate proportion of funding should be for that specific piece of work. It was noted that some of the concerns being raised were more closely related to the children and young people partnership and not the safeguarding board.

 

The committee voiced concerns about how effective the Clinical Commissioning Group (now the Integrated Care Board) was in using resources, based on the attitude that it said it simply contracted for services.

 

The independent scrutineer said that they had met with most of the partners and they generally claimed to have arrangements in place to evaluate the effectiveness of contractors. It was the job of the board to ask how these partners know the contractors are effective.

 

The committee suggested as an action that when the next annual report was published it would be helpful to invite the police and NHS to discuss their arrangements for evaluating contractor effectiveness in more detail.

 

The committee stated that with regards to the safeguarding review of peer on peer abuse, it would be useful to hear what issues had been identified by those serious case reviews and how those issues could be fed into the committee’s work programme.

 

The independent scrutineer suggested arranging a meeting outside of the committee to focus on that and look at the recommendations. A future agenda item relating to the serious case reviews could look at the recommendations and how/if they had been actioned.

 

The committee observed that the actual work of safeguarding is usually conducted by groups of professionals who are often some way away from the individuals who turn up to meetings.

 

The independent scrutineer explained there was a sub-group structure in place, but partners needed to get people to step up and chair those boards as the work was falling on too few people.

 

One particular point of concern was the lack of connection between schools and the safeguarding partnerships. The role of schools was crucial, but the service director for education, skills and learning had informed the scrutineer that schools were almost self-regulating on safeguarding; they would conduct a 175 review about the effectiveness of keeping children safe in education, but this was not being connected to the board. This urgently needed to be joined up.

 

The committee asked when a teacher spotted and reported signs of neglect, whether that would go through the right channels to get actioned.

 

The corporate director explained that when the proportion of contacts and referrals that came into the MASH and early help services were examined, there was a higher proportion of those that result in a service. Schools were generally getting things right compared to some of the other agencies. The corporate director was confident that schools would refer appropriately in most cases.

 

The committee asked if there was any data/evidence to support the corporate director’s confidence.

 

The corporate director explained that the board looked at the attrition rates and the proportion of contacts that didn’t go anywhere, the safeguarding partnership looked at that data. It was stated that the MASH conducted weekly quality assurance and looked at contact referrals. Schools were typically not shy if they thought MASH was not providing adequate service. The corporate director wasn’t aware of a discreet report that could be shared, but was aware of indicators from a number of sources and that school feedback was solid.

 

The committee enquired about schools that have low attrition rates in terms of referrals and whether the service looked at the number of referrals that come from particular schools? Was there any kind of pattern linked to areas of significant deprivation? Were referrals higher in such places to reflect that or were they desensitised?

 

The corporate director explained that the service did filter data by school, EHCP, SEND and children missing from education and that the information was layered. Some schools did generate more referrals than others and the service had dedicated social care/early help officers covering such areas. Some schools had more resources to deliver pastoral care or early help intervention, but it was important to note that the numbers didn’t always tell the story.

 

The committee enquired what it could expect from the neglect strategy and how that would fit in regarding the safeguarding partnership.

 

The independent scrutineer explained that the current strategy was agreed as an interim strategy, which was well meaning, but had recently been reviewed. Following the review, work was underway in the quality and effectiveness group and the learning and development group to see if the strategy could be improved.

 

The scrutineer stated that the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) did not provide the depth of information required. There was a need for analysis of the data and work on intelligence, which could then be linked back into practice.

 

The committee asked if there was a plan to work on a system that would pull out and analyse the data from the JSNA.

 

The corporate director confirmed they were looking at the future development of the JSNA and would engage with the director of public health in relation to this.

 

The independent scrutineer explained that they had seen the community safety partnership profiles and that they contained more multi-agency data than the safeguarding profiles. It would potentially be necessary to go back to basics and visit certain partners to ask them directly for the data they use and incorporate this into the safeguarding profiles.

 

The independent scrutineer noted that it felt like there was not an understanding of what a multi-agency data set should like, especially compared with other authorities that used that data well.

 

The committee asked if work on data was something that the committee could be updated on and alerted to when the time was ripe for looking at partnership data.

 

The independent scrutineer pointed out that the data going to the improvement board from safeguarding was fairly comprehensive, but still lacked multi-agency figures.

 

The service director for early help, QA and prevention explained that the data set being produced was creating curiosity about impacts and outcomes. The wider ambition would be to grow that data set and to develop it into a multi-agency data set moving forward.

 

The independent scrutineer stated that multi-agency auditing needed to be conducted on a regular basis and that Herefordshire Council was currently ill prepared for multi-agency. There would be a thematic audit of eight cases of children who were subjected to sexual abuse and a deep dive to see how the authority responded, this would be completed by early October 2023. There was a need not just for quantitative, but also qualitative data to get the line of sight of what practice actually meant to lived experience children, families and young people in Herefordshire.