Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to the report of the Service Manager, Children’s Services and the Strategic Education Improvement Manager which was presented to provide Scrutiny Members with safeguarding performance information and analysis from Children’s Social Services and Education from 1st April 2020 to the 31st March 2021.

Social Services information

The Safeguarding Team Manager, Children’s Services spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.

A Member commented on police being the highest referrer and referred to para 6.3.2 of the report regarding processes developed between Education and the Youth Offending Service to tackle anti-social behaviour in schools and felt this could be extended further between schools, police and the community.  He also referred to para 6.3.4 the number of bullying incidents identified by children and young people as an issue that required close monitoring and felt this could potentially be spilling out into the community causing further police referrals.

Another Member commented that the figures for referrals had increased throughout the year, which could be due to the pandemic, but referrals from the Youth Services were decreasing considerably. 

The Safeguarding Team Manager responded that she would raise the points above with the appropriate colleagues.

The Corporate Director of Education said there had been a slight decrease of overall referrals from the Youth Services and felt this was due to less face to face contact with children and young people. 

A Member referred to page 19 - Figure 2.8: relates to review conferences and the percentage held within timescale shows 100% for Q1 and Q4, 84.4% for Q2 and 96.2% for Q3.  The data provided does not give rise to concern.  The Member requested that the last sentence “the data provided does not give rise to concern” be reworded. The Safeguarding Team Manager agreed to amend the wording in this sentence.

In relation to the high number of police referrals, a Member felt that not all of the referrals needed to be referred to Social Services.  The Safeguarding Team Manager said that it depended on the nature of the referral.

Another Member raised concerns regarding police referrals and enquired if there was a follow up process with the Community Safety Team and Social Services Directorate as he felt that some anti-social behaviour was caused by repeat offenders.  The Safeguarding Team Manager confirmed that police did visit anti-social behaviour repeat offenders to try to reassure communities.   The Community Safety Team were proactive in trying to work with communities and other professionals to reduce anti-social behaviours.  If a Social Worker was made aware of a particular behaviour of a child via a police referral, then support would be put in place to reduce that behaviour.  The Member felt there should be more co-operation between agencies as there were more and more families needing support.

The Director of Social Services explained that if there were vulnerable adults involved then Children’s Services would link in with Adult Services and Adult Services would then visit the vulnerable individual. 

The Director referred to the previous  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7