Agenda item

To consider the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Board and North Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Reports 2017-2018.

Members received the report of the Partnerships Manager and were asked to note the annual reports for the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children and North Yorkshire Safeguarding Adult’s Boards.

The Committee noted that the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Boards had a statutory duty to publish annual reports, accounting for the activities of the Boards for the previous year. The reports covered 2017/18 activity and also provided evidence of the key areas of focus for the current year.

Both reports set out the governance arrangements across North Yorkshire and outlined the activity and partnership working in the Selby District.The priority areas for the boards remained the same as those shared in the 2017 report to Scrutiny Committee.

The Adults Board continued to prioritise awareness and empowerment, prevention of harm, protection and proportionality and partnership effectiveness. The Children’s Board prioritised the coordination of the activities of the board and ensuring its effectiveness.

Members noted that in 2017-18 the overall demand for child protection services remained high, with a 22% increase across the County in referrals to Children’s Social Services compared to 2016-17; repeat referrals was at 15.8% which indicated that cases remained open until the risk of harm was removed and significant progress had been made.

The report also outlined the 2017-18 audit completed by Selby District Council under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004; the following issues for practitioners had been highlighted across North Yorkshire:

·           Awareness of internal policies and procedures, as well as multi-agency procedures when recognising and reporting children safeguarding concerns to avoid delays in addressing those concerns should safeguarding leads be unavailable; and

·           Information sharing needed to be considered, ensuring partners knew the need to share information, what could be shared, and when.

The Committee acknowledged that there was a crossover between Safeguarding and Community Safety work, with Selby District Council carrying out activities in both of these realms. At a local level the Council sat on the Selby Children’s Safeguarding Strategy Group which focused on e-safety, along with reducing teenage pregnancy. The 2018-19 priorities included developing and integrating teenage pregnancy services, substance misuse and its impact on safeguarding, improving access to Emotional Health and Wellbeing services and maintaining close links to the Domestic Abuse Forum to ensure an integrated approach to the issue.

Officers anticipated that following the review of ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018)’ some changes would be implemented to strengthen work in multi-agency approaches to safeguarding.

It was explained to Members that the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults Board (NYSAB) report informed of the June 2018 appointment of Dr Sue Proctor as the Independent Chair, and the ambition to develop closer relationships with the Children’s Safeguarding Board and the Community Safety Partnerships.

2017-18 had seen an independent review of the safeguarding function in North Yorkshire.  Key learning points were outlined in the NYSAB report, with the overall the focus around the following:

·           Having a clear vision and stronger arrangements for learning lessons and facilitating change;

·           Continual improvement of recording, measuring and monitoring information;

·           Improvement of sharing information and learning; and

·           Ongoing training for the workforce, with a focus on partners working together to develop staff.

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The Committee learned that overall the number of adult safeguarding concerns had reduced during the year; it was thought that some of this was due to improved processes, especially how North Yorkshire Police and Yorkshire Ambulance Service provided the information.

Officers explained that the report also set out partner and district achievements over the period of 2017 18 within Appendix 1. Selby District Council had supported safeguarding through providing training, being active in the planning and the delivery of local events during Safeguarding Awareness Week, promoting safeguarding alongside priority areas such as PREVENT and co-ordinating and being an active member of local partnership groups, with a focus on protecting and supporting vulnerable members of the community.

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Members noted that the priorities and areas of focus remained the same for 2018-2019. Changes were expected in 2019-20 as new Multi-Agency Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures were to be implemented. The NYSAB was also expected to agree new strategic priorities, which would be used to develop the Strategic and Local Delivery Plans.

The Committee asked questions of Officers around current teenage pregnancy rates, the number of residential care homes in North Yorkshire and if the demographics of the county as described in the report were accurate, i.e. rural upbringing.

RESOLVED:

To note the content of the 2017-18 annual reports for the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children and North Yorkshire Safeguarding Adult’s Boards.