An Effective LSCB: Draft Audit Tool

Wrexham 7th August

Section 1 Strategic Purpose Location Vision and Outcomes

Item 1: The LSCB has a clear and collective statement of purpose

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3: This statement of purpose is understood by all members and sustained across changes of membership

Evidence:

Constitution and Terms of Reference

Evidence of compliance – jointly co-ordinated

Disseminated to members however it is difficult to be clear about assimilation

Clear and collective statement

Do we have clear induction? – some knowledge about it

Have pack for new members – key documents provision to new members is inconsistent

New member hasn’t had pack

Diarising dates for next year to avoid clashes with other groups

WREXHAM RESPONSE: Updated 18/12/08

§ The Terms of Reference for the LSCB Executive board was reviewed, updated and presented to board members in November 2008. Further amendments have been suggested and the final draft will go to the next meeting of the Executive for approval. This is in line with our business plan key task 1.3b

§ Draft Job Descriptions have been developed for the statutory members of the LSCB Executive and a general job description has been developed for all other members. The aim of this piece of work is to ensure that LSCB members and their agencies are clear about their responsibilities and accountabilities in relation to their roles – key task 1.3a in the LSCB business plan. The draft documents were discussed at the November meeting of the executive. It is envisaged that a response will be received from all individual members and that the final draft of the job descriptions will be agreed at the next Executive meeting.

§ A review of the new member induction pack is planned for early 2009 to ensure that all new members of the LSCB are provided with relevant and updated written information. A copy will be presented to the Executive for approval alongside a recommendation to develop a ‘buddying system’ for all new members to ensure they are put in touch with a current member for any queries they may have.

§ Item 2: The LSCB has a clear and shared understanding about which elements of safeguarding it is accountable, and for which elements it is holding others to account.

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3: The LSCB has begun to share this understanding with other key partnerships and negotiated the elements for which it will hold others to account

Evidence:

Partnership day – all local partners, covering areas of overlap – produced Action Plan and outcomes from the day in diary to be actioned

Community Safety Partnership has been delegated domestic abuse issues, however being driven by LSCB

Are we clear about broader safeguarding issues? – know we are clear about Child Protection

Do we have protocols to hold others to account?

School Transport – safeguarding, seat belts, swimming – being discussed at LSCB and where it should go and who will be responsible

Far on with work into clarity of responsibilities

Days in September and October looking at specific issues: ‘Complex needs and Compromised Parenting’ in September and child protection ‘Turning the Curve’ workshop focusing on alcohol misuse of parents, carers and young people

Holding others to account is still an issue – LSCB doesn’t have power to compel accountability (WAG response)

Collaborative approach

Substance misuse training planned

Safeguarding agenda item on other boards – but no head of Safeguarding until November, so limited capacity at present

How far is safeguarding embedded?

WREXHAM RESPONSE: Updated 18/12/08

§ LSCB Executive Board members sit on the Children and Young People’s Framework Partnership, the Community Safety Partnership and the Health, Social Care and Wellbeing Partnership. The LSCB Development Group is also the ‘Safe From Harm’ Strategic Co-ordinating Group of the CYPFWP. Members of the group sit on sub groups of the CSP and the HSCWB Partnership. The local authority support officers for the LSCB, CYPFWP, CSP and the HSCWB Partnership meet on a monthly basis to promote co-ordinated working across all partnerships. The Head of Safeguarding is a member of the Domestic Abuse Strategy Group (sub group of the CSP). The Child Protection Co-ordinator is a member of a Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference, in relation to Domestic Abuse. The Chief Housing and Public Protection Officer is a representative on the Regional MAPPA.

§ The LSCB held a ‘Partnerships’ day in April 2008 with the Children and Young People Framework Partnership, the Community Safety Partnership and the Health Social Care and Wellbeing Partnership. The partnership event was facilitated by Tony Morrison and the objectives of the day included ‘establish a joint understanding of safeguarding’ and ‘to identify the safeguarding role of each partnership’. One of the key actions from this partnership day was that we ought to bring our collective knowledge and experience and innovative effort to bear on a single children and young people issue of concern to us all. As a result of this a further partnership day was arranged ‘Turning the Curve’ which took place in October. The focus of the event was alcohol misuse – both that of young people and their parents and carers.

§ A key task within the LSCB Business plan (3.1b) is to ‘specify the communication, reporting and accountability relationships with the CYPFWP, HSCWB partnership and the CSP to take account of the role of the LSCB’. We have made progress in relation to this task by agreeing in the September meeting of the Executive that this should become a standing item on the Executive Board agenda. This will now ensure that there is regular communication between the other three partnerships and the LSCB.

§ Consideration should be given to the benefit of drawing up a partnership chart, to be agreed with all partnerships, which highlights communication, reporting and accountability relationships in diagrammatical form.
Item 3: The LSCB has identified clear, multi-agency, child-focused outcomes. eg: Children feel understood and involved in safeguarding services which help them find solutions to family difficulties

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3: LSCB has identified the qualitative evidence it will use to demonstrate the achievement of these outcomes

Evidence:

Children’s Services – monitoring child involvement but need to be more specific about our outcomes

Completed work on participation issues but no outcomes specified

Performance Indicators – but belonging SS

Business Plan outcomes trying to be child focussed

Measure children’s attendance and co-operation

Sub-group work on children’s contribution – but delayed by equality impact assessment

Operational issues – doing it

At strategic level – is this happening?
Work to be done – might be a 2 if we had greater ownership of our business plan

WREXHAM RESPONSE: Updated 18/12/08

§ The LSCB Business Plan was reviewed and updated in April 2008 by an external consultant in conjunction with the Head of Safeguarding and a Safeguarding and Support Performance Development Officer. The three year plan was agreed by the LSCB Executive in May 2008. The business plan has a number of key tasks with specific outcomes and these are structured under seven objective areas, ‘Governance’, ‘Promotion and Awareness Raising’, ‘Policies and Procedures’, ‘Research’, ‘Training’, ‘Monitoring and Review’ and ‘Involvement of, and consultation with, children, young people, parents and carers’.

§ In response to an evaluation of the SAIT day (August 2008) we have decided to review the current business plan outcomes with a view to ensuring they are child focused. This review will take place in early 2009 and amendments made will be presented to the LSCB Executive for approval.

§ The LSCB business plan tasks 6.5a and 6.5b relate to our Children and Young People Plan. Both tasks have been completed - we have identified which parts of the CYPP that relate to Safeguarding activity and prioritised key tasks for the first year of the plan and agreed the measures to be used in measuring performance against the key tasks within the CYPP.

§ An area currently being progressed, business plan key task 6.1, is the development of shared performance measures (qualitative and quantitative) across partner agencies. The audit sub-group is taking this task forward and performance measures from other agencies are being brought to the next meeting of this group. We need to ensure that when shared measures are being developed that they are focused on gathering the evidence required for the SAIT as well as the LSCB Business Plan to ensure the LSCB has an effective performance management system.

§ Item 4: The LSCB has strategic S/G goals and a three year strategic safeguarding plan designed to achieve compliance with Working Together

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3: LSCB has systems to gather qualitative and quantative data to measure the achievement of this plan

Evidence:

3 year Business Plan – reviewed, has goals and outcomes, but no performance management systems in place

Lots of info from social care but not much from other agencies

Would be appreciated if WAG could create multi-agency performance measures to replace some individual agencies PMs – needs to be more cross-cutting

WREXHAM RESPONSE: Updated 18/12/08

Item 5: The LSCB has established a clear independent identity as a statutory body and is clear how it communicates with, and scrutinises the work of the CYP Framework partnership, the Children/YP’s Plan and other key partnerships eg Community Safety and Health, Social Care and Well-Being

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3: LSCB can show an example of how it carries out its scrutiny role and how this resulted in an improvement to safeguarding services overseen by another partnership.

Evidence:

Away day

Clear with partners (see item 2)

Wording of SCRUTINISES creates some problems – have mechanisms of looking at work of partnerships but does this come to LSCB and mean scrutiny?

Working hard at inter-agency

Link with framework partnerships

Monthly meetings with business managers of partnerships

Not enough information coming back to LSCB

Have adopted reporting templates – composite reports across partnerships – going to Development sub-group but not to Exec

WREXHAM RESPONSE: Updated 18/12/08

§ The LSCB held a partnerships day in April 2008 with the Children and Young People Framework Partnership, the Community Safety Partnership and the Health Social Care and Wellbeing Partnership. The partnership event was facilitated by Tony Morrison and the objectives of the day included ‘to establish a joint understanding of safeguarding’ and ‘to identify the safeguarding role of each partnership’. One of the key actions from this partnership day was that we ought to bring our collective knowledge and experience and innovative effort to bear on a single children and young people issue of concern to us all. As a result of this a further partnership day was arranged ‘Turning the Curve’ which took place in October. The focus of the event was alcohol misuse – both that of young people and their parents and carers.

§ A key task within the LSCB Business plan (3.1b) is to ‘specify the communication, reporting and accountability relationships with the CYPFWP, HSCWB partnership and the CSP to take account of the role of the LSCB’. We have made progress in relation to this task by agreeing in the September meeting of the Executive that this should become a standing item on the Executive Board agenda and that LSCB members who also sit on the other partnerships would bring an update to each executive meeting. This will now ensure that there is regular communication between the other three partnerships and the LSCB.

§ Consideration should be given to the benefit of drawing up a partnership chart, to be agreed with all partnerships, which highlights communication, reporting and accountability relationships in diagrammatical form. The role that the LSCB plays in scrutinising the work/looking at the work of the other partnerships could also be depicted in this chart.

§ The LSCB Executive will receive a report on the annual progress of the safeguarding aspects of the Children and Young People Plan and this will be written into the annual agenda for the Executive Board.

Section 2 Governance and Mandate

Item 6: The LSCB has a constitution, which specifies the collective role and responsibilities of the Board and its members