Issue - meetings

Further to Minute 15 (18 June 2019), the Cabinet Member for Social Care and Health Integration introduced a report on the intention to dissolve the formal arrangement whereby the statutory responsibility for children’s safeguarding rested with the Barking, Havering, and Redbridge (BHR) Safeguarding Partnership and return that responsibility to a local level, via the Barking and Dagenham Safeguarding Children Partnership (BDSCP).

The Cabinet Member explained that whilst the BHR Safeguarding Partnership had brought a number of benefits, it was now acknowledged by all partners that greater attention needed to be given at a local level to the specific safeguarding issues that each Council was faced with, due to the sheer number of cases being presented.  There would continue to be an informal strategic overview arrangement whereby the three Councils would meet to discuss common and/or cross-cutting safeguarding issues; however, the statutory responsibility for children’s safeguarding would return to a Borough-based approach as soon as possible.

Cabinet resolved to agree that the governance of the statutory responsibility for multi-agency safeguarding children revert to being at the local level with effect from April 2022, led by the statutory safeguarding partners through the Barking and Dagenham Safeguarding Children Partnership.