Agenda and minutes

The Chair reminded Members of the need to declare any known interests in any matters to be considered at the meeting.

Councillor Barbara Parry made a personal and non-prejudicial declaration of interest as she worked for Ridgeway School.

(Report to follow)

The Committee considered a report by Jeanette Chipping, Child Exploitation and Missing Manager, providing an overview of multi-agency work currently being undertaken in Swindon to address the issues of Child Exploitation, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Missing Children.  A presentation of the report by David Haley, Jeanette Chipping, Anne Gray (Designated Nurse) Sonja Joseph (Virtual School Head) highlighted the following issues:

·       The importance of work in relation to Swindon's Multi-Agency Response to Child Exploitation and Missing Children and a presentation to all Councillors in December 2018 in respect of the issue and work being undertaken by partner organisations at that time.

·       The way in which the Council, Police, Health organisations and other agencies were working effectively together to strengthen the protection offered to children and young people against Child Exploitation.

Health

·       The newly created Information Sharing System operated by the National Health Service which allowed authorised healthcare professionals and administrative staff to share information in relation to Female Genital Mutilation and ensuring concerns raised would be captured.

·       That there was a Mandatory Reporting Duty in healthcare  introduced in the Serious Crime Act (2015) legislation and that Section 73 of that Act requires regulated health and social care professionals and teachers to report to the police cases of FGM in girls under 18.

·       That there was a FGM Enhanced Dataset which was the information standard for all NHS organisations and detailed which information should be recorded within healthcare records about FGM (the Great Western Hospital was part of this system that went live in September 2018).

·       On-going NHS training for staff, in particular midwifes with 25 staff currently having received this FGM training.

·       That all acute Trusts report to Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) their activity regarding FGM through safeguarding schedules which was then reported quarterly to NHS England.

·       The challenges of training and operating a new reporting system.

·       The low number of FGM cases identified locally and work to confirm this was representative.

·       That a Multi-agency Risk Panel (MARP) is attended by the Designated Nurse for Looked After Children to ensure that the CCG is aware of individual children at risk. Concerns raised around Looked After Children are shared with the Named Nurse for Looked After Children.

·       The role of the Designated Nurse for Looked After Children in attending a Priority Focus Child Exploitation Group for the CCG so that the CCG has strategic oversight of CSE, CE and Missing Children.

·       The role of the CCG in leading on one action from the CE delivery plan in relation to awareness and prevention and ensuring that agencies are raising awareness of CE and identifying resources to raise awareness of  CSE and CE.

·       That a member of the Children Looked After Health Team attended all Missing and Looked After Children strategy meetings, sharing information with other health agencies including GPs as required.   

          Council

·       The commissioning of an independent review of Child Exploitation and Missing Children in May 2018, and the implementation by the Council of key findings and recommendations including:

ØA reduction  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.