Agenda item

Consideration was given to a report presented by Caroline Webb, Senior Scrutiny and Member Development Officer, which detailed the draft report and recommendations of the scrutiny review of Rotherham’s plans to address child sexual exploitation following the Board’s agreement  to a more in-depth scrutiny of Rotherham’s plans to tackle child sexual exploitation which took place over two full days on Friday, 12th and Thursday, 18th December, 2014. 

The first day examined the experiences from and implications for the Local Government sector in addressing the challenges of child sexual exploitation; examining current performance and action plans, how agencies in Rotherham worked together to tackle child sexual exploitation; and how criminal justice agencies in Rotherham addressed child sexual exploitation.

The second day focussed on how agencies could provide timely and appropriate support to survivors and their families; and lastly a panel of academic witnesses, commenting on the wider implications of the Jay Report.

As part of the preparation for the scrutiny review, the Board agreed that two planning sessions were organised for Members. External facilitators were used for these sessions to provide independent advice and challenge. These planning sessions were used to identify and agreed objectives and questions for the two-day scrutiny. Anecdotal feedback from Members who participated in this preparation was very positive.

To ensure that priority areas were addressed sufficiently, the Board agreed the process for submission of questions. These were to be submitted in advance and sent to each of the witnesses to ensure that questions could be answered at the relevant session. This included the Member questions devised during the earlier planning sessions.

In addition, all Elected Members were written to with the review schedule and asked if they wished to submit questions to any of the sessions. A dedicated ‘slot’ was allocated at the opening session of each day for these to be asked.

At the end of each day, a summary of key issues was given. These have been incorporated into the draft recommendations as outlined in Section 2 of the report. Members’ comments were sought on these recommendations.

In order to ensure that the recommendations were incorporated in to the improvement activity of the Council, it was proposed that these be fed into the Corporate and Children and Young People’s Improvement Boards as appropriate.

Colleagues in Democratic Services were thanked for their support to the scrutiny process given the considerable task in capturing all the comments and information shared at the sessions.

Councillor Parker referred to the absence of any recommendation about the opportunities for staff, either from the Council, Health or the Police to come forward with information without recrimination as part of the Whistleblowing Policy and was advised that this may be picked up via the Corporate Government Inspection Report once published.  The profile of the Whistleblowing Policy needed to be promoted with a clear steer how staff could report in any concerns.

The Chairman asked the Board to consider whether or not they wished to include a specific recommendation about the Whistleblowing Policy or whether to allow Councillor Sansome, the Overview and Scrutiny Board Representative, to raise this as a concern at the next meeting of the RMBC/Trades Unions Joint Consultative Committee.

The Board were in agreement with allowing Councillor Sansome to raise this at the Joint Consultative Committee, as indicated above, as this was not an area that had been considered as part of the two day scrutiny sessions and had not featured in the discussions.

Councillor Wyatt reiterated his thanks to Democratic Services and Scrutiny Services for the value they added to the two day sessions and having not seen any outcomes asked how this supported the other work taking place.

The Senior Scrutiny and Member Development Officer confirmed that a meeting had taken place with the Chief Executive and the Children’s Commissioner, who recognised the scale of the work and the improvement activity taking place and the need for the recommendations from the scrutiny sessions to feed into the process whilst avoiding duplication.  A further meeting was to take place with the Director of Commissioning and Performance Management to go through the recommendations for any response and for any amendments to be proposed.

Councillor Read reinforced the need to have one action plan to tackle child sexual exploitation to ensure the same priorities/actions were being captured and for these to feed into the newly formed Children’s Improvement Board.

Councillor Sims also asked that the word “historic” in the first recommendation of (a) be changed to “historical”.

Councillor C. Vines expressed his concern over the Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children’s Board and whether it was fit for purpose and was advised by the Chairman that he had met with the Independent Chairman who had agreed that the Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board be included on the membership of the Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children’s Board as an observer.

Councillor Read pointed out that Councillor C. Vines was right to be concerned about the  Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children’s Board and that this should be flagged up by Scrutiny.  It was noted that the Annual Report was to be considered by the Improving Lives Select Commission at its next meeting.

The Board suggested that the final version of the report be submitted back to the next meeting for consideration before it was submitted to Cabinet.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the report be received.

(2)  That the comments raised be incorporated into the report for resubmission.

(3)  That the updated report be resubmitted to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board before it was forwarded to Cabinet; the Children’s Improvement Board and Corporate Improvement Board for consideration.