Agenda item

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 point regarding the sentence “the data provided does not give rise to concern” and advised Members of the rationale for that statement, he said there had been a dip in quarter 2 performance during the summer months due to the pandemic.  In relation to Children’s Services and anti-social behaviour the focus was on the child and the family rather than the wider community.

They worked closely with the Community Safety Team to determine if a pattern of anti-social behaviour was developing.   With regard to referrals, the Director advised Members that a police officer was now part of the Information, Advice and Assistance Service (IAA) and they reported back to police when referrals to Social Services were not appropriate and this helped to filter out unnecessary referrals.

A Member referred to para 7.4 Preventative focus -  the work undertaken by the Social Services Directorate looks to promote a preventative approach to practice through early identification and intervention.  Having a proactive rather than reactive approach to service planning can also help with planning resources.  He enquired what successful approaches were being used to reduce numbers as he felt that the figures were not coming down.  The Director of Social Services explained that in relation to safeguarding they were slowly moving in a different direction more towards contextual safeguarding. At present safeguarding concentrated on the individual and the family but there were other areas where children became vulnerable outside of the home environment and contextual safeguarding looked at other areas such as school, peer groups and the neighbourhood where the individual lived.   He advised that a lot of work was being undertaken across Gwent around contextual safeguarding and they were trying to introduce this across the Gwent region to start to look at other areas of communities where potentially children could become vulnerable such as a Park, and may need to start to tackle that environment to make it safer for that child rather than tackle the child and the family themselves.  This was some of the work being progressed over the next year and would be a change in culture for practitioners to consider other environments that a child may be in, which could potentially make them vulnerable.

The Member enquired if there was sufficient capacity and resources available for the move to contextual safeguarding.  The Director responded that with regard to resources it would be the case of working closely with other Directorates such as the Community Services and Regeneration Directorate in relation to parks etc. to ensure that they consider how to make parks safer for vulnerable children.  Working closely with different Directorates would ensure that safeguarding, and particularly the contextual safeguarding element, was seen as important to the whole Authority.  From a Social Services perspective, the Director felt that sufficient resource was available but it was important to ensure that Directorates work closely together to try and tackle problems in unsafe environments within the communities.

The Chair suggested that a Members Briefing session be arranged in relation to the new way forward, however, a Member felt it would be more appropriate for a report to be presented to the Scrutiny Committee in the first instance and proposed that a report in relation to contextual safeguarding be presented to a future meeting of the Scrutiny Committee.

This course of action was AGREED.

A Member reminded Members of the services of Connect Gwent who were a free and confidential service to help and support victims of crime and anti-social behaviour and would post the telephone number on the chat for Members information.

Education information

A Member enquired what was the extent of cyber bullying experienced in schools.  The Head of School Improvement & Inclusion said that nearly all schools were using the “My Concern” system and the Local Authority had access to a dashboard to look at the whole school estate and identify the reasons for incidents such as cyber bullying and racial bullying etc. and could identify any difficulties in particular areas or schools and provide the relevant training and support to those schools who needed it.

With regard to paragraph 6.3.7 Operation Encompass - Figure: 4.5 Domestic Abuse incidents, a Member referred to the numbers quoted and pointed out that the number of high, medium and low risk children did not add up to the total of 185 children.  The Head of School Improvement & Inclusion said she would check these numbers with the Strategic Education Improvement Manager and report back to the Member.

Another Member referred paragraph 6.3.4 bullying incidents and enquired what form of strategy had been put in place to address the issue.  The Head of School Improvement & Inclusion said schools had very stringent measures in place and the MyConcerns system supported schools as bullying incidents could be recorded on that system to help schools track and identify a pattern of repeated behaviour.  She advised that schools were using a restorative justice approach, working with the young person who may be exhibiting bullying behaviours and also working with any victims to try to restore those relationships, and using preventative measures to ensure that those behaviours change and that families were also involved.

The Director of Education advised Members that the anti-bullying policy was in place and schools had responded well.  With regard to the Education data he pointed out that the period between January and April was a disruptive period for Education and reassured Members that the full data set for Education from the 1st April onwards would be presented to Members at the Joint Scrutiny Committee in the autumn term to provide Members with the full range of data and information for scrutiny purposes.

With regard to the Anti-bullying Strategy a Member enquired if all Blaenau Gwent schools were going through the process to attain the anti-bullying quality mark and how many schools already had the quality mark at the moment.  The Head of School Improvement & Inclusion said that not all the schools were going for this specific quality mark, several schools were going for the Rights Respecting quality mark, which encompassed anti-bullying strategies and had the ethos of valuing and respecting everyone in the school.   She advised there were lots of different schemes and systems and she would gather the relevant data to find out exactly what quality mark each school was pursuing.  The Member felt this would provide evidence to parents and pupils to have confidence that staff were fully trained and aware of bullying issues.

The Director of Education felt this would provide a picture of those schools that were looking for accreditation against those initiatives and could also be fed back to the Scrutiny Committee.

With regard to Operation Encompass, the Chair requested information on what type of referrals were being made, the Head of School Improvement & Inclusion would gather this information for Members.

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 1; namely that the approach and information detailed in the report be accepted; and

FURTHER AGREED that a report in relation to contextual safeguarding be presented to a future meeting of the Scrutiny Committee.