Issue - meetings

(Report of the Portfolio Holder for Regulatory and Community Safety)

The Chair welcomed Councillor Stephen Doyle, the Portfolio Holder for Regulatory and Community Safety and Steph Ivey, Partnership Vulnerability Officer to the meeting.  The Report of the Portfolio Holder provided the first of two biannual safeguarding updates to the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.  The report provided an overview of the safeguarding processes and procedures in place to discharge the Council’s legal duty to safeguard children and adults with care and support needs from abuse and neglect.  Following an introduction from the Portfolio Holder, the Partnership Vulnerability Officer highlighted to the Committee:

·       The safeguarding statistics for the period 1 April 2021 to 30 September 2021, where referrals were received from a wide range of council staff.

·       That the Council’s section 11 audit, which focussed on the Council’s activities in supporting staff learning and development to recognise any abuse of children and in the priority areas, to the Staffordshire Safeguarding Children’s Board had been completed, and feedback was awaited

·       That the Council had completed an audit for the Staffordshire and Stoke-On-Trent Adult Safeguarding Partnership Board, which whilst not a statutory requirement for the Council to complete was considered good practice, and the feedback on this audit was awaited.

·       The training available for staff which now included two E-Learning modules as well as online virtual safeguarding training delivered by the Partnership Vulnerability Officer, as well as suicide prevention training which was delivered by Staffordshire MIND.

·       That the safeguarding training for taxi drivers had recommenced online. This training helped taxi drivers to understand what safeguarding was, and what to do if they believed a child or an adult was at risk.  Refresher training had been completed by 37 drivers and 11 new drivers had completed the training.

·       The multi-agency working undertaken which included work with the Multi-Agency Child Exploitation Panel, Local Partnership Meetings, and other meetings with local partners to identify trends and share expertise on modern slavery, as well as the weekly Tamworth Vulnerability Partnership meetings to provide a joined up response to vulnerability within the community and early interventions.

The Committee sought and received clarifications on:

·       The suicide prevention training provided by Staffordshire MIND and Mental Health First Aid training and the regularity of training, including training for members. 

·       A recent County Lines awareness campaign which was run Staffordshire wide with the Police, and the Partnership Vulnerability Officer reported that there was work ongoing to work with the local prevention team to run a local awareness campaign in Tamworth on County Lines.

·       The impact if any the pandemic had on safeguarding, where it was recognised that when children were unable to attend schools, this could have impacted young people, as well as the pressure on families and young adults where the safeguarding officer worked closely with the housing team, and the importance of the support from the community and the organisations in Tamworth to provide varied support during the pandemic.

·       Modern slavery, which could be seen in many forms, and the fact that this remained very much a hidden crime, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34