Security Classification/FoI 2000 Official Yes under FoI FoI Requests on rationale npcc.request@foi.pnn.police.uk Author Chief Constable Simon Bailey (QPM) Force/organisation Norfolk Constabulary / NPCC NPCC Coordination Committee Child Protection & Abuse investigation working group / Violence and Public Protection Portfolio Telephone number 01953 424210 Date created 12 th January 2018 Response from Chief Constable Simon Bailey (national policing lead for child protection and abuse investigations & head of violence and public protection portfolio) Working together consultation 1. I am the Chief Constable of Norfolk Police and a member of the National Police Chief s Council (NPCC). This consultation response is made in my capacity as the national policing lead for child protection and abuse investigations and head of the violence and public protection portfolio. Further detail around the NPCC can be found in Appendix A. 2. Child Protection and Abuse Investigations (CPAI) include a broad range of areas including Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and neglect. The violence and public protection portfolio seeks to coordinate responses across underlying NPCC working groups including CPAI, Domestic Abuse, Honour Based Abuse, Stalking and Harassment, missing and adults at risk. In the process of writing this response, I have also consulted with all police chiefs across England to establish an agreed national position. 3. Overall, I welcome the continued focus of Government on child safeguarding and the desire to improve the services available to children and young people across England in terms of safeguarding and multi-agency working. 4. In earlier consultation with regards to the reforms detailed in the Alan Wood review, the Children and Social Work Act (2017) and draft working together guidance I shared concerns that current strategic child safeguarding arrangements were not sufficiently robust. In particular I was concerned as to whether Local Safeguarding Children s Boards (LSCB s) are sufficiently equipped to perform their functions in terms of staffing, operating remit and authority. 5. I welcome a number of the proposals set out in the draft working together guidance however I also believe there are a number of areas which require further consideration and/or potential clarity added within the guidance. 6. I recognise the challenge when drafting national guidance and avoiding being overly prescriptive which can lead to unintended perverse outcomes and stifle innovation. I welcome therefore some of the discretion provided in the guidance around areas like the design and operating environment of local child safeguarding arrangements. 7. However, given the importance of work in this area and the need to ensure that local arrangements can and do talk to each other, I would invite further consideration as to where more guidance is required and / or other forms of support could be provided with emphasis on: a. Establishing a nationally robust evidence based outcomes framework which safeguarding partners and relevant agencies can develop, monitor and evaluate their responses against.
b. Whether there is scope for there to be a national repository of local safeguarding plans & other published reports, their contact details, if / how local areas have merged, and report on how different areas arrangements have developed including common threads, variances and case study examples. c. Clarity on if/ how the inspectorates will evaluate the impact of the new local arrangements and make judgements on effectiveness. d. The NPCC has responsibilities across police forces in England and Wales. Given that safeguarding is a devolved responsibility in Wales I am keen to ensure that relevant consultation has taken place between DFE and the Welsh Government around the proposals ensuring appropriate join up. 8. I believe the new arrangements present an opportunity to renew focus on safeguarding across partners including an increased focus on early intervention and prevention. An enabler of this would include the ability to evaluate and disseminate learning from local activities and generate an evidence base of what is effective. I recognise the role which the national safeguarding panel could provide in this area although their remit focusses more exclusively on where there have been failings. The what works in social care also could assist however given their focus is social care and not multi agency safeguarding, this would appear to be a gap. I would encourage the DFE to consider how this potential gap could be resolved. 9. A significant challenge regarding the new arrangements is the financial pressures which forces and all safeguarding partners are currently experiencing to varying degrees. From a policing perspective, we continue to face significant budgetary pressures against a back drop of rising overall reported crime levels (including large increases in reports of abuse of children and safeguarding areas). I believe that the amount which forces currently contribute to arrangements is variable and that new safeguarding guidance states that funding should be equitable and proportionate. Whilst I do not disagree with this position, I believe it is important to note the challenges which may be present to find new money / re prioritise spending to contribute to new arrangements for some forces. Further guidance on this including consideration of providing a funding formula and/ or expectations on contributions from relevant agencies would be welcomed. 10. From a wider perspective, the austerity challenge is also likely to impact on the availability and capacity of early help services and ambitions to increase emphasis on early intervention / wider safeguarding accordingly. 11. I would also welcome further clarity as to whether a guidance document is being prepared to cover the transition period between the current and newly proposed arrangements including guidance on time frames, serious case reviews and the development of initial safeguarding strategies. Chapter 3: Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements 12. The emphasis placed on a smaller number of safeguarding partners to be responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring strategic child safeguarding arrangements is welcomed. 13. I however remain concerned that education and in particular schools are not named as a fourth safeguarding partner with equal responsibility. The guidance states schools have an
important role to play in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. It is my opinion that schools play a critical role in this space given their near universal role in working with children / frequency of contact. Their role in terms of educating, awareness raising and preventing abuse along with early identification of safeguarding concerns and supporting child protection investigations is vital. The current fragmented schools landscape could limit our ability to robustly engage, influence and monitor activity across all schools. I am also concerned around how the new provisions will work across multi academy trusts which span local authorities/ police force areas and potential variation between local requirements and that set by the trust itself with regards to safeguarding. I believe that regional school commissioners should be specifically recognised as a relevant agency. 14. The fragmented local landscape regarding health and the ability of the clinical commissioning group to robustly represent and hold its composite parts to account is also likely to present challenges to the safeguarding partners as part of the new arrangements to achieve consistency. This is further complicated by health geographical boundaries not being co-terminus with either police or local authorities boundaries. 15. I believe there remain some question marks around accountability and intervention. The guidance is predicated on the three safeguarding partners working together to design, implement and evaluate local arrangements in collaboration with relevant agencies. In areas where we have good performing agencies this should work well but were we have variation or poorly performing agencies, are the other safeguarding partners to be held account for where plans are not delivered? How would the arrangements work for example if a local authority is put under the control of a trust? It is important that inspection arrangements relating to new arrangements are clarified. It would also be important to provide more clarity on dispute resolution including how partners can appropriately escalate concerns they may have around individual partners/ relevant agencies, whether mediation could be made available (potential role for independent person within arrangements) and the escalation routes for secretary of state involvement. 16. I welcome the opportunities allowed within the guidance and legislation to formally merge areas, reducing duplication and potentially enabling greater consistency. Many police forces currently service multiple LSCB s and therefore attend various board meetings, sub groups and work to a number of plans creating duplication and variation in operating practices within forces. The opportunity to formally merge along with the establishment of the police as a safeguarding partner provides both formal and informal opportunities for policing to reduce duplication and achieve greater consistency within internal police boundaries. I would however invite further consideration as to how nationally we can maintain oversight of how this is utilised in practice and for example whether an obligation should be in place to notify HMG when a decision to merge is made and a central repository updated. This could also support communication between areas and national transparency. 17. There is little clarity added within the guidance around how the new safeguarding arrangements are expected to link up with other relevant multi agency forums including health and wellbeing boards, adult safeguarding boards and community safety partnerships. I would welcome further clarity around expectations in this area and consideration around how functions and responsibilities overlap and should be disaggregated. 18. I welcome the introduction of the information collection powers as a critical component of understanding both what is happening and the impact/ outcomes of our collective activity.
In order to be effective I believe safeguarding plans should be built based on the local profile / safeguarding needs of children and would encourage the guidance to reflect this. The information collection powers could in turn be utilised to help build up the relevant intelligence picture to inform and enable a robust profile to be established. 19. I note that the guidance does not mention the importance of capturing the voice of the child when developing and reviewing local arrangements and would encourage further consideration with regards to this. Learning from serious cases about children 20. It is highly important that the police and other agencies understand the impact and outcomes of their actions and capture learnings from examples of both suspected good and poor practice on children, their families/ carers and the wider community. 21. The local learning review framework enables a continued focus on reviewing cases where serious harm or death has occurred and child abuse or neglect is suspected and is an important part of capturing learning and reviewing our response. 22. I welcome the continued emphasis in this area and indeed that of the proposed national panel but would invite you to consider further a few particular areas. 23. I believe there needs to be greater clarity provided in the guidance around the role of the national panel/ commissioned national reviews and the relationship with local safeguarding partners / local reviews. Namely this includes: a. Remit: At present I am concerned that criteria for national reviews is not sufficiently distinct to local reviews. I am strongly of the opinion that the national review should be more thematically focussed as opposed to individual cases except in exceptional circumstances. b. Communication: I believe the guidance is insufficiently clear on the need for robust communication between national reviews commissioned and the local areas of interest. In particular expectations around communication with those parties affected (e.g. children/ families) and whether a local and national review can /should run in parallel with each other. c. Recommendations: Alongside the local requirement to review and monitor the implementation of recommendations arising from a local review, similar provision should I believe be in place for relevant Government departments to do the same for a national review and the outcomes monitored / published. 24. I would recommend the deadlines specified within the guidance for deciding if a local or national review is required (5 working days) and the completion of a review (two to six months) are further considered. Whilst we should aspire to progress any review in as timely, efficient and effective manner as possible, the complexity in sourcing information from a wide range of sources and potential interlinkage with other reviews and/ or a parallel criminal justice investigation all may impede on this. 25. I would welcome further guidance also on expectations around how any locally or nationally commissioned review is expected to interlink with any other parallel review which maybe commissioned (e.g. domestic homicide review) and ensuring that the learning is brought together and duplication avoided.
26. Whilst recognising the setup and maintenance challenge, I would also continue to encourage the DFE to progress the establishment of an approved cadre of reviewers who can demonstrate their ability to perform to set national criteria to aid commissioning and help raise standards. Yours sincerely Simon Bailey Chief Constable, Norfolk Constabulary National Policing Lead for Child Protection & Abuse Investigation Norfolk Constabulary Jubilee House Falconers Chase Wymondham Norfolk NR18 0WW Appendix A - About the NPCC At the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) we help police cut crime and keep the public safe by joining up the operational response to the most serious and strategic threats. We bring together 43 operationally independent and locally accountable chief constables and their chief officer teams to coordinate national operational policing. We work closely with the College of Policing, which is responsible for developing professional standards, to develop national approaches on issues such as finance, technology and human resources. Our key functions The body has the following functions: Co-ordination of national operations including defining, monitoring and testing force contributions to the Strategic Policing Requirement working with the National Crime Agency where appropriate; Command of counter-terrorism operations and delivery of counter-terrorist policing through the national network as set out in the S22A agreement; Co-ordination of the national police response to national emergencies and the mobilisation of resources across force borders and internationally;
National operational implementation of standards and policy as set by the College of Policing and Government; Working with the College, development of joint national approaches on criminal justice, value for money, service transformation, information management, performance management and technology; Working with the College (where appropriate), development of joint national approaches to staff and human resource issues (including misconduct and discipline) in line with chief constables responsibilities as employers.