18. LSCB's, Quality Assurance and Conflict Resolution

Objectives

The core objectives of the LSCB are to, as far as possible:

• Co-ordinate, monitor and support what is done by each person or body represented on the LSCB for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority;
• Ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for that purpose.

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as:

• Protecting children from maltreatment;
• Preventing impairment of children's health or development;
• Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
• Enabling children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

LSCB role

Scope of the role

First, activity that affects all children and aims to identify and prevent maltreatment, or impairment of health or development, and ensure children are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care, e.g.:

• Mechanisms to identify abuse and neglect wherever they may occur;
• Work to increase understanding of safeguarding children issues in the professional and wider community, promoting the message that safeguarding is everybody's responsibility;
• Work to ensure that agencies working or in contact with children, operate recruitment and human resources practices that take account of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children;
• Monitoring the effectiveness of agencies' implementation of their duties under s11 of the Children Act 2004;
• Ensuring children know who they can contact when they have concerns about their own or others' safety and welfare;
• Ensuring that adults (including those who are harming children) know who they can contact if they have a concern about a child or young person.

Second, pro-active work that aims to target particular groups, e.g:

• Developing / evaluating thresholds and procedures for work with children and families where a child has been identified as 'in need' under the Children Act 1989, but where the child is not suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm;
• Work to safeguard and promote the welfare of groups of children who are potentially more vulnerable than the general population, for example children living away from home, children who have run away from home, children in custody, or disabled children.

Thirdly, responsive work to protect children who are suffering, or at risk of suffering harm, including:

• Children abused and neglected within families, including those harmed in the context of domestic violence (see section 5.11. Domestic violence) and as a consequence of the impact of substance misuse (see section 5.31. Parents who misuse substances);
• Children abused outside families by adults known to them;
• Children abused and neglected by professional carers, within institutional settings, or anywhere else where children are cared for away from home;
• Children abused by strangers;
• Children abused by other young people (see 5.18. Harming others);
• Young perpetrators of abuse (see 5.18. Harming others);
• Children abused through sexual exploitation (see section 5.40. Sexually exploited children).

Accountability for operational work

Policies and procedures function

This includes concerns under both s17 and s47 of the Children Act 1989, and includes:

• Setting out thresholds for referrals to children's social care of children who may be in need, and processes for robust multi-agency assessment of children in need;
• Agreeing inter-agency procedures for s47 enquiries and developing local protocols on key issues of concern such as children abused through prostitution; children living with domestic violence, substance abuse, or parental mental illness; female genital mutilation; forced marriage; children missing from school; children who may have been trafficked and safeguarding Looked After children who are away from home;
• Setting out how s47 enquiries and associated police investigations should be conducted, and in particular, in what circumstances joint enquiries are necessary and/or appropriate.

Training of persons who work with children or in services affecting the safety and welfare of children

Recruitment and supervision of persons who work with children

Investigation of allegations concerning persons working with children

Safety and welfare of children who are privately fostered

Co-operation with neighbouring local authorities and their board partners

Other policies and procedures

Communication and raising awareness function

LSCBs should communicate to persons, agencies and groups in the area of the authority the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, raising their awareness of how this can best be done, and encouraging them to do so, e.g. by:

• Contributing to a public awareness raising campaign about how everybody can contribute to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children;
• Listening to and consulting children and young people and ensuring that their views are taken into account in planning and delivering safeguarding and promoting welfare services.

Monitoring and evaluation function

LSCBs should monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of what is done by the local authority and board partners individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and advise them on ways to improve, e.g. by:

• Requiring agencies to self-evaluate under an agreed framework of benchmarks or indicators and share the results with the board. It might also involve leading multi-agency arrangements to contribute to self evaluation reports;
• Undertaking joint-audits of case files to evaluate multi-agency working, looking at the involvement of the different agencies, and identifying the quality of practice and lessons to be learned in terms of both multi-agency and multi-disciplinary practice.

LSCBs should advise the local authority and board partners on ways to improve, e.g. by:

• Making recommendations (such as the need for further resources);
• Helping agencies to develop new procedures;
• Disseminating best practice;
• Bringing together expertise in different agencies and groups;
• Supporting capacity building and training.

Planning and commissioning function

Function relating to child deaths

From 1 April 2008 LSCBs will have compulsory functions set out in regulations relating to child deaths (these functions can be carried out from 1 April 2006). These are to:

• Have in place arrangements for a rapid response to each unexpected death of a child, by a group of key professionals who come together for the purpose of enquiring into and evaluating the death (see section 12. Unexpected death of a child);
• Put in place a multi-agency child death overview panel (see section 18.3. Child death review panels).

Serious case review function

Other activities

Each CDRP must collect and analyse information about the deaths of all children in its area with a view to identifying:

• Any matters of concern affecting the safety and welfare of children in the CDRP's area (see section 18.3.4), including any case giving rise to the need for a serious case review;
• Any general public health or safety concerns arising from deaths of children.

CDRP accountability and membership

The functions of the CDRP will include:

• Implementing, in consultation with the local coroner, local procedures and protocols which are in line with this guidance on enquiring into unexpected deaths and evaluating these together with information about all deaths in childhood;
• Meeting sufficiently frequently to enable each child's case to be discussed in a timely manner. Using the meetings to evaluate the routinely collected data on the deaths of all children and thereby identifying lessons to be learnt or issues of concern, with a particular focus on effective inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children;
• Having a mechanism to evaluate specific cases in depth, where necessary, at subsequent meetings;
• Monitoring the appropriateness of the professionals' responses to each unexpected death of a child, their involvement before the death and relevant environmental, social, health and cultural aspects of each death. Reviewing the reports produced by the rapid response team on each unexpected death of a child, considering thoroughly how such deaths might be prevented in the future and making a full record of this discussion and providing the professionals with feedback on their work;
• Where there is an ongoing criminal investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service must be consulted as to what it is appropriate for the panel to be considering and what actions it might take in order not to prejudice any criminal proceedings;
• Referring to the Chair of the LSCB any deaths where, on evaluating the available information, the Panel considers there may be grounds to undertake further enquiries, investigations or a Serious Case Review and explore why this had not previously been recognised;
• Informing the Chair of the LSCB where specific new information should be passed to the coroner or other appropriate authorities;
• Providing relevant information to those professionals involved with the child's family, so that they in turn can convey this information in a sensitive and timely manner to the family;
• * Monitoring the support and assessment services offered to families of children who have died;
• Monitoring and advising the LSCB on the resources and training required locally to ensure an effective inter-agency response to child deaths;
• Organising and monitoring the collection of data for the nationally agreed minimum data set, where relevant seeking information from professionals and family members and make recommendations (to be approved by LSCBs) for any additional data to be collected locally;
• Identifying any patterns or trends in the local data and report these to the LSCB procedures to be followed by the local CDRP;
• Identifying any public health issues and considering with the Director/s of Public Health how best to address these and their implications for both the provision of services and for training;
• Co-operating with regional and national initiatives (e.g. the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health [CEMACH]) to identify lessons on the prevention of unexpected child deaths.

Notification of a death

Deaths should be notified by the professional confirming the fact of the child's death. The notification should be at the same time to:

• The coroner;
• The LSCB Chair;
• The designated person for unexpected child deaths in the area in which the child's death occurred.

Independence

LSCBs should use their strong working relationship with the children's trust and wider strategic partnerships within a local authority area to:

• Form a view of the quality and effectiveness of local children activity in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children;
• Challenge agencies as necessary; and to
• Speak with an independent voice.

Chair

Relationship between the LSCB, the children's trust and other local children's services

Membership

Members should be people with a strategic role in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children within their agency. They should be able to:

• Speak for their agency with authority;
• Commit their agency on policy and practice matters holding their agency to account.

Statutory members

The LSCB should include representatives of the local authority and its board partners, the statutory agencies which are required to co-operate with the local authority in the establishment and operation of the board and have shared responsibility for the effective discharge of its functions. These are:

• The Metropolitan Police Borough Commander and DI/DCI representing the CAIT working in the borough;
• The Local Probation Board for an area any part of which falls within the area of the borough;
• The Youth Offending Team within the borough;
• Strategic Health Authority and Primary Care Trust (PCTs) for an area any part of which falls within the borough;
• NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts all or most of whose hospitals or establishments and facilities are situated in the borough;
• The Connexions service providing services in any part of the area of the borough;
• CAFCASS (Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service);
• The Governor or Director of any Secure Training Centre within the borough;
• The Governor or Director of any prison within the borough which ordinarily detains children.

Other members

The local authority should also secure the involvement of other relevant local agencies where a representative is made available:

• NSPCC;
• Faith groups;
• State, independent and extended schools;
• Further education colleges, including 6th form colleges;
• Children's centres;
• GPs;
• Independent healthcare agencies;
• Voluntary and community sector agencies.

Involvement of other agencies and groups

There will be other agencies which the LSCB needs to link to, either through inviting them to join the LSCB, or through some other mechanism, e.g:

• The Coronial Service;
• Dental health services;
• Domestic violence forums;
• Drug and alcohol misuse services;
• Drug Action Teams;
• Housing, culture and leisure services;
• Housing providers;
• Local authority legal services;
• Local multi-agency public protection arrangements;
• Local sports agencies and groups and services;
• Local family justice council;
• Local Criminal Justice Board;
• Other health providers such as pharmacists;
• Representatives of service users;
• Sexual health services;
• The Crown Prosecution Service;
• Witness support services;
• The London Safeguarding Children Board.

The role of individual members

Ways of working

LSCBs should set up working groups, sub-groups or panels, on a short-term or a standing basis to:

• Carry out specific tasks (e.g. maintaining and updating procedures and protocols, reviewing serious cases and identifying inter-agency training needs);
• Provide specialist advice (e.g. in respect of working with specific ethnic and cultural groups or with disabled children and / or parents);
• Bring together representatives of a sector (e.g. schools, the voluntary and community sector, faith groups or from a geographical area within the LSCB's boundaries) to discuss relevant issues and to provide a contribution to LSCB work.

Participation of children and their families

Financing and staffing

The core contributions should be provided by:

• The responsible local authority;
• The PCT/s;
• The police.

Staffing for each LSCB should be agreed locally by the board partners. An effective LSCB needs to be staffed so that it has the capacity to:

• Drive forward the LSCB's day-to-day business in achieving its objectives, including its co-ordination and monitoring / evaluating work;
• Take forward any training and staff development work carried out by the LSCB, in the context of the local workforce strategy;
• Provide administrative and organisational support for the Board and its sub-committees, and those involved in policy and training.

Planning

The LSCB's monitoring and evaluation function

In order to ensure the effectiveness of local agencies' actions to safeguard and promote the welfare of children the LSCB should initiate and oversee a peer review process based on self-evaluation, performance indicators and joint audit. Its aim is to:

• Promote high standards of safeguarding work;
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement;
• Identify and act on weaknesses in services;
• To avoid unnecessary duplication of work the LSCB should ensure that its monitoring role complements and contributes to the work of both the children's trust and the inspectorates.

There will be instances where a local agency is not performing effectively in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and the LSCB is not convinced that any planned action to improve performance will be adequate. Where this occurs, the LSCB Chair or a member or employee designated by the chair, should explain these concerns to the individuals and agencies that need to be aware of the failing and may be able to take action, e.g. to:

• The most senior individual/s in the agency;
• The relevant inspectorate, and, if necessary;
• The relevant government department.

The local inspection framework will play an important role in reinforcing the ongoing monitoring work of the LSCB. LSCBs should contribute their views about the quality of local activity to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and draw on information, from the:

• Joint Area Reviews (JARs) of children's services;
• Annual performance assessments of LA children's services (by Ofsted and the Commission for Social Care Inspection);
• Work of other inspectorates, such as the Healthcare Commission, and HM Inspectorates of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation.

Individual agencies' quality assurance

Effective workload management and information systems should be implemented to:

• Clearly track responses to referrals;
• Collect quantitative data on the work of the teams;
• Plan and resource services to meet local needs.

Management systems should be implemented to ensure:

• Clear definitions of work that is 'allocated' to include a named worker regularly working with a child in a planned and purposeful way, endorsed by the line manager;
• Services and support provided is commensurate with need, including allocation of staff;
• Systems are in place to cover staff sickness, leave and training;
• Cases are only closed following adequate assessment and review and that the views and wishes of the child and parents have been taken into account;
• Section 47 enquiries and child protection cases are allocated in LA children's social care to qualified social workers with the skills for the task;
• Systems are designed to ensure that all relevant professionals are invited to participate in planning and review meetings, including hospital based staff;
• All practitioners working with children receive regular supervision  from managers with experience and expertise in child care work;
• Managers scrutinise the work of staff, including reviewing case files and recording decisions.

Safeguarding Children Report: The second joint chief inspector's review of children's safeguards (2005)

Some of the findings from the report, for all agencies directly involved with children, are extracted here. LSCBs and their member agencies should consider these points when assessing their own and other agencies' effectiveness in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children:

• Some agencies still give insufficient priority to safeguarding and children's interests and there are some groups of children (disabled children and those living away from home) who are not sufficiently recognised or prioritised;
• There are still considerable concerns about the differing thresholds applied by LA children's social care in their child protection and family support work and about the lack of understanding of the role of children's social workers by other agencies;
• Some agencies do not monitor how far the safeguarding ethos has spread throughout their organisation;
• There is still considerable variation in the membership and effectiveness of Area Child Protection Committees. LSCBs need to put in place more effective arrangements for local leadership, joint working, wider engagement, monitoring and review and sharing of good practice in safeguarding;
• Agencies other than LA children's social care are often unclear about how to recognise the signs of abuse or neglect, are uncertain about the thresholds that apply to child protection and do not know to whom they should refer their concerns;
• Some LA children's social care services apply inappropriately high thresholds in responding to child protection referrals and in taking action to protect children;
• Because some LA children's social care services are unable to respond to families requiring support, other agencies do not refer children when concerns about their welfare first emerge;
• Arrangements for sharing information and joint-working between agencies do not always work well and there can be delays in addressing risk factors for children, their health issues and their education needs. This is of particular concern where a council places children Looked After in another council area without notification.

Unallocated child protection cases

Priority status

Safeguards pending allocation

Unallocated cases must be:

• Discussed at allocation meetings;
• Reported to the child protection manager;
• Monitored at management meetings to ensure quick allocation and appropriate case management until then.

The first line manager remains accountable for ensuring that:

• Any statutory or explicit duties (e.g. Looked After children reviews or child protection review conferences) are met, deploying duty staff as required;
• Any immediate issues which arise in the case are resolved;
• Their manager remains aware that a child protection place is unallocated;
• The family are kept updated;
• Regular 'duty' visits are undertaken on unallocated child protection cases.

Dissent at referral and enquiry stage

Most day-to-day inter-agency differences of opinion will require a LA children's social care team manager to liaise with their (first line manager) equivalent in the relevant agencies, e.g:

• A police detective sergeant;
• A named or designated health professional;
• Designated teacher.

These first line managers should seek advice from their agency's nominated / designated child protection adviser.

Dissent regarding the implementation of a protection plan

Where professional differences remain