Agenda item

Cabinet Member: Cabinet Member for Families, Health & Social Care, Councillor Janet Campbell

Officer: Executive Director of Health, Wellbeing & Adults, Guy Van Dichele

Key decision: no

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

RESOLVED: To note the Annual Report of the Croydon Safeguarding Adult Board and to receive the recommendations arising from the Scrutiny & Overview Committee held on the 10th November 2020.

The Cabinet Member for Families, Health & Social Care introduced the report. She stated the report contained significant learning for the statutory partners and thanked scrutiny for identifying training needs and the requirement for more engagement with the BAME community. She thanked multi-agency colleagues of Board for their hard work and stated that Opposition Members, Councillors Yvette Hopley and Margaret Bird, had also been welcomed to join the teams work.

Annie Callanan, Independent Croydon Safeguarding Adult Board (CSAB) Chair, gave the presentation which outlined the governance and accountability arrangements, report findings, future plans and detailed achievements in prevention, commissioning, personalising safeguarding, promoting the voice of the Croydon resident and communication and engagement.

The Executive Director for Health, Wellbeing and Adults praised the collaborative work across the teams, particularly during pandemic conditions, and the CSAB keeping the local authority to account. The number of beds in Croydon meant that the safeguarding responsibility was higher than some other London boroughs. In terms of changes to the council and its current financial position, Croydon would continue to ensure safeguarding as its statutory responsibilities were a priority.

Annie Callanan, Independent Croydon Safeguarding Adult Board (CSAB) Chair, stated that the collaboration she had witnessed at Croydon, also reflecting particularly on times during the pandemic, was impressive and clearly had built to a strong standard over a number of years.

The Lead Member for Scrutiny and the Chair of the Scrutiny & Overview Committee told Cabinet that it was the scrutiny functions statutory responsibility to monitor whether safeguarding arrangements were effective, which could be found in this case on the pre-decision scrutiny section, on Pages 84-85 of the agenda. During the Health & Social Care Scrutiny Sub-Committee meeting on 10 November 2020, the Board provided honest and open answers to member questioning and detailed strengths and weaknesses of the partnership. He highlighted the importance of scrutiny report recommendations and responses and welcomed the Board’s engagements to those. It was clear the Board had built firm foundations and showed strong potential to continue improving. He thanked colleagues for their work over the years.

The Shadow Cabinet Member for Families, Health & Social Care thanked colleagues for the detailed report and the Cabinet Member for Families, Health & Social for inviting her to join the Board. She looked forward to working with the partnership to achieve better outcomes for vulnerable residents. During the past year in the midst of Covid, it was clear that the department had served residents. The report identified monitoring and performance management and prevention, which was key to the service. Many numbers in the report were positive, in comparison to the previous years. One concern raised from the paper was that many incidents for vulnerable adults were caused by someone they personally knew, which should be further investigated by the Board. She added her interest in learning more about Operation Nogi, which involved Response officers in South Area BCU carrying out visits to vulnerable elderly people following referrals from Adult Social Care and Trading standards, and how the partnership would hear more of the resident voice. Since the Adult Social Services Review Panel had been disbanded, she hoped the work which was previously overseen by that forum would be included in the Board’s programme.

Annie Callanan, Independent Croydon Safeguarding Adult Board (CSAB) Chair, replied that when failures occurred in adult social care services outcomes could be shocking. It was only the Care Act 2014 that set out a clear legal framework for how local authorities and other parts of the system should protect adults at risk of abuse or neglect, and thus the Board was created and her role as Chair of the Board.

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

RESOLVED: To note the Annual Report of the Croydon Safeguarding Adult Board and to receive the recommendations arising from the Scrutiny & Overview Committee held on the 10th November 2020.