Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children requires effective co-ordination. The Children Act 2004 required each local authority to establish a local Safeguarding Children Board by 1 April 2006. Safeguarding Children Boards are the key statutory mechanisms for agreeing how the relevant organisations in each local area will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in that locality, and for ensuring the effectiveness of what they do.
Objectives of the Leicester Safeguarding Children Board
The functions of local Safeguarding Children Boards are set out in primary legislation [1] and regulations [2]. The core objectives of the Board are as follows:
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to co-ordinate 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; and
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to ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for that purpose.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this report (as it is in the Working Together Guidance 2010) as:
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protecting children from maltreatment;
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preventing impairment of children’s health or development;
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ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
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undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.
Leicester Safeguarding Children Board will therefore ensure that the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children is carried out in such a way as to contribute to improving all five Every Child Matters outcomes.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children includes protecting children from harm. Ensuring that work to protect children is properly co-ordinated and effective remains a primary goal of Leicester Safeguarding Children Board.
Remit of the Leicester Safeguarding Children Board
The remit of the Leicester Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) includes safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in three broad areas of activity:
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activity that affects all children and aims to identify and prevent maltreatment, or impairment of health or development, and ensure children are growing up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care.
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proactive work that aims to safeguard and promote the welfare of groups of children who are potentially more vulnerable than the general population (eg. 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 and children and young people affected by gangs).
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responsive work to protect children who are suffering, or are likely to suffer significant harm
Where particular children are the subject of involvement with the agencies represented on the Board, then that safeguarding work should aim to help them to achieve the planned developmental outcomes and to have optimum life chances. It is within the remit of the local safeguarding children board to check the extent to which this has been achieved as part of its monitoring and evaluation work.
Functions of the Leicester Safeguarding Children Board
The core functions of a local Safeguarding Children Board are set out in primary legislation and regulations. They are:
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Establishing thresholds, policies and procedures
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Communicating and raising awareness
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Monitoring and evaluation
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Planning and commissioning services
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Reviewing and reporting on child deaths
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Overseeing Serious Case Reviews
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Accounting for operational work
Whilst the Leicester Safeguarding Children Board has a role in co-ordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of local individuals’ and organisations’ work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, it is not accountable for their operational work. Each Board partner retains their own existing lines of accountability for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children by their services. The Leicester Safeguarding Children Board does not have a power to direct other organisations.
The roles and responsibilities of local Safeguarding Children Boards and the agencies that are represented on them are set out in the government guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (2010).
[1] Sections 14 and 14 A of the Children Act 2004.
[2] Local Safeguarding Children Regulations 2006, SI 2006/90.
