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There is no summary of this meeting yet. Summaries are written once the council publishes the minutes, which are its official record of what a meeting decided. They usually appear a few weeks after the meeting.
There were no apologies for absence.
RESOLVED that County Councillor Gareth E. Jones be elected Vice-Chair for the ensuing year.
There were no Declarations of Interest from Members relating to items to be considered on the agenda.
The Committee did not receive any disclosures of prohibited party whips which a Member had been given in relation to the meeting in accordance with Section 78(3) of the Local Government Measure 2011.
The Chair was authorised to sign the minutes of the following meetings as correct records: 27-01-2023 31-01-2023 31-03-2023
Documents Considered: · Corporate Safeguarding Board Activity Report. Background: · The report provided a summary of the information provided to the Corporate Safeguarding Board in March 2023. · The report had been considered by the Cabinet in May, and would be considered by Governance and Audit Committee in June. · Update on Safeguarding Audits and Action Plan. · Five additional actions had been proposed and added to the action plan. · The action plan would be built into the Regulatory Tracker and reported during the quarterly performance meetings. · Anything specific to an individual Service would appear in their Service tracker and also in their regulatory tracker. · Two actions had been completed: · Corporate Safeguarding policy and a one page summary of the policy; · Review the need for 2 DBS policies – the review was complete and now the Council had 1 DBS policy for the whole of Council. · Feedback from Scrutiny and Cabinet · Feedback from the Committee and also the Governance and Audit Committee had been fed back to the Safeguarding Board. · Service Corporate Safeguarding Audits / Self Assessments · Self assessments had been completed by all services which included a safeguarding audit as part of the self assessment workbook. · The results would be considered by the Self-Assessment Panels and then included in the Council’s Self Assessment report. · The Safeguarding Board will be considering the results at its next meeting. · Safeguarding in contract management. · A new 4 tiered approach to contract management framework was being developed supported by workshops and training. · The Council was researching how other Councils communicated expectations regarding safeguarding and standards required to suppliers. Once completed this would be communicated to live contracts and embedded in future tendering processes with a planned roll out from April 2023. · The new Commercial Performance and Risk Board would be monitoring the roll out of new contract management approach with performance captured on the commercial dashboard to allow reporting to scrutiny and governance. · Child Performance and Child Employment. · Welsh Government had reminded Councils in 2022 of their statutory duties, rooted in 90 year old legislation and guidance had been updated in respect of child performance licences, child work permits and chaperone licences. · There was a lack of knowledge and understanding across the Council, organisations, employers and the public about the legislation and legal requirements. · More work was to be undertaken across the Council including strengthening cross departmental working, drafting a policy, and the issuing of communications. · A Number of reports by exception were provided to the Board including - Young People’s Housing (16/17 year olds); Elective Home Education; Mandatory Safeguarding Training including VAWDASV; Adult Social Care Safeguarding Performance including Deprivation of Liberty Standards; Childrens Social Services Safeguarding Performance; · Future Agenda Items to the Board included – Programming the Safeguarding Theme of the Month; Preparations for the annual national safeguarding week; annual private fostering report; Service Safeguarding Audits; Update on Safeguarding in Contract Management; Update on Child Performance Licences and Child employment Permits; Feedback on the National Safeguarding Week. Issues Raised by the Committee and Responses Received: Issues Raised by the Committee: Responses Received: · Would Young Farmers organisations who hold events annually need a licence. · Yes any group of individuals performing for the public have to have a licence. Clubs do generally do this for performers but there is a need for wider publication of the information so that all groups working with children are aware. Will be many next steps in respect of the provision of information. · Mandatory Training – numbers increased. How is training to be rolled out to those with no access to computers. · Will include this information in the next report. Group training sessions are being provided as well as individuals being able to access information on personal phones. · Training in schools is not recorded in the corporate information provided. The Committee wanted to see the training figures for schools and volunteers in contact with children figures included in the corporate figures. Has this been looked at. · The Director agreed to take this away and review. · Elective Home Education – numbers have increased. Is there any information about the quality of the education and how it is measured. What are the age ranges. Do children tend to come in and out of elective education and what effect does that have. · There is also a need to look at themes and reasons behind why children are being home educated. · The new guidance from Welsh Government places the responsibility on parents to evidence the quality of the education their children receive. This information will become clearer in future and it was suggested that the officer leading on this could come to scrutiny in future to provide clarification. · There are changes forthcoming in relation to elective education. Welsh Government are interested in numbers, roles and responsibilities. Elective education is also discussed at local and regional safeguarding boards. · Para 2.4 – contract management – 4 tier process. What is the timeline for the development – are we doing this or is it being undertaken by means of an external route. · Contracts – work is being undertaken by the Council’s Procurement Service following Cwmpas guidelines. The work was to be completed by April. It was suggested that Wayne Welsby (Professional Lead Procurement and Commercial Services) be invited to update Committee at the next meeting. · Mandatory training has improved which is positive but probably only slightly. What timelines do we have to make sure that services get their staff to complete the training. How long do we allow staff to complete training. · Safeguarding training numbers are somewhat improved. There are no timelines set for staff to complete the training. Staff are expected to complete the training when they start working for the Council. It is unclear if there is a hard core of staff not undertaking training, but those who have not completed the training does include staff who are away for a myriad of reasons. Heads of Service receive reports on compliance and it is their role to ensure that undertake the training. · What were the 5 actions agreed by the Board. · The updated action plan to be added to the report for future reports. · Themes of the month – how are you hoping to communicate the themes of the month in a timely way. · The Board is considering this as well as considering a 12 month programme. If there are any training requires as a result of the themes then people will need advanced notice of this. The Board will consider how communications will be undertaken. It will probably use usual channels but could also use forums such as the Tenants Scrutiny Panel, children’s forums. (The Chair suggested using Schools and Community Council clerks, County Councillors, leisure centres) · Self assessments – what peer reviews have there been of self assessments. · There have been Self Assessment Panels with Cabinet and EMT who challenge the information contained in the self assessments. Actions: · Democratic Services to remind officers of actions previously agreed by the Committee and included in the Committee tracker. · Director of Social Services to include information in next report about training undertaken in schools and by volunteers. · Further information to be provided to the Committee about elective education including new guidance from Welsh Government. Also look at what are the reasons / themes of why children being home educated. · Professional Lead Procurement and Commercial Services (Wayne Welsby) to be invited to attend a meeting to discuss contract management and safeguarding. · Director of Social Services to include Action plan with the Board report in future. Observations and Recommendations: · None.
Documents Considered: · Work Programme 2023-24 Actions: · Add Q1 performance reports onto work programme for September 2023. · Issue Q4 performance information to the Committee through Teams. · Write to Powys Teaching Health Board regarding the reconvened meeting – suggest 7 / 8 September. · Meeting 07-07-2023: · Annual Report of the Director of Social Services – issue to the Committee and seek comments via Teams. · Extra Care – update report to be provided in July and scheduled for a further review in the Autumn.
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