Agenda item

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

The Chair welcomed Councillor S Doyle, the Portfolio Holder for Regulatory and Community Safety, Ms J Sands, the Assistant Director, Partnerships and Ms S Ivey, the Partnership Vulnerability Officer to the meeting who were to provide the first of two biannual safeguarding updates to the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.

Councillor Doyle introduced Ms Ivey who took the Committee through the Report and highlighted the following:

1.     The safeguarding service had continued to operate throughout the pandemic, and the Partnership Vulnerability Officer had been a point of contact, for staff, as well as statutory and voluntary sector colleagues who required support in relation to safeguarding and vulnerability within the community.

2.     In terms of referrals made through the Council’s reporting procedures, in addition to those set out in the report, since September 2020 there had been a further 8 referrals in respect of adults and 2 in respect of children.

3.     It was confirmed that the planned amalgamation of the Stoke-On-Trent and Staffordshire Safeguarding Children Boards had not proceeded and they remained two separate boards.  However, the Stoke-On-Trent and Staffordshire Adult Safeguarding Partnership Board remained a joint board.  It was reported that the peer-to-peer audit workshop which had been planned had been deferred to the new year due to the pandemic.

4.     In terms of safeguarding training, a significant amount of work had gone into the development of new online e-Learning modules, which were tailored to the Council’s procedures and were expected to support staff and members in making referrals.  Staff roles which required additional training, as well as for the Safeguarding Champions, were being identified and appropriate training would be sourced. Work was underway to review the delivery of taxi driver training in light of Statutory Taxi & Private Hire Vehicle Standards published by the Department for Transport July 2020.

5.     The work of the Multi-Agency Child Exploitation Panel had been broadened and the partnership team worked with other agencies to identify children at risk of exploitation and to have robust processes in place around those identified children.  The Tamworth Vulnerability Partnership continued to meet during the pandemic and continued to work to provide help at the earliest opportunity to improve outcomes for vulnerable people.

6.     It was reported that the Suicide Prevention Procedure was aimed to support staff if they were dealing with a case where a person is threatening suicide and that consultation with staff was underway on its implementation.

The Assistant Director, Partnerships reported that further guidance had recently been issued on the PREVENT agenda which aimed to prevent and safeguard children from being radicalised.  She reported that she would continue to work with the police on this agenda and also to review our procedures to ensure they fully addressed the new guidance and would welcome the opportunity to bring this stream of work to the Committee in the new year.

The Committee thanked the Officers for their work and sought clarifications in the following areas:

1.     The overall picture in terms of vulnerability within Tamworth – it was highlighted that reporting through the Council’s procedures was only one element of the picture and that Staffordshire County Council were a further source.  Any referrals made by schools in the Tamworth area would be made directly to county.

2.     The potential for there to be significant unreported cases due to the pandemic, including lockdown periods and when schools were closed to most pupils – unseen cases was a concern and a matter which was regularly review by strategic boards, and which had led to the campaigns to encourage communities to raise concerns with the local authority.

3.     The role of safeguarding champions – it was reported that these were designed to be a first point of contact where staff could discuss concerns they may have and could assist in referring onwards.  It was also designed to ensure that each appropriate service area had a member of staff with additional expertise and training.  Councillor Doyle confirmed that a similar safeguarding champion role had been established for councillors and Councillor M Bailey and himself were undertaking this role to promote awareness amongst members and to be available as a first point of contact.  It was confirmed that the safeguarding champion role was intended to be in addition to the reporting procedures which existed including, where necessary, making direct referrals to Staffordshire County Council’s First Response Service (regarding children), the Vulnerable Adult Service at Staffordshire County Council or to the Police.

The Officers and Councillor Doyle left the meeting.

RESOLVED that the Safeguarding Children and Adults at Risk of Abuse and Neglect be endorsed.

(Moved by Councillor J Faulkner and seconded by Councillor R Ford)