Scrutiny Workplan Item - Safeguarding of Children and Vulnerable Adults - Corporate Risk Update
To receive a verbal update on this item.
Minutes:
The Chairperson introduced the item and deferred to the Head of Service, Housing and Community Safety to provide a verbal update to the Committee on this scrutiny workplan item.
He took the Committee through the last Safeguarding Audit recommendations to assure Members on the progress achieved to date. The list of Volunteers and Contractors had been compiled with the advice of the Procurement Team and were available to all Officers on the website with overall responsibility for updates resting with departmental managers. A tiered approach with all designated trained Safeguarding Officers had been adopted for attendance at the Safeguarding Forums and having monitored the situation, this was now working well with good attendance levels and an action tracker in place for these meetings. The back office management system was working well with 62 safeguarding referrals processed and successfully completed over the past six months. Ongoing work included staff training, refresh of policies together with continuous improvement on the website. He assured Members that the Safeguarding Policy was reviewed at all meetings and a full review scheduled to take place in 2024/25.
The Committee noted that there had not been any actual safeguarding issues involving children and that the recommendations from the audit requiring further work related to managing risk and potential issues, not actual incidents.
Members commended the Head of Service, Housing and Community Safety for the work undertaken, and noted the update.