Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest to record. 

There were no members of the public or the press in attendance. 

There was nothing to report under this item. 

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission held on 10^th July, 2013, were considered. 

Resolved: -  That the minutes be agreed as an accurate record for signature by the Chairperson. 

Councillor G. A. Russell, Chairperson of the Improving Lives Select Commission, welcomed Steve Ashley, Chair of the Rotherham Independent Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) and Phil Morris, Business Manager, Rotherham Independent LSCB.  Steve and Phil had been invited to attend this meeting so that the annual report of the LSCB could be considered. 

Also in attendance for this item were Joyce Thacker, Strategic Director, Children and Young People’s Services, and Rotherham’s Lead Member for Children, Councillor Paul Lakin, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families’ Services. 

Councillor Russell especially welcomed Steve Ashley to the meeting.  Steve had started his new job at the beginning of September, and this was the first meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission that he had attended.  Councillor Russell looked forward to working with him and the LSCB in the future.

Steve presented the annual report of the Rotherham Independent LSCB.  The Annual Report covered all areas of the Board’s activity during 2012/2013, including: -

·         LSCB governance and partnership arrangements;

·         Progress against the Board’s priority areas and business plan;

·         Activities of the Sub-groups;

·         Information about the Child Death Overview Panel;

·         Contribution of Lay Members;

·         Challenges and Priorities for 2013-2016.

The Children Act (2004) required LSCBs to produce annual reports that provided a ‘rigorous and transparent assessment of the performance and effectiveness of local services’, ‘published in relation to the preceding financial year’ and ‘fit with local agencies’ planning, commissioning and budget cycles’ and ‘list the contributions made to the LSCB by partner agencies and list what the LSCB has spent’. 

Reference was made to Rotherham’s LSCB’s priorities for 2012/2013 and how these were reflected in the business plan for 2013-2016 and the work of the Board’s Sub-groups. 

The Rotherham LSCB had its own budget; the main contributors were Children’s Social Care Services, Children’s Health Services and the Police.  The 2012/2013 outturn for the budget was a £6,940 under-spend.  £841 of this had been earmarked for learning and development activity and the remaining £6,099 would part-fund the 2013/2014 budget. 

The main risks and uncertainties surrounding Children and Young People’s Services was the revised Ofsted inspection framework for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers due to be implemented nationally in November, 2013.  The Rotherham LSCB was working with partner agencies to assess performance and ready evidence of the positive outcomes of children and young people.

The Independent Chair referred to a separate piece of work that he was undertaking in relation to Child Sexual Exploitation to determine how effective Children and Young People’s Services was in protecting children and young people at the present time.  This was a separate piece of work to the Inquiry that had been commissioned by Rotherham’s Chief Executive. 

Discussion ensued and the following items were raised by member of the Improving Lives Select Commission: -

·         Impact of Welfare Reforms: – were referrals to social care services increasing as a result of the welfare reforms? 

o   An increase in contacts/referrals had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

Consideration was given to the report presented by Phil Morris, Business Manager (Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board), and Sam Newton, Safeguarding Manager (Health and Wellbeing, Neighbourhood and Adult Services) that outlined the legal and policy similarities between children and adult safeguarding, outlined the services provided by all organisations across the Borough and the potential for future joint working across Children’s and Adult’s Services. 

The report outlined a number of issues of difference between Children’s and Adult’s Services: -

·         The Council had a responsibility to safeguard all children and a responsibility to safeguard all vulnerableadults;

·         Where families had adults with social care needs (such as substance misuse or mental health needs) and the family also had children, there was a need for both sets of services to work together to ensure continuity and consistency of support;

·         Where there were adults in the family that were unable to protect themselves from abuse, it would be unlikely that they had the capacity to provide effective and safe parenting.

The report set-out the frameworks both Services were governed by: -

Children’s Safeguarding: -

·         Working Together, 2013, was national statutory guidance for safeguarding children;

·         Every local authority had to have an independent local safeguarding children board;

·         Rotherham’s Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) was established as a statutory body following the Children Act, 2004;

·         Rotherham’s LSCB was chaired by an independent person and had senior representatives from all agencies that operated across the Borough, including the services that worked with adults. 

Adults’ Safeguarding: -

·         There was a range of pieces of legislation and guidance supporting social care for adults.  These included ‘No Secrets’ and guidance provided by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Care (ADASS);

·         A policy framework from the ADASS had been implemented through the South Yorkshire Safeguarding Adults Procedures.  All relevant partners, including the police and NHS, had signed up to this in order to work together to safeguard adults from abuse;

·         Rotherham’s Safeguarding Adult Board had been established in 2003. 

Links between the two Services on their formal frameworks: -

·         The Rotherham LSCB had representatives from services working with both children and their parents;

·         The Adult Safeguarding Board had representation from the Director for Health and Wellbeing, representing Adult Services, and the Director for Safeguarding Children and Families’ Services, representing Children’s Service;

·         The specific links between the two Services occurred mainly when adults who were parents or carers were: -

o   Adults with substance abuse;

o   Adults involved in domestic abuse;

o   Adults with mental health problems;

o   Adults who were involved in criminal activity;

o   Adults with disabilities or learning difficulties.

·         The text in bold indicated the main areas of concern for both Services within Rotherham, including working with parents who had learning difficulties;

·         Joint work was undertaken between Children’s and Adults’ Services in the transition of young people with significant learning difficulties and disabilities as they became adults;

·         The Children and Young People and Families Strategic Partnership Board was the overall strategic planning group  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

Consideration was given to the report that outlined the main findings and the recommendations of the scrutiny review of domestic abuse services in Rotherham. 

Minute No. 48 (Work Programme Update) of the Improving Lives Select Commission meeting held on 23^rd January, 2013, agreed to undertake a scrutiny review of domestic abuse services as part of the 2013/2014 work programme. 

The submitted report outlined the information presented to the Select Commission at this meeting and the scope of the review subsequently undertaken. 

The review had been concluded and it was found that there was excellent local work taking place driven by the Domestic Abuse Priority Group on behalf of the Safer Rotherham Partnership.  This had brought about positive changes to local practice in the last few years. 

Areas for further improvements included: -

·         There was less consistency and integrated working by partners for standard and medium risk cases;

·         The Independent Domestic Violence Advocacy Service represented the voice of the victim and co-ordinated measures to reduce the risk to victims and their families.  However, it was only funded on a year-by-year basis, something which was inconsistent with the level of priority afforded to domestic abuse within the Safer Rotherham Partnership.  The short-term approach inhibited service planning for the essential and effective service;

·         Funding allocation for target hardening and early intervention and prevention had reduced in recent years and required further review as the effectiveness of easy and low-cost intervention had the potential to prevent escalation. 

The submitted scrutiny review report outlined the twenty recommendations of the review.  The twenty recommendations were grouped into the following categories: -

·         Commissioning and funding;

·         Strategy;

·         Roles and responsibilities;

·         Protocol and process;

·         Prevention and early intervention;

·         Forced marriage and so-called ‘honour’ based violence.

The focus of the review recommendations was to develop a more integrated domestic abuse service that had clear protocols and pathways for all risk levels and were understood by every partner agency.  It was also recommended that domestic abuse should be more integrated at a strategic level so that the other workstreams were addressing the impact it had on victims and families as the long-term effects to individual were harmful on many levels. 

Discussion ensued on the scrutiny review report: -

·         Domestic abuse was not always reflected in the Council’s strategic frameworks;

·         Short-term funding of the support agencies was inefficient and was leading them to use a disproportionate amount of their time seeking future funding streams;

·         Were all agencies using the same protocols?;

·         Did victims feel able to come forward and report these crimes;

·         Portrayal of domestic abuse within the media and television programmes;

·         Individuals can be both victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Resolved: -  (1)  That the report be received and the findings and recommendations of the scrutiny review be endorsed.

(2)  That the scrutiny review on domestic abuse report be forwarded to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board and then to Cabinet.

(3)  That Cabinet be requested to refer the report to the Safer Rotherham Partnership for their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24.

The Scrutiny Manager (Scrutiny Services, Legal and Democratic Services, Resources Directorate) presented a report that outlined a joint review that was being undertaken by the Improving Lives and Health Select Commissions on the support available for carers. 

A Members’ Seminar had recently covered the topic of carers, and one of the comments raised by Elected Members was that sometimes carers were unable to get adequate support and access to services. 

Councillor B. Steele, Chair of the Health Select Commission, would be the Chair of the Joint Scrutiny Review. 

The submitted report outlined: -

·         The accepted definition of a carer;

·         The profile of carers in Rotherham, which showed that, compared to national averages, Rotherham had higher numbers of carers caring for higher numbers of hours per week;

·         Existing strategies to support carers were the ‘Rotherham Carers’ Charter’ and ‘Joint Action Plan for Carers 2013-2016’, which included priority areas;

·         Neighbourhood and Adult Services had already committed to undertaking an Officer review, it was intended that the Scrutiny Review would add value to this exercise;

·         The potential scope of the review: -

o   Looking at available support from the perspective of carers, especially adult carers of adults with long term conditions such as dementia, focusing on access to information;

o   Did all carers identify themselves as a carer?

o   Did they consider that they need support?

o   Who did they go to for initial support when becoming a carer?

o   Where did they go for support?

Discussion ensued on the information presented and the proposed review: -

·         Working with and supporting young carers;

·         How did carers define their role, and did ‘caring’ differ from the tasks that extended families would expect to do for one another in the course of life?;

·         Caring responsibilities usually built up gradually over time. 

Expressions of interest were sought from the members of the Improving Lives Select Commission.

Resolved: -  (1)  That the report be received and its content noted. 

(2)  That Councillors J. Hamilton, Lelliott and Pitchley join the Scrutiny Review group.

(3)  That all of the co-opted members of the Improving Lives Select Committee be contacted about joining the Scrutiny Review. 

During consideration of the Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board’s Annual Report, a member of the Improving Lives Select Commission asked for clarity on the correct ways to report concerns about a child’s welfare. 

What to do if you are worried about or have concerns about a child in Rotherham: -

·         If it is an emergency ring 999;

·         Contact Children’s Social Care Services (Contact and Referral Team) – 01709  823987 (Out of Hours – 01709 336080 );

·         If you would like to share information which might help protect a child – Crimestoppers -  0800 555 111 anonymously, or the Police on 101;

·         Or Childline – 0800 1111;

·         For advice and information relating to Safeguarding Children Issues – Rotherham Safeguarding Children Unit 01709 823914.

·         Wednesday 6^th November, 2013, to start at 1.30 p.m. in the Rotherham Town Hall. 

Resolved: -  That the next meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission take place on Wednesday 6^th November, 2013, to start at 1.30 p.m. in the Rotherham Town Hall.