Agenda item

(Leisure & Wellbeing Portfolio Holder) To consider the attached report (C-056-2013/14).

(1)        That the new and emerging issues relating to the Safeguarding of Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults, and the increased responsibilities of District and Borough Councils in relation to this be noted;

(2)        That the findings of the Council’s Safeguarding self assessment audit submitted on 25 October 2013 be noted; and

(3)        That a District Development Fund growth bid for 2014/15 in the sum of £88,000 for the appointment of a full–time senior level Safeguarding Officer post and a part time Administration Assistant post, both for a fixed term period of two years, be made.

The Portfolio Holder for Safer, Greener & Transport presented a report on the resource requirements for the Council following the Safeguarding Audit.

The Portfolio Holder stated that the Council had a Duty of Care under Section 11 of the Children’s Act 2004 in respect of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people who lived and received services within the District, and those young people originating from the District who were ‘looked after’. In addition, although there was currently no legislative requirement for the safeguarding of vulnerable adults, the Council was responsible for ensuring that these adults who lived in the District, or received local services were safe from harm and were not subjected to exploitation or abuse.

The Portfolio Holder explained that, as part of the Essex County Council Audit Inspection, Ofsted had announced it would also scrutinise the safeguarding arrangements for District and Borough Councils on an annual basis, and publish their findings. The Council had completed the first of these self-assessments in October 2013, and it was identified that the Council was ‘not meeting’ 10% and only ‘partly meeting’ 55% of its requirements under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004. Therefore, only 35% of the Council’s arrangements for safeguarding fully met the standards required.

The Portfolio Holder reported that particular weaknesses were detected under the theme of Embedding Policy across the organisation and that there was a need for senior and leadership commitment, adequate resourcing, wider staff awareness, training, record keeping and policy development. As this required a significant amount of extra work, many Councils within Essex had established full time Safeguarding Officer posts and some had small safeguarding teams to undertake the additional work required. Until now, it had been possible for the Council to manage the workload involved in the previous triennial assessments, through expanding the roles of existing staff. However, it was now evident that a new, dedicated resource was required, to accommodate the volume of work entailed and to ensure that the Council, its staff and Elected Members could meet their duties and responsibilities. Therefore, the proposal was to appoint a full-time Safeguarding Officer and a part-time Administration Assistant, both for a fixed term of two years.

The Leader of the Council highlighted the training course on Safeguarding that was run approximately two months ago; the Portfolio Holder added that a further training course would be run in 2014. As the Council currently did not have any full-time staff dedicated to safeguarding, it was difficult to estimate the amount of time devoted to safeguarding duties and that this would fluctuate according to the number of incidents arising in the District. Existing staff would still need to be aware of and involved in safeguarding issues, even if approval was given to appoint the requested staff.

The Assistant Director (Community Services & Customer Relations) explained that the District Council had a different role to the County Council, and therefore there should not be any duplication of work between the two councils. There were a number of Officers throughout the Council who spent a proportion of their time on Safeguarding duties, therefore it was difficult to quantify the total time spent and hence the request for a full-time role and a part-time support role. The procedures and paperwork for referring incidents and concerns had changed over the last year, and the new system was proving to be more efficient, with the County Council dealing with referrals from District Councils and partners more effectively.

A local Member for Chigwell Village welcomed the report and urged the Council to endorse the recommendations previously made by the Children’s Services Task & Finish Scrutiny Panel. The Leisure & Wellbeing Portfolio Holder fully supported the recommendations and congratulated the Officers on their hard work.

Decision:

(1)        That the new and emerging issues relating to the Safeguarding of Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults, and the increased responsibilities of District and Borough Councils in relation to this be noted;

(2)        That the findings of the Council’s Safeguarding self assessment audit submitted on 25 October 2013 be noted; and

(3)        That a District Development Fund growth bid for 2014/15 in the sum of £88,000 for the appointment of a full–time senior level Safeguarding Officer post and a part time Administration Assistant post, both for a fixed term period of two years, be made.

Reasons for Decision:

Due to changes in Safeguarding Ofsted Inspections and local assessments, greater scrutiny would be placed on district and borough councils. In future, instead of inspections focusing predominantly on Essex County Council, greater scrutiny would be placed on District and Borough Councils and any strengths and weaknesses found would be published in addition to the identified strengths and areas for improvement of the multi-agency response.

Other Options Considered and Rejected:

To not appoint the requested staff. However, this would put the Council at risk of not meeting its legal duties and responsibilities.