The Chair highlighted that she had requested a RAG rated action plan report be brought to this Committee meeting, and requested that a written report, with the RAG plan included, be brought to February’s Committee meeting.

The Independent Chair and Scrutineer Thurrock LSCP introduced the report and stated that she had recently been chosen for the role, and would be focussing on the future of scrutiny and safeguarding in terms of children. She stated that Sir Alan Wood had carried out a national review of Local Safeguarding Childrens Boards four years ago, and from this LSCPs had been developed, and had been enshrined in legislation in 2017. She explained that this legislation made the local authority, the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and the police equally responsible for child safeguarding, and the LSCP had an overarching role to co-ordinate safeguarding in the area and implement learning from serious case reviews. She added that Thurrock’s LSCP had a constitution that enshrined these principles, and helped to hold partners to account. She stated that Thurrock’s LSCP were currently working on: early identification of vulnerability; increased learning within the partnerships to ensure learning was embedded and changes could be made when required; and ensuring information was shared effectively.

She explained that Thurrock’s peer review last year had highlighted the need for scrutiny and governance, which was why she had been appointed into the role. She stated that she would be reviewing the arrangements for broader scrutiny aiming for it to be objective and a critical friend. She explained that the peer review had driven actions to support Thurrock’s scrutiny, particularly through the increased use of Key Performance Indications (KPIs) and improved multi-agency partnerships, such as with the police, health colleagues, and schools. She added that additional quality assurance had been implemented, such as multi-agency audits from the LSCP. She summarised and stated that the LSCP could provide safeguarding assurance information to Committee Members, and a report would be brought to Committee next year which would outline their upcoming priorities.

The Safeguarding and Children’s Manager stated that there were four reviews and one peer review action plan currently underway. She stated that these were:

1. Frankie – 14 actions identified (11 blue and 3 amber)
2. Sam and Kyle – 18 actions identified (16 blue and 2 amber)
3. Leo – 14 actions identified (1 blue, 4 green, and 9 amber)
4. Shay and Ashley – learning published but not yet ratified through governance processes.

She explained that blue actions meant the work had been embedded into the service; green meant complete but not yet embedded; and amber meant work had been started but not yet completed. She added that the peer review had identified 26 actions, 23 of which were now blue and 3 of which were amber.

The Safeguarding and Children’s Manager added that the reviews had identified four overarching themes of: information sharing; professional curiosity; thresholds and escalations; and working with resistance. She stated that lots of work was ongoing on these actions and data was being collected via the LSCP Dataset to form the basis of the 20222-2024 LSCO delivery plan.

Councillor Anderson questioned if the amber actions were on course for completion, and if they had deadlines. The Safeguarding and Children’s Manager replied that all amber actions were on course for completion. She mentioned that the team had been holding numerous awareness sessions, and were trying to deliver these on a more spread-out timescale to ensure maximum attendance. 

The Safeguarding and Children’s Manager, and the Independent Chairperson and Scrutineer Thurrock LSCP left the meeting at 7.45pm