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MEETING OF NHS MANSFIELD AND ASHFIELD CCG AND

NHS NEWARK AND SHERWOOD CCG GOVERNING BODIES

TITLE: Safeguarding Arrangements Options DATE OF MEETING: 22nd February 2018 PAPER REF: JGB/18/21 AUTHOR: Kate Allen and Nicole

Chavaudra, Integrated Children’s Commissioning Hub.

PRESENTER: Elaine Moss, Chief Nurse and Director of Quality and Governance

PURPOSE OF REPORT: This report provides a high level options appraisal of potential models for delivering safeguarding arrangements in Nottinghamshire in accordance with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and associated statutory guidance RECOMMENDATION: The Governing Bodies are asked to authorise the Chief Nurse to pursue option 2 as the preferred option for Mid Nottinghamshire CCGs. This will be taken forward via the multi-agency working group formed to ensure Nottinghamshire is prepared for national changes to safeguarding children arrangements in 2018. REPORT: The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced a new duty to be placed on three agencies, namely the local authority, the chief officer of police and clinical commissioning group (referred to as Safeguarding Partners), to make arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area. A briefing paper provided for a meeting of Safeguarding Partners on 7th November 2017 set out the implications of the Wood Review and Children and Social Work Act 2017. At that meeting the Safeguarding Partners agreed that Nottinghamshire County Council should prepare an options paper for future safeguarding arrangements. This report outlines potential models for the future. HOW DOES THIS CONTRIBUTE TO THE OUTCOMES AND OBJECTIVES OF THE CCG: Quality Health Financial Clinical Performance (tick as appropriate)

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:

This is a recommended action to be agreed by the Chair at the beginning of the item. No conflict identified Conflict noted, conflicted party can participate in discussion but not decision (see below) Conflict noted, conflicted party can remain but not participate (see below) Conflicted party is excluded from discussion (see below) CONFIDENTIALITY:

Is the information in this paper confidential?

No Yes

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Safeguarding Arrangements Options

Purpose of the Report

This report provides a high level options appraisal of potential models for delivering safeguarding arrangements in Nottinghamshire in accordance with the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and associated statutory guidance.

Background

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced a new duty to be placed on three agencies, namely the local authority, the chief officer of police and clinical commissioning group (referred to as Safeguarding Partners), to make arrangements for the safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area. A briefing paper provided for a meeting of Safeguarding Partners on 7th November 2017 set out the implications of the Wood Review and Children and Social Work Act 2017. At that meeting the Safeguarding Partners agreed that Nottinghamshire County Council should prepare an options paper for future safeguarding arrangements and the Clinical Commissioning Groups would prepare an options paper for child death review arrangements. This report outlines potential models for delivering future safeguarding arrangements.

Current safeguarding children arrangements

Under the current legislation, regulations and statutory guidance the Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board (NSCB) is required to coordinate work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and ensure that it is effective. LSCBs do not commission or deliver direct frontline services though they may provide training.

The NSCB carries out the following functions:

• the provision of policies and procedures covering a range of issues and

approval of the thresholds guidance (Pathway to Provision) • communicating with persons and bodies in the area about the need to

safeguard children and raise awareness • monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of safeguarding work by partner

agencies and advising on ways to improve • participating in the planning of services for children • undertaking serious case reviews

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• ensuring a review of each child death • use data to assess the effectiveness of help being provided to children and

families (including early help) • assess whether partners are fulfilling their statutory obligations • quality assure practice, including through joint audits of case files involving

practitioners and identifying lessons to be learned • provision of a multi-agency training programme that includes seminars,

workshops and e learning on a wide range of safeguarding topics based on learning from local and national reviews and the outcomes of local audits

• monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of training, including multi- agency training, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children

• the publication of an annual report • resourcing of the Safeguarding Children Information Management Team

(SCIMT) which facilitates the communication of safeguarding information between local authority areas as well as providing a means for initial checks regarding child protection plans and children’s social care involvement with families

New local safeguarding arrangements requirements

A draft version of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 has been circulated for consultation. The guidance states that to achieve the best possible outcomes, children and families need to receive targeted services to meet their needs in a coordinated way and that there should be a shared responsibility and effective joint planning between agencies to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in a local area.

‘In order to do this effectively, local agencies should develop processes that promote:

• the commissioning of services in a co-ordinated way; and • co-operation and integration between universal services such as schools, GP

practices, adult services, early years settings, youth services and colleges, voluntary and community and specialist support services.

All agencies need to cooperate in the local safeguarding arrangements, although the duty to make local arrangements rests with the three safeguarding partners’. (Working Together 2018)

The revised draft guidance allows for some flexibility regarding the geographic area covered by the arrangements and delegation of safeguarding partner duties:

• safeguarding arrangements can cover two or more local authorities provided

there is agreement by the relevant safeguarding partners1

1 A single local authority area must not be covered by two separate safeguarding partnerships.

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• local authorities can choose to delegate safeguarding partner duties where safeguarding arrangements extend across more than one local authority area2

• clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police may also delegate their safeguarding partner duties3

Contact has been made with Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Board Officers regarding their plans for implementing new safeguarding arrangements. It is understood that a change to the geographic area covered by the safeguarding arrangements has not been ruled out. However there is a preferred option being developed which would involve the creation of a new strategic group above the current safeguarding Board arrangements and this does not include combining the arrangements with Nottinghamshire. In Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City there has been a positive response to combining child death review areas and the parallel work to look at child death review options will explore this.

‘The published arrangements for each local area must include:

• arrangements for commission and publication of local safeguarding practice

reviews • the arrangements for independent scrutiny of the effectiveness of the

arrangements They should also include:

• who the three local safeguarding partners are, especially if the

arrangements cover more than one local authority area • geographical boundaries (especially if the arrangements extend or cut

across the usual local authority boundaries) • the relevant agencies the safeguarding partners will work with, why these

agencies are relevant and how they will work together to improve outcomes for children and families

• how all schools (including independent schools, academies and free schools) and other educational partners will be included in the safeguarding arrangements

• how any youth custody and residential homes for children will be included in the safeguarding arrangements

• how the safeguarding partners will use data to assess the effectiveness of the help being provided to children and families, including early help

• how the arrangements will be funded

2 If a local authorities decides to delate safeguarding partner responsibilities they must still continue to fulfil their statutory and legislative duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. 3 Similarly police chief officers and clinical commissioning groups that decide to delegate safeguarding partner responsibilities would still be required to fulfil their statutory and legislative duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

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• the process for undertaking local practice learning reviews, setting out the process for how lessons will be learnt, and how any changes made will impact on outcomes for children and families

In agreeing their arrangements, safeguarding partners should take account of recommendations from any previous learning reviews and relevant research from the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care. They should also have regard to any reports sent to them by the child death review partners for their area. (Working Together 2018)

Comparison of current LSCB functions against new safeguarding arrangements

There are many similarities between the current functions carried out by LSCBs and the new safeguarding arrangements as defined in the draft statutory guidance and these include;

• a requirement to undertake case reviews in certain circumstances, • scrutinising the effectiveness of arrangements • defining how agencies will work together to improve outcomes for children

and families • using data to assess effectiveness • learning lessons and improving outcomes for children and families • publication of an annual report • expectations around shared funding

Some of the more significant changes between the current arrangements and the new requirements include;

• flexibility over how independent scrutiny is built into the arrangements • broadening of responsibility to three safeguarding partners • local choice around which organisations should be included within the

arrangements (‘relevant agencies’ selected from a national list of options rather than a defined list of LSCB members)

• choice around geographic area and delegation of safeguarding partner responsibilities

• separation of the child death review function Assessment of current arrangements

Ofsted

The most recent Ofsted Inspection of the Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board (published in July 2015) graded the Board as ‘Good’. Particular areas of strength for the Board were noted as; facilitating multi-agency cooperation, the multi- agency audit process, the learning and development programme including learning

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from serious case reviews, and ensuring that children’s experiences are at the centre of its work.

Developmental areas included influencing involvement in multi-agency strategy discussions, updating the communications and engagement strategy, ensuring the effectiveness of private fostering arrangements and broadening the data set.

Local assessment of strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

• Well attended Board with strong commitment from partners • Transparent case review process • Effective multi-agency audit programme • Comprehensive training programme covering wide range of issues and

seminar/workshop/e-learning options • Shared procedures with Nottingham City

Weaknesses:

• NSCB Executive decision making limited due to the level of representation from agencies

• Coordination of improvement activity • Large Board with representation at differing levels which limits discussion and

decision making effectiveness • Overlap between work of Executive and Board • Perception of being skewed towards local authority – in terms of activity and

assessment of performance • Demand on partner resources to attend meetings (including other Boards, sub

groups etc.) Options for consideration

In drawing up the options for consideration reference has been made to the ‘early adopters’ section of the Association of Independent LSCB Chairs website which outlines details of the proposals being taken forward by a small number of LSCBs. These included; Barnet, Bexley, Devon, Milton Keynes and three North East LSCBs that are linked through the same Independent Chair (Sunderland, South Tyneside and Gateshead). Details of the work being taken forward by the ‘early adopters’ consisted of a written description of proposed or actual changes accompanied in some cases by an organisational structure chart or model for learning. A summary of the features of each proposal is included at Appendix A – it should be noted that in some cases limited details of the individual proposals were available however they provided useful indications of early thinking around the delivery of safeguarding arrangements.

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Four options have been developed for consideration based on the principle that the functions required to be delivered are broadly the same as those carried out under the current arrangements with the exception of responsibility for undertaking child death reviews.

Geographic area - Option 2 includes the potential to deliver some functions through shared arrangements with Nottingham City and Option 4 assumes that either of the three preceding models could be fully adopted on a cross authority basis.

Scrutiny – details of how independent scrutiny could be built into the different options are included within each model, however, to some extent the different forms of independent scrutiny could be overlaid onto any of the options. The new draft guidance does not include a requirement to have Lay Members and therefore they are not currently shown within the options. However it is recognised that Lay Members can provide a valuable additional perspective and therefore it is suggested that once a preferred model is chosen consideration be given as to the appropriate engagement of Lay Members.

Children’s Trust – The Children’s Trust are reviewing their terms of reference in February 2018 and Option 2 includes the potential to merge the strategic function of the safeguarding arrangements with the Children’s Trust. This clearly would need further discussion with members of the Children’s Trust.

Funding – the safeguarding partners already provide the majority of the funding for the Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board. Any anticipated change to the level of funding required for the different options is noted within each assessment. Assuming that similar functions are required the demand for support through NSCB Officers is likely to remain similar to the current arrangements however Option 3 potentially offers some savings by transferring responsibility for some of the supporting activity to safeguarding partners. Further exploration of funding arrangements will be required in due course.

Safeguarding arrangements options v0.3


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Option 1 - analysis

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

Long standing arrangements with proven success. Avoid disruption/dip in performance that would be inevitable if changes made. Currently good commitment and support for Board functions from a wide range of partners Independently inspected and graded as good.

Would not take advantage of the flexibility offered by the new guidance. Would not address challenges identified by Wood Review that may apply in this area – • clarity around lead • challenges around accountability as a

result of separating commissioning from delivery

• overlap between committees • attendance of senior representatives • representation from schools • unmanageable size of Board

Build on existing good practice.

Not being seen as progressive by partners. Viewed negatively by Ofsted (not taking the opportunity to address deficiencies). National guidance based around new arrangements and therefore more difficult to apply.

NOTE

This option maintains the current structure and arrangements. The CDOP is still shown in the organisational structure however this will depend on the preferred option for child death review arrangements. Independent scrutiny would continue to be provided through the appointment of an Independent Chair of the Board.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

No additional costs envisaged and therefore the current budget would be sufficient depending on the number and complexity of case reviews undertaken.


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Option 2 - analysis


New safeguarding partners have central strategic role – responds to Wood Review challenges. Provides clarity around leadership and accountability Faster more dynamic decision making. Opportunity to link in with larger group through safeguarding partnership including practitioners, schools and service users. Reduces number of groups and demand on resources for partners. Quality and effectiveness owned by one group. Improved coordination of training, procedures and communication activity Case review group would oversee process from end to end.

Potentially less opportunity for relevant agency representatives to have strategic influence. Greater reliance on groups carrying out functions effectively with reduced reporting. Demand on Quality and Effectiveness Group would require a new way of working.

Improved coordination of improvement activity. Reduced duplication of functions with clear ownership by each group. Reduced demand on agencies attending meetings.

Reduced commitment/engagement from relevant agencies.

NOTE This model provides a more streamlined structure than the current arrangements with a clear separation of the strategic function and an opportunity to engage with a broader range of partners (or relevant agencies). Safeguarding Partners would take responsibility for Chairing the Strategic Group, Case Review Group and Learning and Workforce Development Group. Independent scrutiny would be through the appointment of an Independent Chair for the Quality and Effectiveness Board who would also be an independent member of the Safeguarding Partners Strategic Group. Representation on the Quality and Effectiveness Board, Case Review Group and Learning and Workforce Development Group would be agreed by the safeguarding partners and include a mix of safeguarding partners and relevant agency staff. Limited use could be made of Task and Finish Groups to address specific issues. The model includes the potential to link with Nottingham City for some of the functions whilst retaining accountability of safeguarding partners.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS The support required for this model to function effectively would be broadly similar to the existing arrangements and therefore the current budget should be sufficient depending on the number and complexity of case reviews undertaken.


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Option 3 - analysis


Reduced demand on resources to attend meetings. Utilising existing single agency performance monitoring. Responds to some of the Wood Review challenges including clarity around leadership and the potential to ensure that the Board is a manageable size. Faster, more dynamic decision making.

Over reliance on small number of senior representatives. Loss of learning from multi-agency audit activity. Increased demand on agencies through functions being devolved out from the Board Reduced opportunity for challenge Independent viewpoint/scrutiny only available at time of annual safeguarding inspection. Reduced engagement with relevant agencies/insufficient reach.

A more streamlined approach which could respond more quickly to issues

Reduced influence over multi-agency working. Lack of buy-in from relevant agencies due to limited engagement.

NOTE

This model provides the most streamlined structure and relies on the Safeguarding Partners Board being able to carry out its functions without supporting sub groups (apart from the case review sub group). Safeguarding partners would need to agree the chairing arrangements and determine the wider membership of the Board but it is envisaged that this would be smaller than the current NSCB membership. Performance information and case audit would be provided by partners with a reduced multi-agency element.

Independent scrutiny would be provided through an annual independent safeguarding inspection commissioned through a private provider taking into account other inspections/peer reviews that may have taken place during the relevant period.


With a reduced number of meetings and greater responsibility placed on partners this option could potentially reduce the level of officer support required. The costs associated with the annual safeguarding inspection could potentially be met through the savings of not having an independent chair


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In addition to the analysis of strengths and weakness provided for each of the preceding options STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

Reduced demand on resources to attend meetings

Reduced ability to focus on the specific needs of children in different communities Political oversight and accountability unclear Diluted influence of safeguarding partners Large unmanageable/less effective meetings Potential for uneven distribution of time/resources (i.e. experience of some areas when children and adults Boards merged)

Greater coordination of functions across City and County

Everyone and no-one accountable Unclear assessment of outcomes for children in a particular area

NOTE

Independent scrutiny would be provided through the mechanism suggested within the option being adopted.


With a reduced number of meetings and shared support for Board functions this option could potentially reduce the level of officer support required. The costs associated with providing independent scrutiny could increase due to the larger population/area and complexity.


Conclusion The NSCB has a proven track record for the coordination and scrutiny of safeguarding arrangements. However it has been recognised that there are aspects of the way the Board delivers its functions which could be improved and the demands on partner agencies are ever increasing. It is therefore appropriate for the safeguarding partners to look at alternative models for safeguarding arrangements.

The flexibility allowed by the new legislation and statutory guidance will undoubtedly lead to a range of different options being adopted by areas across the country. Early indications are that a significant proportion of areas will be retaining the existing arrangements or making minimal changes. This is perhaps unsurprising as the previous guidance has been very prescriptive and there will be some cautiousness around stepping away from those arrangements.

The Wood Review identified weaknesses in LSCB arrangements and some of those apply to the NSCB and have been acknowledged. Changes to legislation and statutory guidance provide an opportunity to tackle aspects of the current arrangements which are less effective. It is therefore recommended that the safeguarding partners introduce a new framework for safeguarding arrangements and that option 2 provides a suitable model for developing those arrangements.

Recommendation That the safeguarding partners agree option 2 as the preferred option and that a working group is formed to develop the proposal and implementation plan.

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Features of Early Adopter Proposals Appendix A

North East Milton Keynes Devon Bexley Barnet

Streamline Board Yes Yes Yes Partnership Board but not clear if (reduced membership) streamlined (NB is small area) Wider advisory group Yes Yes

Retain Independent Yes Yes Yes Chair (although not specifically stated) Executive Yes Yes

Inc. scrutiny and learning group QA & performance Yes Yes Yes Yes group Quality and Effectiveness Board

(Inc. training) Quality and audit Yes group now part of learning hub Learning and Yes Yes See note now part of learning hub Workforce Also responsible for Moving away from training to Development Group reviews workforce development Vulnerable Young Yes Peoples Group Serious Case Review Yes See note Yes Yes Group no SCRs in 2016/17 CDOP Subject to national review See note Yes Yes

16 deaths in 2016/17 Cross authority Separate Boards –plan measures for shared procedures,

s11, training Safeguarding Yes Yes Champions events Designated Professionals Professional leads networks Links to other Model demonstrates links to Yes – merge LSCB with Children, Yes arrangements other Boards but retains separate Young People & Families Leadership forum – adults, HWB,

Boards (potentially some shared Allowance (equivalent of Community safety, CCG Board, sub groups with Adults) Children’s Trust?) corporate parenting Board etc.

Notes: Written explanation by ‘No more sub groups’ (however Many existing standing sub £267,000 partner contributions & Proposal subject to further Chair subgroups appear in the model so groups retained, membership £125,000 grant from DfE to national guidance this appears to relate to reviewed, move towards task & develop new approach additional groups and the use of finish model 13 learning hub ‘events’ –which programme or project are larger workshop events methodologies

NB. Blank field either indicates ‘no’ or ‘not clear from information available’

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