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2.1 Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board - Role, Functions and Membership

AMENDMENTS

This chapter was updated in September 2010 to take account of the changes in Working Together to Safeguard Children (WT) 2010. The changes are shown in italics.

Contents

1. The Statutory Basis
2. Purpose
3. Strategic Relationships
4. Governance
5. The Structure of OSCB
6. Principles
7. The Role and Objectives of OSCB
8. The Functions of the OSCB
9. Membership
10. Sub - Groups
11. Resources and Budgets
12. Business Plan and Annual Report
  Appendix 1 - Members Agreement
  Appendix 2 - Confidentiality Agreement
  Appendix 3 - Board Structure and Relationship Plan
 

Appendix 4 - Draft Terms of Reference

  • For Executive Group
  • All Sub Groups
  • Local Safeguarding Groups
 

Templates

  • Templates Report Template
  • Work Plan Template
  • Work Plan
  • Guidance
  • Minute Template


1.  The Statutory Basis

The OSCB is established under section 13 of the Children Act 2004.

Detailed guidance, issued under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, is contained in Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2010 Chapter 3.


2. Purpose

The key role of the OSCB is to coordinate and ensure the effectiveness of local arrangements and services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The OSCB will undertake work mindful of the diverse needs of children and will promote equality and opportunity.

The OSCB will speak with an independent voice, in the context of a strong working relationship within the wider Children and Young People's Trust arrangements within Oxfordshire.

In order to promote high standards of safeguarding, the OSCB will foster a culture of constructive challenge and continuous improvement by and between member organisations.


3. Strategic Relationships

The Independent Chair of the OSCB will be a member of the Children and Young People's Trust Board and will routinely report on the Board's achievements to the Trust Board.

The responsibilities of the OSCB are complementary to the Children and Young People's Trust; however it is not an operational sub-committee of the Trust and whilst it contributes to the Trust's wider goals of improving the wellbeing of all children, it has a narrower focus on safeguarding and promoting welfare. (For further details, please see paragraphs 3.54 to 3.61 of WT 2010).

The OSCB will be a formal consultee on the review of the Children and Young People's Plan. The OSCB Business Plan will fit within the strategic objectives of the Children and Young People's Plan. A copy of the OSCB's Annual Report will be sent to the Children and Young People's Trust Board to influence and contribute to the Children and Young Person's Plan.


4.  Governance

The OSCB Business Plan will be agreed by the Board and made available to relevant member bodies. The role of such bodies is to hold their organisation and its offices to account for their contribution to the effective functioning of the OSCB.

It is the responsibility of the County Council, after consultation with the OSCB partners, to appoint the OSCB Chair. It is important that the Chair, who must be of sufficient stature and authority, is selected with the agreement of a group of partners representing the key services involved in safeguarding children locally and should have access to training to support them in their role. The Chair is independent of the local agencies so that the OSCB can exercise its local challenge function effectively.

The Independent Chair is appointed for a term of two years, which is reviewed by the Board and Director of Children and Young People.

The Independent Chair will meet with the Lead Member for Children and Young People's Services (who has statutory responsibility for safeguarding).

The Independent Chair will be accountable to the Director of Children and Young People for the effectiveness of the OSCB and will provide an Annual Report - see Section 12, Business Plan and Annual Report.


5.  The Structure of OSCB

The OSCB will be supported by Sub-Groups and three Area Safeguarding Groups. The structure chart in the appendix also shows the roles and relationships within the wider Children and Young People's Trust arrangements.

The work of the OSCB will be supported by staff employed by Oxfordshire Children and Young People Services acting as the lead agency.

The Business Manager is responsible for providing day to day business support, the implementation of the business plan, coordination and monitoring/evaluation work.

The Administrator is to provide administrative and organisational support for the Board, its sub groups and the Business Manager.


6. Principles

The following principles will underpin the work of the OSCB.

The Board will:

  • Keep the safeguarding and welfare needs of children and young people at the centre of everything it does
  • Utilise its unique statutory role effectively by consistently monitoring its own performance
  • Maintain its independence from all agencies and structures including the Oxfordshire Children and Young People's Board and the Children, Young People and Families' Directorate, Oxfordshire County Council
  • Operate a challenge function to both member and external agencies
  • Involve children, young people and families in its work
  • Develop strong working relationships with strategic partners
  • Be open and transparent in its dealings with the population of Oxfordshire
  • Be a learning body seeking continuous improvement


7.  The Role and Objectives of the OSCB

The role of the OSCB is principally to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

The core objectives of the OSCB are set out in Section 14(1) of the Children Act 2004 and can be defined as:-

  1. To coordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority
  2. To ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for that purpose
  3. To ensure that lessons are learned from unexpected child deaths; and
  4. To promote the effectiveness of what is done to safeguard and promote the welfare of children through training, safe staff recruitment and vetting.

The OSCB will discharge this function by:

  1. Ensuring it has an effective monitoring, evaluation and audit function in relation to 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.
  2. Developing effective policies and procedures in relation to the training of those who work with children or in services affecting the safety and welfare of children; the recruitment, supervision of those who work with children; the investigation of any allegations made against people working with children; and cooperation with neighbouring children's services authorities and their LSCB partners.
  3. Communicating and raising awareness of wider safeguarding issues with practitioners, children, families and the community.
  4. Undertaking a broader remit for safeguarding policy and procedures and participating in the local planning and commissioning of children's services to ensure they take safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children into account.
  5. Creating procedures in relation to the action to be taken where there are concerns about a child's safety or welfare, to include prevention and setting of thresholds for the safety and/or welfare of children.
  6. Ensuring co-ordination and implementation of plans for children who are Privately Fostered.
  7. Setting up and monitoring a Rapid Response and Child Death Overview Panel and being influenced by its findings.

For the purpose of this manual, 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; and
  • Undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

Child protection is part of safeguarding and providing welfare and refers to protecting specific children who are suffering or likely to suffer Significant Harm (WT 2010, Chapter 1, paragraph 1.23)

The scope of the OSCB's role includes safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in 3 broad areas of activity:

  1. Work in the area of promotion - this covers areas that affect all children and aims to prevent maltreatment, or impairment of health or development, and ensure children are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care. For example:
    • Mechanisms to identify abuse and neglect wherever they may occur;
    • Work to increase the understanding about issues to do with safeguarding children in the professional and wider community;
    • Work to ensure that organisations working or in contact with children operate recruitment and HR practices that take account of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children;
    • Monitoring the effectiveness of organisations' implementation of their duties under Section 11 of the Children Act, 2004;
    • Ensuring children know who they can contact when they have concerns about their own safety and welfare.
    • Ensuring adults (including those who are harming children) know who they can contact if they have a concern about a child or young person.
    • Nominating an e-online safety officer and developing an effective online strategy.
    • Work to prevent accidents and other injuries and, where possible, deaths; and
    • Work to prevent and respond effectively to bullying.
  2. Targeted work that aims to target particular groups.  For example:
    • Developing/evaluating thresholds and procedures for work with families whose child has been identified as In Need under the Children Act 1989, but where the child is not suffering or likely to suffer Significant Harm; and
    • 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 missing from school or childcare, children in the youth justice system including custody, disabled children, children living in a home where domestic abuse is prevalent, children living with parents with substance misuse issues and children and young people affected by gangs.
  3. Responsive work to protect children who are suffering or likely to suffer Significant Harm including:
    • Children abused and neglected within families, including those harmed in the context of domestic abuse or as a consequence of the impact of substance misuse or of parental mental ill-health;
    • Children abused outside families by adults known to them; including those in fear of or subject to forced marriage and honour based violence.
    • Children abused and neglected by professional carers, within an institutional setting, or anywhere else where children are cared for away from home;
    • Children abused by strangers;
    • Children abused by other young people;
    • Young perpetrators of abuse;
    • Children who are trafficked and/or abused through sexual exploitation; and
    • Young victims of crime.


8.  The Functions of the OSCB

There are six main functions of the OSCB. Each will take account of the need to promote equality of opportunity and to meet the diverse needs of children. These are:

8.1 Developing policies and procedures

The OSCB is responsible for developing policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Oxfordshire, including policies and procedures in relation to:

  1. The actions to be taken where there are concerns about a child's safety or welfare, including thresholds for intervention for both Section 17 and Section 47 of the Children Act 1989.

    It is only through clear thresholds and processes and a common understanding of them by local partners that inappropriate referrals will be reduced, the effectiveness of joint work will be improved and resources will be used more efficiently.
  2. Recruitment, supervision and training of people who work with children.

    The OSCB will ensure that all agencies have effective policies and procedures, based on National Guidance, for checking the suitability of people applying for work with children. It will also ensure that the children's workforce is properly supervised, with any concerns acted upon quickly.
  3. Investigation of allegations concerning people working with children

    The OSCB will ensure that policies and procedures are in place to deal with allegations properly and promptly.
  4. Safety and welfare of children who are Privately Fostered.

    The OSCB will agree the procedures for the notification of Private Fostering; monitor the management information on numbers of Privately Fostered children, evaluate/audit the practice and role of organisations e.g. Health, Education and Immigration in identifying Privately Fostered children and raise awareness in the community of the requirements and issues around Private Fostering.
  5. Co-operation with neighbouring Children's Services Authorities

    The OSCB will establish procedures to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who move between local authority areas. Where necessary, OSCB will harmonise and bring coherence to differing and potentially unsafe cross-border processes and procedures. The Child Index will assist in this.
  6. Continuously monitoring where policies need development.

    The OSCB will keep a watching brief on other aspects of safeguarding, which may need policy development. These will include: attendance at Child Protection Conferences; attendance at Family Group Conferences; involvement of children and families in the child protection process; use of advocates, handling complaints, and others which arise from time to time.
  7. Involvement in preventing and reducing domestic violence and bullying at school.

    The OSCB will support developments around domestic violence and bullying at school. It will contribute knowledge and expertise in ensuring that they are responded to appropriately.

8.2  Training

The OSCB ensures that single and multi-agency training on safeguarding and promoting welfare is provided. It sets priorities for the provision and development of training, linked to workforce strategies and assures the quality of training provided.

8.3 Communicating and raising awareness

The OSCB will be responsible for communicating to individuals and organisations in Oxfordshire issues about safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. They will also be responsible for raising awareness about how this can best be done and encouraging them to follow best practice.

This will involve OSCB in contributing to public campaigns of a general nature; campaigns aimed at specific target groups, for example faith and minority communities and 'harder to reach' groups; consultation on an on-going basis with children and young people and receiving feedback in a systematic way from users of the safeguarding system.

8.4  Monitoring and Evaluation

The OSCB has a wide remit for monitoring and evaluation. This is both internal to OSCB and external to it. Principally this function is to assess the effectiveness of what is done by the Local Authority and Board partners to collectively safeguard children.

Specifically, the OSCB will ensure the achievement of high standards in safeguarding and promoting welfare. This will be done through a system of organisational self-evaluation and peer review to an agreed quality assurance framework, designed to assess how well agencies perform to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. The frameworks will take account of inspection standards and the effectiveness of joint working as well as internal functioning.

Self-evaluations will be sent to the Board and reported on annually. Multi-agency work will be subject to joint audit of case files which will assess quality of work undertaken. Learning will be shared with all relevant agencies.

The OSCB will include in its monitoring arrangements accountability from those individuals and organisations that have a duty under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 or Section 175 or 157 of the Education Act 2002.

As part of this function, the OSCB should ensure appropriate links with any secure setting in its area and be able to scrutinise restraint techniques, the policies and protocols which surround the use of restraint, and incidences and injuries.

The OSCB is committed to continuous improvement. It will therefore make recommendations for improvements and developments and, wherever possible, assist relevant organisations to improve their practice. Such recommendations are likely to arise from any of the monitoring functions outlined above.

8.5 Participating in Planning and Commissioning

The OSCB, while not directly responsible for placing and commissioning children's services, has an important part to play in commissioning those services which are relevant to safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. The OSCB will contribute to the Children and Young People's Plan particularly for the outcome of Staying Safe. It will be fully conversant with, and regularly analyse the statistics relating to the Staying Safe key judgements and performance indicators.

8.6  Serious Case Reviews

The OSCB will undertake reviews of cases where a child has died or has been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is known or suspected, and identify lessons to be learned and acted upon by relevant agencies.

The OSCB will operate to the Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 guidelines and its own set of procedures to guide its work in this area. Such guidelines cover: defining terms of reference; commissioning reviews; engaging an independent person to chair the review and write the overview report; receiving and discussing the report; agreeing recommendations; approving an Action Plan; monitoring the implementation of the plan and disseminating the lessons.

For further information see the Serious Case Review Procedure.

8.7   Child Death Overview Panel and Rapid Response Team

The OSCB has other duties relating to child deaths. Chapter 7 of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 sets out the procedures to be followed when a child dies. There are two inter-related processes for reviewing child deaths (either of which can trigger a Serious Case Review):

  • A rapid response by a group of key professionals who come together for the purpose of enquiring into and evaluating each unexpected death of a child
  • An overview of all child deaths (under 18 years) in the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children's Board area, undertaken by a Panel.

Child Death Overview Panels are responsible for reviewing information on all child deaths, and are accountable to the OSCB Chair.

The Board will monitor that the correct procedures and protocols are in place to ensure the two systems are working effectively.


9. Membership

The statutory membership of the Safeguarding Children Board is set out in Section 13(3) of the Children Act 2004, as amended by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.

Members are required to cooperate with the local authority in the establishment and operation of the OSCB and have shared responsibility for the effective discharge of its functions.

In Oxfordshire, the organisations represented are as follows:

  • Children, Young People and Families Directorate, Oxfordshire County Council
  • The five District Councils (shared representation)
  • Thames Valley Police
  • Thames Valley Probation Service
  • Oxfordshire Youth Offending Service
  • South Central Strategic Health Authority
  • Oxfordshire PCT
  • Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust
  • Oxfordshire Buckinghamshire Mental Health Care Trust
  • Oxfordshire Learning Disability Trust - Ridgeway Partnership
  • South Central Ambulance Trust
  • Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre
  • Connexions
  • CAFCASS
  • Local Medical Committee
  • Local Head Teachers' Associations

Members representing these organisations are expected to provide consistency and continuity in the membership of OSCB. They are expected to be able to:

  1. Speak for their organisation with authority
  2. Commit their organisation on policy and practice matters
  3. Hold their organisation to account

Under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, there is a requirement to appoint two representatives of the local community as full OSCB members, as well as representation from schools.

This means taking steps to ensure that the following are represented: the governing body of a maintained school; the proprietor of a non-maintained special school; the proprietor of a city technology college, a city college for the technology of the arts or an Academy; and the governing body of a further education institution the main site of which is situated in the authority's area. The local authority should also include independent schools as appropriate.

A robust and fair system needs to be identified to enable all schools to receive information and feed back comments to their representatives on the OSCB.

The individual members of the OSCB have a duty as members to contribute to the effective work of the OSCB, for example, in making the OSCB's assessment of performance as objective as possible, and in recommending or deciding upon the necessary steps to put right any problems. This should take precedence, if necessary, over their role as a representative of their organisation.

Each OSCB Member will be subject to a written agreement setting out the expectations of membership in terms of the responsibilities of their agency and of themselves personally and professionally and what they can expect of the board. The protocols will reflect the statutory basis of the board and its legal obligations. They will have common elements and elements specific to each agency.


10.  Sub - Groups

The business of the OSCB will be driven and monitored through an Executive Group. The OSCB has established working groups or sub-groups. These will be based on the functions of the board: Policy & Procedures, Training, Communications, Monitoring and Evaluation, Child Death Overview Panel. Others will be established to address specific issues, on a short-term basis if appropriate. There will also be three multi-agency locality Safeguarding Groups. All these groups will be chaired by a member of the OSCB.

These groups will be established by the OSCB and report to it. They will have agreed terms of reference and work plans which support those of the main board. Sub group members will be knowledgeable and sufficiently skilled to contribute to the relevant subject area.


11. Resources & Budget

The OSCB will need an adequate budget and sufficient other resources to enable it effectively to carry out its role and function, to comply with guidance and to meet inspection standards. The budget covers staffing costs, training costs, accommodation, publishing costs and day-to-day running expenses.

Section 15 of the Children Act 2004 empowers statutory board members to make payments towards expenditure incurred by, or for purposes connected with, an OSCB, either directly, or by contributing to a fund out of which payments may be made and may provide staff, goods, services, accommodation or other resources for purposes connected with an OSCB.

Contributions will be based on a formula to be agreed. Income will also be generated through charging for training, conferences and publications as appropriate.


12.  Business Plan and Annual Report

The OSCB is committed to ensuring that its work is properly planned and reviewed. Its priorities and objectives will inform and be informed by the Children & Young People's Plan. The OSCB will agree, on a bi -annual basis, a clearly defined business plan which includes identified work streams, responsible member and sub group, and a priority rating for the activity.

Each year an Annual Report will include a review of the previous year's work, progress against objectives, outputs and outcomes. Work plans and reviews will be published and available to the public.

The Annual Report should provide and publish an assessment of the effectiveness of local arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, set against a comprehensive analysis of the local area's safeguarding context. It should recognise achievements and the progress that has been made in the local authority area as well as providing a realistic assessment of the challenges that still remain. (For further detail, see paragraphs 3.35 - 3.40 of WT 2010).

A copy of the Annual Report will be sent to the Children and Young People's Trust Board to influence and contribute to the Children and Young Person's Plan.

A budget report will be produced during the 3rd quarter and reported to the OSCB.

The work of the OSCB will be subject to external scrutiny including three yearly Joint Area Reviews.

In addition to developing its own work plan, the OSCB will contribute to the formulation of the Annual Performance Assessment, and in particular to the outcomes associated with Staying Safe.


Appendix 1 - Membership Agreement

Click here to view Membership Agreement


Appendix 2 - Confidentiality Agreement

Click here to view Confidentiality Agreement


Appendix 3 - Board Structure and Relationship Plan

Click here to view Board Structure and Relationship Plan


Appendix 4 - Draft Terms of Reference

Click here to view - Draft Terms of Reference


Appendix 5 - Templates

Click here to view -Templates

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