Joint working - The many approaches to local safeguarding boards

When Labour established local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) in the Children Act 2004, multi-agency working was in its infancy. Now three years since the first boards launched, the landscape of children's services has changed dramatically.

Safeguarding children is top of the national policy agenda and representatives from children's services, health and the police sit on every LSCB.

Researchers at the University of Loughborough were commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families to conduct the first stock take of how well LSCBs are working.

Outcomes and membership

Their interim report, which was published last week, examines the structure of more than 100 of the 144 boards and explores the views of LSCB chairs. The findings reveal huge local variation.

The smallest LSCB consists of just 12 members and the largest has a massive 91. Membership of more than half of boards is complete, in line with the government's Working Together to Safeguard Children guidelines, but the rest are missing at least one statutory partner.

Professor Alan France, director of Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Social Policy, says there is no easy way to prescribe how boards should operate.

"It's about what's workable. There are a huge number of ways of setting things up. We must not assume that a board with 91 members is ineffective, it's about how they are working in practice," he says.

He adds that variation of board membership is to be expected, given that LSCBs are relatively new.

Colin Green, safeguarding spokesman for the Association of Director's of Children's Services, believes that LSBCs must be small enough to work successfully. He thinks having 91 members would be unworkable.

"There is a considerable risk with having everyone sitting on the board," he says. "Clearly many agencies need to feed into the LSCB, but this doesn't have to be achieved by them being a board member. They can do this perfectly well by working on LSCB sub-groups."

Green is keen to emphasise that LSCBs should be judged on outcomes, not on their membership.

Chairing arrangements are a contentious issue. The research shows that 41 per cent are chaired by directors of children's services and 40 per cent are chaired independently.

France says: "The issue isn't either/or, whichever model you choose there will be tensions."

Independent chairs have challenges embedding the work of the LSCB into strategic partnerships, and directors of children's services who chair boards face a possible conflict of interests, he explains.

Green says chairing arrangements should be decided at local level rather than being dictated by ministers. "This research certainly doesn't suggest that having a director of children's services as an LSCB chair is a problem," he says. "It shows that some of the accountability arrangements for independent chairs have not yet been well thought through."

Funding is another big issue for LSCBs. Budget-wise, 55 per cent of chairs deemed the money they receive to run the board inadequate.

The research shows that chairs are worried about the quality of serious case reviews, but no one can predict how many reviews will be undertaken each year, so it is impossible to budget for the expense. This puts boards under great pressure. One LSCB chair told researchers that each review can cost up to £12,000.

Additional funds

Green believes that the government needs to provide more funding to LSCBs to help them be as effective as possible. This is something that the Local Government Association (LGA) is also looking into.

Helen Johnston, programme director for children and young people at the Local Government Association, says boards must receive adequate cash.

She says: "We will be looking at the costs of Laming and identifying which recommendations carry significant costs. This will include looking at the costs of LSCBs, including independent chairs and serious case reviews."

France says his final report could shed more light on the issue, because it's yet to be determined what an adequate LSCB budget is.

All the findings in this report are to an extent incomplete. France describes the research as a skeleton, and says the final evaluation, due to be published around March next year, will "put meat on the bones".

John Chowcat, general secretary of Aspect, agrees that it will be a while before anyone can really evaluate LSCBs: "It's such early days. Partnership building takes time. It's going to be a long time until anyone can say what does or doesn't work."

THE SERVICES REPRESENTED ON LSCBs - PERCENTAGE OF AGENCIES WHO SIT ON
LSCBs

Children's services - 100%
Police - 100%
Health - 100%
Cafcass - 93%
Youth offending team - 80%
Designated nurse - 76%
Designated doctor - 68%
Community or voluntary group - 62%
Adult social care services - 56%
Housing - 43%
Primary school - 40%
Secondary school - 32%
GP - 18%
Special school - 12%
Independent school - 5%
Sexual health services - 5%