I have been working since September 2023, as the Independent Scrutineer of arrangements for safeguarding children in Leeds. This is a role introduced by statutory partners in Leeds last year and the revised Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 made it a requirement for all safeguarding partnerships to appoint an independent scrutiny function going forward.
So what does a scrutineer do?
The role of the scrutineer is to ask questions about how well services are safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people in Leeds. This will take several forms:
- Reading documents about trends in cases reported by children’s social care, the NHS and police
- Advising the LSCP about its case reviews when children have suffered serious harm as a result of abuse or neglect
- Helping the LSCP to organise the reviews of cases and identifying good practice, which all practitioners can learn from to improve their work.
- Meeting with front line practitioners who have experience of working directly with children and young people
- Understanding children’s experiences when in contact with children’s social care, NHS and police safeguarding services
- Participating in multi-agency audits to explore how services work together and identify suggestions for improvements.
There is no set list of things for the scrutineer to do or how to do them. The above items above are just some of the possible examples.
The aim is to make sure that Leeds continues to do its best in keeping children and young people safe from harm and neglect.
In my role, it is important that I can advise the statutory partners of the state of safeguarding services and highlight future opportunities and challenges.
Update from the scrutineer
My reports to date have been positive about the state of safeguarding in Leeds. It is clear that different agencies work together well and that practitioners and managers are aware of the need and value of conversation where there are concerns. There is also full and frank discussion between senior leaders in the statutory agencies and the commitment to safeguarding children is uppermost for all agencies. There is also a thriving third sector providing a range of help to children, young people and families. The report of the JTAI inspection on arrangements concerning serious youth violence in Leeds published in May 2024, was evidence of the strength of multi-agency working and the priority given to excellence in practice with children and families. Through discussions with senior and junior staff, I have been struck by the level of pride which exists among the Leeds workforce and this pride is very much aligned with the encouragement to achieve the best outcomes for children.
I have developed a plan of independent scrutiny arrangements for 2024-25 and agreed this with the LSCP Executive. My activities have followed and continue to follow this plan. Some highlights of my activity to date are:
- I worked with LSCP member agencies to review and amend the structure of the LSCP and ensure that its sub-groups were working effectively and reporting on progress regularly to the Executive group.
- The above involved not least the establishment of an Audit and Review group to plan multi-agency audit and reviews, with the first of those currently underway. I attend this group which serves an especially important function to enable staff at all levels to ask and answer questions about how well safeguarding services work, and provides further evidence to support views on this.
- I attend all meetings of the Review Advisory Group and have collaborated closely with statutory partners in considering when and what forms of review might be undertaken in respect of individual cases where children have died or experienced serious harm as a result of abuse or neglect. The LSCP is now in the process of amending its processes and documentation to focus on analysis in these cases and it is encouraging that the National Panel responsible for oversight of case reviews recently agreed with the LSCP that a Rapid Review of one case was of high quality and that no further extended review was needed to learn lessons.
- I have met with groups of frontline staff in the Front Door service and the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust to understand views from those working closely with safeguarding issues and try to ensure that there is not a gap between LSCP priorities and the views of those working on the frontline. These meetings have highlighted some areas of excellent practice which I have been able to highlight with staff and senior managers.
- I helped to plan and lead the recent LSCP Self-Assessment event held at the Leeds City Museum on 9 July 2024. This was a well-attended event and enabled a space for very constructive reflections on preparedness for implementing Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023. The view of those attending was that Leeds was in a good place overall in respect of safeguarding and on course regarding the new Government guidance albeit acknowledging that there are challenges to negotiate now and in future.
Safeguarding is continuous. There are therefore a number of important steps to take still ahead of agencies in Leeds. Some of these are:
- The need to refine the guidance on the role of the Lead Practitioner for Children in Need to reflect the new requirements of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023.
- The need to ensure progress and next steps in work underway to consider some key questions about whether there are steps for further improvement in the three priority areas selected by the LSCP relating to safeguarding of adolescents, safeguarding through family help services and safeguarding of children affected by domestic abuse. This in turn will lead into discussions about whether these remain the right priorities or need refinement into 2025-26.
- Ensuring that the voices of children, young people and families influences not just individual practice but also the strategy and policy making of the LSCP.
- Publication of the multi-agency safeguarding arrangements in Leeds by the end of the year in line with Government requirement.
- Understanding progress of the LSCP sub-groups and review of any areas for development.
Safeguarding in the LSCP will always have a challenging agenda as staff and managers in all agencies seek to meet the needs as best as possible of children at risk of significant harm. It is clear however, that in Leeds the responsible agencies all demonstrate the courage to face these challenges, even where there are no easy answers to many of the questions posed.
In my role as Independent Scrutineer, I will be looking to understand, support and challenge where I can in helping agencies in Leeds to achieve excellence for those children most at risk of harm.
The Independent Scrutineer role is contracted for a limited number of days each month.
Safeguarding concerns about individual children and families should be directed to the Duty and Advice Team.