Agenda item

To consider the Annual Report of the Safeguarding Children Board.

Officer contact: Una Hagan, 0161-474-5657, una.hagan@stockport.gov.uk

In relation the Children’s Board Annual Report, Gill Frame highlighted the following challenges:-

·         Refining and refreshing data to ensuring that early warning signals were acted upon.

·         There had been a significant increase in looked after children being accommodated within Stockport by other local authorities leading to pressures on local services, in particularly on health assessments.

Some successes of the noted in the report included:-

·         Improvements in early interventions.

·         Positive feedback from independent reviews of Operation Phoenix and a Peer Review relating to CSE. Partners had also changed their operations to provide daily monitoring.

·         There were no Serious Case Reviews (SCR) commissioned this year, and one learning review. An Action Plan had been developed to address the common themes to have emerged from previous SCRs.

Board members raised the following issues:-

·         In relation to child deaths, concern was expressed that 40% of those were from areas of deprivation despite this only being 9% of the Stockport population, suggestion a link with inequality. In response it was stated that the Board had challenged partners on the issue of child deaths in priority areas, and Public Health had developed an action plan in response to this issue. It was further commented that the risk factors contributing to these deaths were complex, including safe sleeping, maternal weight, although maternal smoking was the key risk factor and this more prevalent in our deprived communities. Public Health was working to ensure all agencies gave a consistent message around smoking for mothers and the programme of providing incentives to quit smoking had demonstrated impact.

·         Queries were raised about the consistency of attendance at the Board and its subgroups and whether this was likely to impact on general Board performance and effectiveness. In response it was stated that Board attendance was generally good and positive but there were challenges for subgroups, and these had been reviewed to reduce overlap and remove other barriers to participation.

·         Were partners learning the lessons from serious incidents so that children were safer as a result? In response it was stated that locally the Board had developed an action plan from the SCRs to ensure common themes were addressed and that this action could be audited. It was also a national challenge to ensure that learning was shared and acted upon as there were too many instances of similar failings and issues taking place in different places despite the outcomes of SCRs. The Government was also reviewing the efficacy of the SCR process.

·         The Children and Social Work Act 2017 had removed the statutory requirement for a local safeguarding children boards and there a need for partners locally and at Greater Manchester to consider what mechanisms would be needed to ensure children were kept safe.

·         It was confirmed that the current Board arrangements in Stockport would continue until such time as new arrangements were agreed, but there were concerns about the capacity and resource available to ensure proper audit and quality assurance was carried out.

·         Further information was requested on the impact of the correlation between special education needs/ disabilities and other mental health needs. In response it was stated that the importance for those involved in safeguarding was the increased risk of those young people engaging in risky behaviours and increased risk of exploitation. The SSCB would shortly be considering the CAMHS Transformation plan.

·         In relation to whether the waiting times for mental health support were reasonable, it was commented that there was a broader challenge around supporting mental wellbeing and equipping young people to be resilient and enabling the whole ‘system’ to respond better to support this. The Children’s Trust had also heard concerns from Head Teachers about inconsistencies in information provided to pupils where their needs fell short of CAMHS services. It was further commented that the Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership Transformation Fund was funding work to develop GM-wide, consistent, cost-effective mental wellbeing support.

RESOLVED – That the Stockport Safeguarding Children Board Annual Report 2016/17 be noted.