Action plan drawn up after Ofsted says safeguarding arrangements are 'not effectively promoting the protection of children' in Peterborough

A thorough review of child safeguarding services in Peterborough is underway after Ofsted said current arrangements “are not effectively promoting the protection of children”.

The Peterborough Safeguarding Partnership, made up of Peterborough City Council (PCC) and partners, has published an action plan in response to the regulator’s critical report.

All parts of the Integrated Front Door (IFD) – that’s the collection of agencies that manage child safeguarding in Peterborough – must be reviewed, it says, to ensure all concerns are picked up and acted on quickly.

Staff who make decisions about whether or not local authorities should intervene in a child's life should, moreover, “receive training on the lived experience of the child and on professional curiosity”, it says.

It adds that the lived experience of children should also become a “central feature” in auditing safeguarding services.

Ofsted’s report on the IFD, published in full in May, said that “workers sometimes show a lack of curiosity about children’s lives and do not consider the presenting risks quickly enough” and that “children are left in situations of potential risk for too long” as a result.

As Ofsted undertook a two-day monitoring visit rather than a full inspection, the IFD was not given a full rating this year; it was last rated in 2015 when it was graded 'Requires Improvement'.

The Safeguarding Partnership’s action plan says that it “aims to support our partnership to deliver GOOD services for local residents” and that it’s “absolutely committed to collaboratively taking forward the Ofsted priority actions”.

These priority actions are: improving the timeliness of response to referral enquiries and subsequent visits from social workers and improving responses to children and young people at risk of harm from people outside their family.

The plan also says that new performance frameworks for child safeguarding should be developed and an executive oversight group set up, made up of council officers and independent parties involved in IFD practices, to help ensure all changes are fully implemented.

Ofsted requires that an action plan should be drawn up to respond to its concerns, but PCC has suggested it wishes to go further than initial recommendations in the long term and create an entirely new IFD.

Previously, the IDF was provided by Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) with PCC paying a contribution towards it, but the creation of a new, decoupled service is "being looked at", it says.

Other concerns highlighted in Ofsted’s report include delays in communication about safeguarding concerns, delays in children and families receiving the support they need and a “lack of joint and integrated working and collaboration” between agencies involved in the IFD.

Quality assurance arrangements were also deemed “not effective” while children who are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse were not always “effectively identified and protected by services which are delivered in a coordinated and informed way”.

PCC accepted Ofsted's findings on their release and said it had already begun to look “forensically at every area of our service and how we work with our partners”.

It has also since welcomed a new executive director of children’s services, John Gregg, who was appointed in June.