Issue - meetings

Members considered a report on a county wide safeguarding policy, which contained policy changes, information on training and internal procedures.

The Home Choices Team Manager introduced the report; it was her opinion that it made sense to have one policy across the county, and not to have seven different councils within Lincolnshire developing their own policy.  The main changes were the addition of two new chapters on:

1.    County lines and cuckooing;

2.    Stalking.

These chapters had been introduced as there had been emerging themes across Lincolnshire.  Both of these chapters had directly affected West Lindsey as a district.

An attempt had been made to revise the referral process.  The previous referral process used a list of names; now the approach was to categorise concerns.  A fictional example was given of a customer owing council tax arrears flippantly saying they were going to harm themselves; a referral process would be used for such comments.

The safeguarding training programme had been reviewed; following consultation with staff, it was suggested that the training was intensive, and not necessarily relevant to all job roles within WLDC.  What Home Choices were now trying to do as a team was visit other teams within WLDC and suggest the level of training that they might require.

Following this introduction, Members provided comment on the report and officers responded to this.  Further information was provided:

·         Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks were the responsibility of the Human Resources (HR) department, and do depend on the job role as to whether they are necessary.  Enhanced DBS checks were necessary for those job roles where significant time was being spent alone with individuals;

·         Part of the new Domestic Abuse Charter that had been released recommended that each district had its own domestic abuse policy.  This would be available at a future committee when it had been formulated.  Currently, there was an internal recording process for those staff members concerned about colleagues;

·         There was an officer at WLDC that was trained to deliver domestic abuse courses.  For modern slavery training, WLDC would ask specialist agencies to deliver this; the Home Choices Manager received alerts when such training was available in the county.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  Support a shared county wide safeguarding policy and the below amendments to the current policy:

(a)  Agree to the refined safeguarding training programme;

(b)  Agree to the amended safeguarding referral process;

(c)   Accept the introduction of safeguarding representatives.

(2)  Delegate minor amendments and housekeeping to the Executive Director of Economic and Commercial Growth in consultation with the Chairmen of the Corporate Policy and Resources and Joint Staff Consultative Committees.