Must know: Safeguarding children

All councils – including districts – have responsibilities to safeguard children, and councillors will want to consider carefully how they are sure that their council is effectively meeting its duties in this regard.

This includes looking at how all services consider child safeguarding in their plans, including housing, licensing and adult social care. It must consider children’s safety and wellbeing wherever they are – in the home, outside of it, and online.

The following guide offers a high-level overview for all councillors of key issues with regard to child safeguarding. For more detail, it is recommended that councillors – especially those with specific duties towards children – read the statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’. 

For councillors without specific duties towards children, support to the Lead Member for Children’s Services and the children’s scrutiny committee (or equivalent arrangements) is a key part of your role in safeguarding children. You will also want to consider child safeguarding issues when you are taking decisions on all areas of council business. 

This can sound daunting – however there are practical steps you can take to promote child safeguarding through your work as a councillor. For example, if a constituent mentions something to you at a ward surgery or you see something in your community that you are concerned about, make sure you know how to report that appropriately.  There is a list at the end of this guide with some signs that could indicate a child is at risk. Consider whether there are relevant questions you can ask on any committees you sit on as part of your role. 

Councillors have access to e-learning offered by the Local Government Association. This includes an “Introduction to Children’s Services” module, which includes information on the councillor role in safeguarding and scenarios to explore. Your council may also offer training courses on child safeguarding to help to develop your skills in this area.

Working Together to Safeguard Children (‘Working Together’) defines safeguarding children as:

• Providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge;
• Protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online;
• Preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
• Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
• Promoting the upbringing of children with their birth parents, or otherwise their family network through a kinship care arrangement, whenever possible and where this is in the best interests of the children;
• Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes in line with the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework.

Child safeguarding is broader than child protection. Child protection is activity undertaken to protect specific children who are suspected to be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.

The Children Act 1989 (s17) places a duty on upper tier local authorities in England to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need – that is, any child who is unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development without support from services, or any disabled child. 

In two tier areas, the Children Act 2004 (s10) requires district councils to cooperate with the county council on arrangements to improve the wellbeing of children in the area, including in relation to their physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing, and protection from harm and neglect. Section 11 of the same Act states that district councils must have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the discharge of their functions.

The Children Act 2004 (s18-19) requires every upper tier council to designate a Director of Children’s Services and a Lead Member for Children’s Services. Together, they are the key points of professional and political accountability for services to safeguard children. The DfE has published statutory guidance outlining the responsibilities of each of these roles.

All councillors have specific responsibilities towards children in care and care leavers. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 (s1) outlines the ‘corporate parenting principles’ that councillors must have regard to in carrying out functions in relation to these children and young people. These include promoting their physical and mental health and wellbeing, and the need for those children and young people to be safe.

Some councillors have specific responsibilities in relation to safeguarding children including the Lead Member and the Chair of the Children’s Scrutiny Committee. However all councillors should be asking appropriate questions and ensuring suitable governance to assure themselves that the council is doing all it can to meet its duties to safeguard children.

Early help

Early help is support for children that improves their outcomes or reduces the chance of a problem getting worse. Some of this is provided through universal services like education and health. Other early help services, delivered by councils and/or their partners, are more targeted and support with specific challenges such as parenting support, youth offending, housing and mental health support.

Child protection

Child protection encompasses multi-agency activities and processes aimed at protecting children who are suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm. This can be within their family or outside of it, including harm from peers, the community or online. It includes sexual, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, exploitation and influences of extremism.

Protecting children can involve the development of a child protection plan to keep the child safe and promote their welfare, and can include the removal of a child from home where professionals and a judge assess that they cannot live there safely. 

Multi-agency working

Working Together is clear that “strong multi-agency and multi-disciplinary working is vital to identifying and responding to the needs of children and families”. It outlines that strategic leaders should develop a vision to deliver shared goals, use evidence to inform services, jointly prioritise and share resources, create an inclusive culture and hold each other to account.

The (upper tier) local authority, integrated care board (ICB) and police force in a local authority area are statutory safeguarding partners and must work together to safeguard children through multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.  Each partner must appoint a lead safeguarding partner (LSP) who has ultimate accountability for delivering statutory duties towards children and the effective operation of local safeguarding arrangements; Working Together specifies that in a council, this must be the chief executive. Each LSP must appoint a delegated safeguarding partner (DSP) to work with their counterparts in the police and ICB to deliver and monitor multi-agency priorities. There will therefore be three LSPs and three DSPs. In a council, the DSP is likely to be the Director of Children’s Services.

‘Relevant agencies’ are those organisations whose involvement the safeguarding partners considers necessary to safeguard local children. Those agencies who meet the criteria to be included as a relevant agency are set out in regulations. Safeguarding partners must set out in their published arrangements which organisations they require to work with them as relevant agencies. Working Together is clear that all local education and childcare providers should be included.

Information sharing

Effective information sharing is essential to support child safeguarding. Child safeguarding practice reviews have repeatedly highlighted the role of poor information sharing in cases where children have come to significant harm; it is up to all partners to work together to establish clear processes and principles for sharing information.

Working Together includes information on the legislative framework for information sharing, challenges common myths and emphasises that “fears about sharing information must not be allowed to stand in the way of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.” The Department for Education has also published non-statutory guidance to support practitioners with information sharing.

While councils, the police and health services are statutory safeguarding partners, a wide range of organisations have specific statutory duties to safeguard children.

Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places a duty on the following organisations and individuals to ensure their functions – and any services contracted out to others – are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children:

• Councils (unitaries, county and districts)
• NHS organisations
• The police including Police and Crime Commissioners
• British Transport Police
• Probation Service
• Governors or directors of prisons and young offender institutions
• Directors of secure training centres
• Youth offending teams

Organisations and agencies working with children and families should have clear policies for dealing with allegations against people who work with children. Upper tier councils should have an officer or team of officers, known as the local authority designated officers (LADO) to be involved in the management and oversight of allegations against people who work with children.

In addition to Section 11 duties outlined above, further child safeguarding duties are also placed on organisations through other statutes. Key duties for each individual organisation are set out in Working Together:

• Schools, colleges and other education providers
• Early years and childcare
• Health
• Police
• Adult social care services
• Housing services
• British Transport Police
• Prison Service
• Probation Service
• Children’s homes
• Secure estate for children
• Youth offending teams
• UK Visas and Immigration, Immigration Enforcement and the Border Force
• Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service
• Armed services
• Channel panels
• Voluntary, charity, social enterprise, faith-based organisations and private sectors
• Sports clubs/organisations

The Children’s Social Care National Framework highlights the following principles that should underpin practice when safeguarding children:

• Children’s welfare is paramount
• Children’s wishes and feelings are sought, heard and responded to
• Children’s social care works in partnership with whole families
• Children are raised by their families, with their family networks or in family environments wherever possible
• Local authorities work with other agencies to effectively identify and meet the needs of children, young people and families
• Local authorities consider the economic and social circumstances impacting children, young people and families.

Councils and their partners will need to consider the needs of different groups of children to ensure they are able to effectively safeguard them, including but not limited to disabled children, young carers, children at risk of harm outside the home, children in secure settings, children in temporary accommodation and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Councils, with their safeguarding partners and any relevant agencies, should develop, agree and publish local protocols for assessments and support for children who may need safeguarding. As a councillor, you should be familiar with your local protocols and know when and how to make a referral if you are concerned about a child (including unborn babies). 

Working Together includes detailed guidance on what should happen when a referral has been made, whether a child needs support or protection.

There are several inspectorates and inspection processes that assess the effectiveness of child safeguarding locally. These include:

• ILACS (Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services) – this is carried out by Ofsted and focuses on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements to help and protect children, including those in care.
• Area SEND Inspection – these are carried out jointly by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and provides an independent, external evaluation of the effectiveness of the local area partnerships arrangements for children and young people with SEND. Inspectors consider the contribution of a range of partners to local SEND services, but will focus mainly on the local authority and integrated care board.
• Youth Justice Services inspection – this is carried out by HM Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) and assesses the quality and impact of local youth justice services, including the contributions of all youth justice partners including children’s services, police and probation.
• Joint Targeted Area Inspections – these are carried out by Ofsted, CQC, HMIP and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), and they inspect multi-agency arrangements and services for children in need of help and protection in local authority areas. Each JTAI includes a ‘deep dive’ theme, for example inspectorates have recently considered the multi-agency response to identification of initial need and risk (the ‘front door’) and the multi-agency response to child criminal exploitation. 

The following questions are to support you to think about how effective your council’s approach to child safeguarding is. In most cases, these questions will be most appropriate to ask through your children’s scrutiny committee, children’s policy committee or equivalent. If you are a district councillor, many of these will still be relevant, including consideration of how your services consider child safeguarding.

Child-centred services

• How have your local services and processes been influenced by children’s voices?
• How do you know whether services are child-centred?
• What are your ambitions for children locally? How do you know whether you are achieving those?

Council services

• Do staff have effective systems and technology to enable them to keep children safe?
• Is council funding on child safeguarding spent effectively? Is it sufficient? How do you know?
• Is there effective scrutiny of child safeguarding issues in your area?
• How do you know whether your services keep children safe?
• Are there any groups of children who are less safe than others in your area? Consider for example different characteristics and particular vulnerabilities.
• Do all services within your council understand their role in child safeguarding?
• Has your council recently invited the LGA to carry out a child safeguarding peer review?

Working with partners

• Do staff feel confident to share information with partners to keep children safe?
• How effective do all partners believe local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements to be?
• Do all partners contribute resources equitably to keep children safe?
• Do your local partners, including businesses and the voluntary and community sector, understand their role in child safeguarding?

The following are some signs that can indicate something concerning is happening in a child’s life. They don’t necessarily mean that a child is being abused, but are indicators that can help you assess the situation. You can find out more on signs of child abuse from the NSPCC.  If you are concerned that a child is at risk of harm, you can report this through your local children’s services department.

Physical abuse

• bruises
• burns or scalds
• scarring
• effects of poisoning, such as vomiting, drowsiness or seizures
• in babies and toddlers, signs can include swelling, being extremely sleepy or unconscious, and breathing problems.

Emotional abuse

• lacking a close relationship or bond with their parent
• seeming unconfident, wary or anxious
• being overly-affectionate to people they don’t know well
• lacking social skills
• acting in a way or knowing things you wouldn’t expect them to know for their age.

Neglect

• having unwashed clothes
• having the wrong clothes, such as no warm clothes in winter
• poor language or social skills
• untreated issues
• missed medical appointments
• being left alone for a long time
• changing behaviour.

Exploitation

• being frightened of some people, places or situations
• sharp changes in mood or character
• having money or gifts that they can’t or won’t explain
• alcohol or drug misuse
• sexually transmitted infections
• inappropriate sexual behaviour.

• Case studies
• Foundations What Works Centre - Resources
• Youth Endowment Fund toolkit – research on approaches to preventing serious youth violence