Agenda item - BRIGHTON & HOVE SAFEGUARDING ADULTS BOARD ANNUAL REPORT 2017/18

Report of the Chair of the Local Safeguarding Adults Board.

41.1                 RESOLVED:

That the Board:

1.     Noted the report and supported partner agencies in their contribution to safeguarding adults with care and support needs.

2.     Noted SAB  achievements and challenges

3.     Noted the draft strategic plan objectives for 2019 - 2022 as set out and agreed to work with the Safeguarding Adults Board in their development and resourcing.

41.1                 Graham Bartlett, independent Chair of the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB), introduced the 2017/18 annual report that outlined the progress made over the past year for safeguarding adults with care and support needs. The report provided an assessment of the SAB’s work on monitoring and scrutinising what is done by partner agencies. This included multi-agency learning reviews, audits and qualitative reviews and sharing learning opportunities, collection and analyses of multi-agency safeguarding data and evidence drawn from the testimony of adults with care and support needs and frontline professionals. The report covered performance, challenges and priorities for the SAB.

41.2                 Grace Hanley, Assistant Director - Integrated Services, formally welcomed the annual report on behalf of Adult Social Care and stated that report showed transparency on areas that still needed focus. As part of the Challenge event, Board members provided opportunities for self-assessment on the management of safeguarding adults work which resulted in furthering development of post-training audit. This evidenced what people had learnt and highlighted what was next in understanding how to improve and enable better knowledge into practice and to provide better services to people who required safeguarding.

41.3                 In response to the Chair, Graham Bartlett stated that decisions on whether to pursue Safeguarding Adult Reviews were never made on financial grounds but did expect them to be undertaken efficiently.

41.4                 The Chair stated that the Board would always take recommendations into the budget setting process.

41.5                 Councillor Moonan stated that she was pleased to see the development of regional arrangements, information sharing and audits. She added that she also sought reassurance on budgeting challenges and asked the level of risk the budget was imposing into safeguarding and wider review work. She questioned what the SAB planned to address the decrease in reporting and hoped that this was due to the decreasing level of need. The homeless work from the SAB was encouraging and she stated that this Board had a lot to offer on the topic of self-neglect and signalled that there was room to commission a joint piece of work.

41.6                 Graham Bartlett reiterated the he would never decide not to undertake a Safeguarding Adults Review because of funding deficiencies but the lack of resources meant some of the business plan could not be delivered on time and there were fewer multi-agency audits with a reduced scrutiny function. The SAB would like to achieve its ambition to fund some multi-agency training to increase people’s capability across organisational boundaries. To achieve our ambitions we would need more support from all Board members and not just the statutory members that the Care Act requires.

41.7                 Councillor Page stated that it was important there was a robust independent challenge to partner agencies and that any death of a vulnerable person in the city was one too many.

41.8                 Councillor Taylor raised concern over resource challenges and said that there could be a discussion with colleagues and members prior to budget council.

41.9                 Graham Bartlett thanked the council for its responsiveness and raised that funding should be sourced from partnership agencies as well as the council.

41.10             The Chair stated that the following correction had been made on section three, Important Considerations and Implications, on the report cover paper:

“Equalities:

The SAB through the City Council and other partner agencies will continue to work to ensure all people have access to safeguarding services – particularly those who are less able to communicate due to age, disability, language or for other reasons. The work of the Board contributes to improved community cohesion.  Where reviews recommend ways to better meet needs of people sharing a protected characteristic these are provided to the relevant organisations, implemented and monitored.

Sarah Tighe-Ford                                Date: 12 October 2018”

41.1                 RESOLVED:

That the Board:

1.     Noted the report and supported partner agencies in their contribution to safeguarding adults with care and support needs.

2.     Noted SAB  achievements and challenges

3.     Noted the draft strategic plan objectives for 2019 - 2022 as set out and agreed to work with the Safeguarding Adults Board in their development and resourcing.