Aims, Core Principles and Objectives

Aims

The Local Safeguarding Children Board will focus on children and young people who are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm and on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of these children. In doing so, the Board will promote activities that protect children and young people from actual significant harm and the continuing risk of harm, that minimise the impact of harm, and that promote factors that enhance protection.

The Local Safeguarding Children Board will work to raise awareness within the wider community, taking into account differing backgrounds and needs, and among statutory, voluntary and independent agencies, about how everybody can contribute to safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.

Underpinning the LSCB’s work is the belief that every child matters, families count and communities make the difference.

Core Principles

1. Safeguarding children services in Bath and North East Somerset are based on the use of professional judgement within the framework of agreed guidance and procedures.

2. Safeguarding children practice in Bath and North East Somerset is multi-disciplinary at all stages of the process.

3. Safeguarding children services in Bath and North East Somerset are focused on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child by meeting the needs of the child and his/her family.

4. Safeguarding children services in Bath and North East Somerset recognise that intervention is most effective when parents and young people are fully engaged.

Core Objectives of the LSCB

1. To co-ordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children living in, attending school in, or visiting Bath and North East Somerset.

2. To ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for that purpose.

Overall Objectives

1. To develop and agree local policies and procedures for inter-agency work to safeguarding children within the framework provided by Working Together to Safeguard Children.

2. To audit and evaluate how well local services work together to safeguard children.

3. To put into practice objectives and performance indicators for safeguarding children, within the framework and objectives set out in the Children & Young People’s Plan, and ensure that the Plan takes into account priorities promoted by the LSCB Business Plan.

4. To encourage and help develop effective working relationships between different services and professional groups, parents, carers and young people based on trust and mutual understanding.

5. To ensure there is a level of agreement and understanding across agencies about operational definitions and thresholds for intervention.

6. To improve local ways of working in the light of the knowledge gained through national and local experience and research, and to make sure that any lessons learned are shared, understood and acted upon.

7. To help improve the quality of safeguarding children work and inter-agency working through specifying needs for inter-agency training and development, and ensuring that the training is delivered and evaluated. Further, that this training informs better practice and improved outcomes for children and young people.

8. To raise awareness within the wider community of the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare, and to explain how the wider community can contribute to these objectives.

9. To make sure that any lessons learned from case reviews are understood and acted upon: to communicate clearly to individual services and professional groups their shared responsibility for safeguarding children, and to explain how each can contribute.

Accountability and Reporting

The Local Safeguarding Children Board will be accountable to the Director of Children’s Services and the Lead Member for Children’s Services who will have a particular focus on how the local authority is fulfilling its responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. Whilst the LSCB will have a clear and distinct identity within the developing Children’s Trust governance arrangements, and will not be an operational sub committee of the Children’s Trust Board, it will provide reports to the existing Integration Project Board and the subsequent Children’s Trust arrangements for Bath and North East Somerset. The Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children Board will prepare reports on the effectiveness of the arrangements for the LSCB in Bath and North East Somerset to the Council Executive. Further, the LSCB’s own activities are part of the overall Children and Young People’s Plan and this will enable its work to be scrutinised by the Local Authority by other local partners and other key stakeholders. The inspection framework will also play an important role in reinforcing the ongoing monitoring of the work of the LSCB. The Joint Area Review process will take place every three years, and the Annual Performance Assessment will look at the contribution made to the outcomes for children and young people.

Whilst the LSCB plays the key role in co-ordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of local individuals’ and organisations’ work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, it is not accountable for their operational work. Each Board partner retains their own existing lines of accountability for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children by their Services. The LSCB does not have a power to direct other organisations but will advise the Local Authority and Board partners on ways to improve. When there are concerns about the work of partners and these cannot be addressed locally, the Chair of the LSCB will report these to the most senior individual in the partner organisation, to the relevant Inspectorate, and, if necessary, to the relevant Government Department.