12.1 Safeguarding Children Partnership

A safeguarding partner in relation to a local authority area in England is defined under the Children Act 2004,  as amended by the Children and Social Work Act, 2017 as: (a) the local authority (b) a Integrated Care Board for an area any part of which falls within the local authority area (c) the chief officer of police for an area any part of which falls within the local authority area.

The three safeguarding partners for Brighton & Hove, East Sussex and West Sussex each agree  ways to co-ordinate their safeguarding services; act as a strategic leadership group in supporting and engaging others; and implement local and national learning including from serious child safeguarding incidents.

For more detailed information, please refer to Chapter 3, Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements 

For specific arrangements in each Safeguarding Partnership, please see the following websites, which will include the Annual Reports:

• Brighton & Hove
• East Sussex
• West Sussex

The purpose of the Safeguarding Partnership is to support and enable local organisations and agencies to work together in a system where:

• children are safeguarded, and their welfare promoted
• partner organisations and agencies collaborate, share and co-own the vision for how to achieve improved outcomes for vulnerable children
• organisations and agencies challenge appropriately and hold one another to account effectively
• there is early identification and analysis of new safeguarding issues and emerging threats
• learning is promoted and embedded in a way that local services for children and families can become more reflective and implement changes to practice
• information is shared effectively to facilitate more accurate and timely decision making for children and families

To work together effectively, the Safeguarding Partners with other local organisations and agencies should develop processes that;

• facilitate and drive action beyond usual institutional and agency constraints and boundaries
• ensure the effective protection of children is founded on practitioners developing lasting and trusting relationships with children and their families

Each Safeguarding Partnership must have independent scrutiny.

The role of independent scrutiny is to provide assurance in judging the effectiveness of multi-agency arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in a local area, including arrangements to identify and review serious child safeguarding cases.

This independent scrutiny is part of a wider system which includes the independent inspectorates’ single assessment of the individual safeguarding partners and the Joint Targeted Area Inspections. Whilst the decision on how best to implement a robust system of independent scrutiny is to be made locally, safeguarding partners should ensure that the scrutiny is objective, acts as a constructive critical friend and promotes reflection to drive continuous improvement.

A key role of an independent scrutineer is to consider how effectively local arrangements are working for children and families as well as for practitioners, and how well the safeguarding partners are providing strong leadership and agree with the safeguarding partners how this will be reported. Locally this is reported via Safeguarding Partnership Annual Reports.

Across Sussex the Safeguarding Partners have equal and joint responsibility for local safeguarding arrangements. Should the lead representatives delegate their functions they remain accountable for any actions or decisions taken on behalf of their agency. If delegated, it is the responsibility of the lead representative to identify and nominate a senior officer in their agency to have responsibility and authority for ensuring full participation with these arrangements.

The representatives, or those they delegate authority to, should be able to:

• speak with authority for the safeguarding partner they represent
• take decisions on behalf of their organisation or agency and commit them on policy, resourcing and practice matters
• hold their own organisation or agency to account on how effectively they participate and implement the local arrangements

Safeguarding Partners may include any local or national organisation or agency in their arrangements, regardless of whether they are named in relevant agency regulations. Organisations and agencies who are not named in the relevant agency regulations, whilst not under a statutory duty, should nevertheless cooperate and collaborate with the safeguarding partners particularly as they may have duties under section 10 and/or section 11 of the Children Act 2004.

Relevant agencies are those organisations and agencies whose involvement the safeguarding partners consider is required to safeguard and promote the welfare of local children.

Safeguarding partners should communicate regularly with their relevant agencies and others they expect to work with them. It is for the safeguarding partners to determine how regularly their list of relevant agencies will be reviewed. The local arrangements should be shared with all partners and relevant agencies, and information should be given about how to escalate concerns and how any disputes will be resolved. This should give details of the independent scrutiny and whistleblowing procedures.

A list of relevant agencies is set out in the The Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018   

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

• Speak for their organisation with authority;
• Commit their organisation on policy and practice matters;
• Hold their organisation to account and hold others to account.

To be effective, safeguarding partnership arrangements should link to other strategic partnership work happening locally to support children and families. This will include other public boards including Health and wellbeing boards, Adult Safeguarding Boards, Channel Panels, Improvement Boards, Community Safety Partnerships, the Local Family Justice Board and MAPPAs, and, where relevant, Violence Reduction Units.

To bring transparency for children, families and all practitioners about the activity undertaken, the Safeguarding Partners must publish a report at least once in every 12-month period. The report must set out what they have done as a result of the arrangements, including on child safeguarding practice reviews, and how effective these arrangements have been in practice.

In addition, the report should also include:

• evidence of the impact of the work of the safeguarding partners and relevant agencies, including training, on outcomes for children and families from early help to looked-after children (children in care) and care leavers
• an analysis of any areas where there has been little or no evidence of progress on agreed priorities
• record of decisions and actions taken by the partners in the report’s period (or planned to be taken) to implement the recommendations of any local and national child safeguarding practice reviews, including any resulting improvements
• ways in which the partners have sought and utilised feedback from children and families to inform their work and influence service provision.

Safeguarding Partners make sure the report is widely available on their websites.

A copy of all published reports are sent to the Chid Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and the What Works Centre for Children's Social Care within 7 working days of being published.