Agenda item

To consider PowerPoint presentation.

The overview presentation will be given by Claire Winter, the Council’s Executive Director, Children, Families and Education and senior representatives from partner agencies will be joining the meeting for this agenda item.

The report from the inspection, in the form of an ungraded letter has been published and is available here - https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50252825  

Note – the Chair will allow 45 minutes for this agenda item.

The Committee received a presentation which provided details of the outcome from the recent Somerset Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI) – serious youth violence.

In May, the Care Quality Commission, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, Ofsted and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation jointly inspected the Somerset area’s multi-agency response to children over 10, who are at risk of, or affected by, serious youth violence in the county. The report from the inspection, in the form of an ungraded letter was published on 18 July 2024 – JTAI of Somerset.

The Committee noted the headline findings, covering governance and multi-agency safeguarding practice.

The Safer Somerset Partnership and the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership are already collating action plans from all relevant organisations and strategically on behalf of each Partnership to improve partnership working in reducing serious youth violence and criminal exploitation in Somerset. These plans will be submitted to Ofsted by the Chair of the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, on behalf of the 3 Lead Safeguarding Partners by 25^th October 2024.  (This is the date set by the Inspectorates) .

Noted that the multi- agency action plan will be considered at the next meeting of the Committee.

The multi-agency plans will also be overseen and tested for effectiveness via the Integrated Care System Children and Families’ Board, which meets every 2 months.

The Chair welcomed the following to the meeting for this agenda item - C Winter - Executive Director of Children, Families and Education, L Simpson, Area Commander, Somerset and North Somerset (Avon & Somerset Police) and M Davis, Designated Nurse, Safeguarding Children (ICB) attending on behalf of S Meldrum Chief Nursing officer & Director of Operations (ICB).

The Committee received a presentation which provided details of the outcome from the recent Somerset Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI) – serious youth violence. In May, the Care Quality Commission, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, Ofsted and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation jointly inspected the Somerset area’s multi-agency response to children over 10, who are at risk of, or affected by, serious youth violence in the county. The report from the inspection, in the form of an ungraded letter was published on 18 July 2024 – JTAI of Somerset.

They explained that in relation to the headline findings for the area inspection, it was not a positive outcome:

·      the inspection found that partnership working between organisations is not effective in identifying, understanding or responding to the extent of serious youth violence and criminal exploitation of children in Somerset.

·      the oversight of partnership working, led by the Safer Somerset Partnership and the Somerset Safeguarding Children’s Partnership lacks rigour, drive and challenge. These issues were accepted by both partnerships during the inspection process and work began immediately to plan a more impactful approach. 

·      serious weaknesses in multi-agency practice across organisations has meant that risks are not identified at the earliest opportunity. 

·      good practice was identified, for example in the system overall that responds well when there is clear and immediate risk to children at risk of serious youth violence.

·      are determined to improve and was disappointing and worrying outcome from inspection.

·      the Safer Somerset Partnership and the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, currently Chaired by Ms Winter has already met and are already collating action plans from all relevant organisations and strategically on behalf of each Partnership to improve partnership working in reducing serious youth violence and criminal exploitation in Somerset. These plans will be submitted to Ofsted by the Chair of the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, on behalf of the 3 Lead Safeguarding Partners by 25October 2024. (This is the date set by the Inspectorates)  - intend to submit in September as already understand what need to do and already working on the actions in the action plans.

·      the multi-agency action plan will be considered at the next meeting of the Committee and the multi-agency plans will also be overseen and tested for effectiveness via the Integrated Care System Children and Families’ Board, which meets every 2 months.

The Committee discussed the headline findings, covering governance and multi-agency safeguarding practice, asked a number of questions and made a number of comments, which were responded to at the meeting:-

·      would like to understand what ‘exploitation’ includes – includes County Lines, criminal exploitation, wide range of issues; will provide precise definition to the Committee.

·      Query about cross border partnership working – do have regional policing responses for example, sharing intelligence and mapping across the southwest and responding appropriately; do need to form stronger system relationships across borders rather than just in individual organisations.

·      children have legal right to be educated to the age of 18, what happens if they are suspended, permanently excluded from school – the local authority has duty to provide a level of education by day six post exclusion (just over a week); the provision unlikely to be another school because schools/ system is struggling, explained funding of SEND; always better for children to be in school, local to their own community with own friends.

·      questions about sharing information; who are the partners – housing teams?; role of community policing teams  - the intelligence picture - are pockets of front-line good practice; needs to be consistency; mentioned one team working which is part of the partnership focus; mention that all agencies will have own set of actions – there are, for example, 11 specific actions for the police; intelligence sharing (by police with partners) has been highlighted and a criticism to police was around how it is cascaded in way it should; issue is essentially that as a result of those action plans, actually more effective at safeguarding children; evaluation is integral to any action plan; mention of data sharing work around safeguarding; Inform work mentioned.

·      quality of practice, getting systems right and role front line staff – mentioned quality assurance process already in SCP; there is already multi-agency auditing happening and the current focus is on serious youth violence; do talk to front line practitioners; also statutory section 11 audit each year about safeguarding in general as well.

·      good to see that CAMHS are making timely response but query about their resources and capacity – understanding it was they had reduced the waiting time for actual assessment and then on-going treatment.

In conclusion, the Chair thanked Ms Winter, Ms Simpson and Ms Davis for the presentation and for attending the meeting.

The Committee noted the headline findings from the inspection. There will be the opportunity to explore the issues in more detail when the Committee considers the action plan at the next meeting.