Agenda and minutes

To agree the procedure for the operation of hybrid meetings.

RESOLVED

THAT the guidance on hybrid meetings be noted.

To Note: All

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillors Khatoon and McAnena.

Apologies for lateness were received from Angela Mason, Cabinet Member for Best Start for Children and Families

No declarations were made.   

Broadcast of the meeting

The Chair to announce the following: ‘In addition to the rights by law that the public and press have to record this meeting, I would like to remind everyone that this meeting is being broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and can be viewed on our website for twelve months after the meeting. After that time, webcasts are archived and can be made available upon request.

If you have asked to address the meeting, you are deemed to be consenting to having your contributions recorded and broadcast, including video when switched on, and to the use of those sound recordings and images for webcasting and/or training purposes.’

Any other announcements

The Chair announced that  -

 ‘In addition to the rights by law that the public and press have to record this meeting, I would like to remind everyone that this meeting is being broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and can be viewed on our website for twelve months after the meeting. After that time, webcasts are archived and can be made available upon request.

If you have asked to address the meeting, you are deemed to be consenting to having your contributions recorded and broadcast, including video when switched on, and to the use of those sound recordings and images for webcasting and/or training purposes.’

Other announcements

Councillor Stark had written to the Chair, Councillor Eslamdoust and the Executive Director for Supporting People about the anti-Semitic graffiti that had recently been daubed in the Belsize area of the borough and wanted to bring it to the attention of the scrutiny committee. Councillor Stark asked what approach was being taken in schools to address hate crime and discrimination.     

The Executive Director said that the graffiti was unacceptable and shocking. The Council was working in partnership with schools and the wider community to address local and national tensions and to proactively prevent and address hate crime. It should not be assumed that the young person involved was a Camden child but advice and guidance would be issued to head teachers and schools. 

The Chair added that the graffiti was deeply offensive and that swift action should be taken to have it removed. She would talk to Councillor Stark and the Executive Director after the meeting.         

There were no deputations.

There was no urgent business.  

Consideration was given to a report of the Executive Director Supporting People.

In Camden the statutory safeguarding partners, with equal responsibility for safeguarding children in the borough and leading the work of the Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership (CSCP) were Camden Council, North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Central North Basic Command Unit (BCU) of the London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

There was a statutory requirement to publish this safeguarding annual report and comments from the scrutiny committee would be fed back to the Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership.

The annual report provided an analysis of the impact of the Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership (CSCP) in maintaining good governance and strategic oversight of the quality and performance of the local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.  The six CSCP objectives were summarised at 1.4 of the report and the four agreed priorities for increased focus in 2020 to 2022 were summarised for the committee. They also heard  from  CSCP partnership organisations and the Independent Scrutineer about their role and the essential role of schools and education partners in the crucial protection of children during the pandemic.       

Dominic Clout,had previously been the Borough Commander for the London Borough of Camden and then subsequently the Independent Chair of the Camden Safeguarding Children Board. He was now the Independent Scrutineer for the CSCP and two years into the new arrangements spoke to the committee about  how the statutory partners had worked together in the last year. He identified  the vital need for consistent strategic leadership and said that he had seen this demonstrated by the leads for each partnership group. Having attended all the fortnightly board meetings, he had seen them work together in real time, on dynamic collective decision making with joint accountability and strong challenge. The CSCP business plan underpinned  the work taking place to protect the vulnerable.

This was a detailed report of work in an extraordinary year but the committee could be assured that the children and young people in Camden were safeguarded. 

The committee welcomed the hard work and commitment to safeguarding during the Covid-19 pandemic and thanks for leadership by the board were expressed. During consideration of the report the following points and questions were raised:   

·       The report was very long and detailed, how accessible was it and  who was the audience?  Safeguarding was hugely complex how could it be made more accessible?

·       Why had there been a rise in home schooling, was this monitored?  

·       What could be done better next time?

·       What was being done to proactively raise safeguarding as an issue and what work was taking place with community and faith leaders? How sensitive had safeguarding been in meeting cultural needs and intersectionality?

·       How would improvements, as highlighted in section 9 (Annual Report document) be put into practice?

·       How were vulnerable parents supported?

·       What had been learnt from the increase in the events alerted in the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) (page 46 of the report) that could inform future practice?   

·       Was the threshold for concern  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Report of the Executive Director Supporting People

This report provides information about complaints made to the Children’s statutory services in the London Borough of Camden during the twelve months between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. It is a statutory requirement to produce an annual report which is published on the Council’s website.

Consideration was given to a report of the Executive Director Supporting People that provided information about complaints made to children’s statutory services in the London Borough of Camden during the twelve months between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. 

The committee was told that the experience of children, young people and their families would be used to inform the future practice of the service.  An example of this was following a complaint from a parent who had not been responded to in a timely way. This had been addressed by introducing a system that would effectively track and record each stage of the complaint and ensure that complainants were kept informed of each stage.    

The responsiveness of the service to addressing complaints while ensuring that children and young people were safeguarded was welcomed. The committee also welcomed the focus and setting out of disproportionality and asked for further information about the demographics of who made complaints and how accessible was the complaints process? 

In response the scrutiny committee was told the following:

·       When families are seen for the first time they are provided with the information they need to make a complaint. At each stage of working with families they are asked about what isn’t working for them. As well as being provided with a variety of mechanisms to make the service more accessible or provide support for challenge. Examples of this included interpreters, Independent Reviewing Officers, independent services for child advocacy and family group conferences  

·       A data cleanse was taking place to check anomalies, errors and ensure that family records and information were correct. One particular update was to the options for selecting ethnicity - in recognition that it was important for service users to see themselves accurately recorded. This was respectful and a key part of building relationships with families and learning from them to bring about improvements to the service.  There was always work to be done and always more to learn.

A briefing note would be provided to the scrutiny on the progress with this work.

Action By: Executive Director Supporting People

RESOLVED

THAT the report be noted

To Note: All

Report of the Executive Director Supporting People 

This report sets out the work programme for the municipal year 2021/22 for the committee’s consideration. The committee will continue to be provided with an updated report on their future work programme at each meeting, for their consideration.

Consideration was given to a report of the Executive Director Supporting People that set  out the work programme for the municipal year 2021/22 for the committee’s consideration.

In response to questions the committee was provided with the following updates:

·       The aspects in the Healthy Streets Scrutiny Panel report concerning the health of children and young people would be considered as part of the annual health report to this scrutiny committee

·       The Executive Director Supporting Children had met with the Camden Youth MP and would make further contact about hearing from the Youth Council at scrutiny. The Young Inspectors report on their most recent inspection was listed in the work programme for January  

·       The officer response report to the recommendations of the school exclusion scrutiny panel was listed on the work programme for January

RESOLVED

THAT the report be noted

To Note: All

The Children, Schools and Families Scrutiny Committee is

asked to note that the next meeting will take at place at 6.30pm on

Tuesday 14 December 2021 and to also note the following meeting dates.

·       Tuesday 18 January 2022

·       Tuesday 1 March 2022 

It was noted that the next meeting would take place at 6.30pm on

  Tuesday 14 December 2021 and the following schedule of meeting dates was also noted -

·       Tuesday 18 January 2022

·       Tuesday 1 March 2022 

To Note: All

There was no such business.