Agenda item

This report provides an update on the Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults activity and improvement work within the City.

Members received a report which provided them with an update on the Safeguarding Adults activity and improvement work within the city.

Questions from Members to Officers focused on several areas, these included;

·        Vulnerable Adult Safeguarding referrals that had not been determined or had been deemed as being inconclusive.

·        Recording of these safeguarding investigations.

·        Who had the responsibility of carrying out the safeguarding investigations?

·        Why the performance indicator from April 2011 to November 2012 (as shown in Annex A to the report) of the percentage of initial assessments being sent for comment within 2 days of alert had reduced.

·        Why there was no information shown in Annex A which related to the number of adults at risk with key information missing.

Members were informed that York’s performance was better than comparator authorities, with lower numbers being concluded in this way. Some of the reasons why investigations were not determined or inconclusive were: where Officers had not been able to establish whether the referral related to a safeguarding issue, or when a conclusion on an action that needed to be taken in response had not yet been reached.

On recording safeguarding alerts from health partners, Members were informed that Officers recognised that a technical issue had prevented them from being able to record whether action had been taken or not. This is being addressed. It was noted that this often relied on both health partners and Officers working together. Safeguarding has to remain everybody’s business, and the Council does not have the resources, or any additional funding from other partners, to undertake all investigations within the city. There is a protocol between agencies about who will lead on an investigation. The outstanding work is to ensure that we can register the health investigations and include them in the data in future.

In response to the question about percentage reduction in initial assessments being sent for comment within 2 days of alert, Members were informed that this is currently under investigation and will be reviewed at the next ‘performance clinic’ for the Adults Assessment and Safeguarding Teams in the Council.

Regarding the missing information about adults at risk from the Council’s Safeguarding Performance table in Annex A to the report, it was noted that there are times when information is shared but details such as name and address of the adults at risk were not available. This can make it more difficult for an assessment to take place, and could explain some of the longer assessment times. Therefore the amount of missing information could not be counted and included in the figures. It was also noted that whistleblowers who alerted the Council to cases at risk may not wish to give out certain personal details, which could reveal their identity.

Members requested that a further amount of information be included in a further safeguarding vulnerable adults assurance report from Officers, such as the number of Protection Plans in place in the city, and implications from national reports such as the Winterbourne View Review and the Francis Report.

RESOLVED:       That the report be noted and a further report be scheduled into the Committee’s work plan for June 2013 on the ‘Annual Assurance in terms of Governance Arrangements’.

REASON:           In order to keep the Committee informed of the arrangements for Adult Safeguarding within the Council.