Agenda item

This agenda item will consider an update on the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Annual Report 2023-2024.

The report includes an overview of the developments made by the Partnership in the last year, including the progress of the new delivery groups for Neglect and Safeguarding in Education. It also details the work of the Child Exploitation delivery group and the work of the Performance, Practice and Learning group, and major milestones achieved.

The agenda item considered an update on the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Annual Report for 2023-2024.

The Chair welcomed to the meeting, Councillor Cusworth, Cabinet Member for Children’s and Young Peoples Services, Laura Koscikiewicz, District Commander for South Yorkshire Police, Julie Warren-Sykes Deputy Chief Nurse and Designated Nurse for Safeguarding and Looked-after Children, Tony Morrisey, Interim Head of Safeguarding and Darren Downs, Independent Scrutineer for the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership.

The Chair invited the Cabinet Member to introduce the report and the following was noted:

·       There was strong partnership working in Rotherham which had transformed over the years.

·       The report was easily accessible and contained useful information and assurances.

The Chair invited the Independent Scrutineer for the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership to give the presentation and the following was noted:

Background-

·       The Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership was required to publish an annual report.

·       The annual report reflected the partnership’s commitment and achievements for 2023/2024 and identified areas that required continued improvements, to ensure the overarching priorities would be met, which were being safe at home, safe in the community and having safe safeguarding systems in place.

·       The report highlighted the developments that had been made by the partnership throughout the last year, including the progress of the new delivery groups for neglect and safeguarding in education. It also detailed the work of the Child Exploitation Delivery Group and the Performance, Practice and Learning Group, as well as all major milestones that had been achieved.  The Performance, Practice and Learning Group was led by the Interim Head of Safeguarding.

·       The report provided context on the partnerships plans for future years, and how the partnership would continue to build and strengthen further, with a focus on exploitation, neglect and safeguarding in education.

Key Issues-

·       The annual report highlighted and celebrated the work of the partnership throughout 2023-2024. In 2023-2024 the partnership retained its key principles in respect of Rotherham’s children, which were as follows:

o   Safe at Home

o   Safe in the Community

o   Safe Safeguarding Systems.

·       It was an active year, the partnership aligned with new strategic priorities for neglect and safeguarding in education, this was a first of its kind in England. This was in addition to continuing the well-established Child Exploitation Delivery Group and workplan. The partnership consolidated the quality assurance, training and child safeguarding review process into a new Practice, Performance and Learning Delivery Group. The partnership was also finalising the Safeguarding in Education Strategy.

·       The report set out key achievements in priority areas, such as the delivery of training and key data which demonstrated the Rotherham context.

·       A new Child Exploitation Strategy was implemented in July 2024.

Key Achievements-

·       There was a reduction in children subject to child protection plans and children looked after by the Local Authority.

·       5 audit processes were completed which focused on care leavers, including transitions and exploitation, persistent school absence, Early Help, including joint targeted area inspection preparation and persistent youth violence.

·       975 staff attended training from across the partnership.

·       There was a thematic focused visit from Ofsted in May 2024, which evidenced findings such as strong partnership working and was complementary overall.

·       A recent SEND Inspection took place in September 2024, with the formal outcome outstanding, however there had been positive feedback provided to the partnership about the strength of partnership working.

·       There were several on-going reviews awaiting a conclusion, these would feature in next year’s iteration of the annual report.

The Future-

·       Appendix One contained a plan on a page which confirmed the governance and structure of the partnership in the future.

·       The key future change would be Working Together 2023, the partnership would be required to comply with the guidance set out within Working Together 2023 by December 2024. Minor changes had been implemented as a result of the new legislation, relating to multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, the changes were approved via governance processes within each retrospective partner organisation.

The Chair thanked the relevant officer for the presentation and invited questions, this led to the following points being raised during discussions:

·       In relation to training (page 32), the data included the numbers of people who attended the training, Members felt that it would be beneficial for comparison purposes for the data to include the number of how many people were expected, and/or required to attend the training. Reassurance was provided that the training data detailed within the report was solely the partnerships training and every partner organisation held their own training. The level of attendance at partnership training sessions was good in comparison to other partnerships.

·       There were 494 children and young people who were electively home educated within Rotherham, this was the lowest figure within the sub-region, there had been an increase in this area nationally. The partnerships Safeguarding and Education Group had a focus on elective home education and were working on understanding the reasons for parents choosing to electively home educate, however the service reiterated that it was an area of parental choice.

·       A recent audit in this area revealed that the main reasons were major dissatisfaction with school, particularly in respect to special educational needs and disabilities, mental health, increases after the pandemic and a lifestyle choice. The audit also looked at the process in place, the learning from the audit was that the Elective Home Education Team was working well, the enforcement processes were coherent and effective at identifying when children were beginning to be electively home educated and met the threshold for the process to be initiated. The audit also found that the school attendance audit process was robust, support for elective home education was timely, proactive, and when accepted by parents and carers it was effective. There were areas identified that required further strengthening, these were developing the Rotherham elective home education pathway to ensure the sharing of information across partner agencies, increasing consistency of recording the child’s voice, which was acknowledged as challenging to capture and the final recommendation related to expanding the governance group to the wider partnership.

·       The Elective Home Education Team successfully kept over 200 children in school, this was a result of the team supporting parents to explore all alternative options available to them at the point where they were considering electively home educating, the team worked with parents and schools to find a solution where possible.

·       There was a good level of engagement from schools and a good representation across the borough from schools who attended the Safeguarding and Education Group. All schools in the borough were invited to attend wider partnership meetings.

·       A partnership performance scorecard was developed, the scorecard showed a breakdown of attendance, absences, exclusions, and suspensions for every school within the borough. The partnership would focus on areas where the greatest impact could be achieved.

·       The partnership recognised that education was a central point for safeguarding children, there was national frustration relating to the new Working Together 2023 legislation, as it was felt that the role of education was not strong enough. The partnership engaged on a national level to provide feedback into the next iteration of the Working Together 2023, to encourage the strengthening of the role of education formally within legislation and ensure that more requirements would be in place for schools to engage in partnership arrangements. The partnership was in a strong position and not many other partnerships had a Safeguarding in Education Group.

·       All schools were requested to complete a Section 175 Audit which provided the local authority with assurances around what each school was doing in relation to safeguarding children and young people. The Safeguarding in Education Group planned to dip-sample some of the audits and provide challenge where required.

·       The website Local Government Inform had publicly accessible information on elective home education, such as how many children with special education needs and disabilities were electively home educated within the borough. There was a slight delay on the data on the website, however it was possible to compare data with statistical neighbours on the site.

·       The Cabinet Member attended a question panel with young people, where a young person asked how the Council was helping to prevent children and young people becoming involved in child criminal exploitation. The Cabinet Member explained the work of the Evolve Team within the borough to the young person. A question was asked of how the Council could engage children and young people’s voices in this area in particular. The Cabinet Member suggested that the Commission may wish to consider inviting a young person to attend a future Commission meeting, to engage their views. The Cabinet Member extended an invite to all elected members who wished to attend a Childrens and Young Peoples Partnership Board Meeting.

·       The partnership had good engagement with schools in the borough, an example was provided of how all eligible primary schools in the borough had visited the Lifewise Centre.

·       The partnership tracked data through the Evolve Team and Muti-Agency Child Exploitation Meetings. It was advised that in situations where the partnership had a higher number of referrals from a particular school and had identified an increased risk, schools engaged well with the partnership.

·       The partnership had a vulnerability assessment tracker in place, the tracker identified children and young people at risk, scored and tracked the risk throughout the intervention the process.

·       There had been a reduction in risk relating to the area of child sexual exploitation, in comparison to neighbouring boroughs within South Yorkshire, Rotherham had very few high-risk cases relating to child sexual exploitation. This was the result of identifying individuals at risk of child sexual exploitation at an earlier stage, via referrals and intelligence captured on locations, individuals, and schools.

·       The partnership was using the best practise established in the area of child sexual exploitation to develop the area of child criminal exploitation. It was acknowledged by the partnership that the position was not as strong for child criminal exploitation, this area had seen higher risk referrals and was an area that the partnership needed to invest further in, to identify child criminal exploitation at an earlier stage. This aligned with the national position on child criminal exploitation, as it was complex and newer. The partnership acknowledged that further work was required to understand the cross over and links between child criminal exploitation and child sexual exploitation, to ensure that the risk tracker would be able identify links in future. The Child Exploitation Group met once a week and during meetings intelligence from all partner agencies was shared.

·       Most neglect cases were a combination of more than one type of neglect, this often-included supervision neglect, nutritional neglect, educational neglect and medical neglect. Poverty was not an area of neglect, although partner organisations were aware of the cost-of-living crisis and the consequences resulting from poverty.

Resolved:- That the Improving Lives Select Commission:

1)    Consider the Annual Report

2)    Agree that further information is provided in next year’s iteration of the annual report, which includes the number of people who were invited and/or required to attend each training session, to enable better interpretation for the data.