Decision details

Lancashire Children Safeguarding Board (LSCB) and Lancashire Adult Safeguarding Board (LASB) are required to produce and publish an annual report which reflects on safeguarding practice and issues in the area.  The report covers the period from April 2016 to end of March 2017 and can be accessed online.

Additionally a separate Annual Report is prepared by the LSCB's Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP).  A brief summary of key issues were detailed in the report.

The Board noted key points from the reports:

i)  Policies, procedures and guidance around Mental Capacity Act (MCA) implementation have been commended nationally as an example of best practice.

ii)  Applications in respect of Deprivation of Liberty (DoLs) far outsrip capacity to deal with them and there are significant backlogs and this is also a national pressure and concern.

iii)  A significant backlog of safeguarding alerts was reported in the previous Annual Report.  This has continued to be a concern throughout 2016-17.  Recently the Local Authority have found additional resources to deal with this and the outcome will be reported in the 2017-18 report).

iv)  Referrals to MASH include too many children whose interests would be best met by early help.

v)  Agreed to fund a piece of development work in Children's MASH through to Adult.

vi)  It is anticipated that new partnership arrangements with the three key agencies, the Local Authority, Police and CCGs are likely to be referred to as "Multi-agency Safeguarding Arrangements".  These will need to be in place by end of June 2019.

vii)  The Children's Commissioner has also published a report and this will be shared with the Board.

Resolved:  That the Health and Wellbeing Board noted the contents of the reports, commented on any key issues and considered the implications for the conduct of business.