Agenda item

This Annual Report discusses the work of the members of the City of York Safeguarding Adults Board to carry out and deliver the objectives of the strategic plan during 2023/24.

The Director of Adults Safeguarding advised that this report summarised achievements and challenges of the Safeguarding Adults Board as well as its ambitions for 2025 and sought input from board members.

The Independent Chair of the City of York Safeguarding Adults Board presented the report and PowerPoint discussing the work of the members of the Safeguarding Adults Board to carry out and deliver the objectives of their strategic plan during 2023/24. The Independent Chair and Director of Adults Safeguarding then responded to questions from the board.

The board noted that the referrals coming in and conversions into Section 42 investigations were higher than the national average and asked whether there was any concern about initial referrals not being as high as they might be.

The Director of Adults Safeguarding responded that there was a positive in increased awareness in the city prompting residents to come forward to Adult Social Care Front Door with their concerns, but Community and Early Intervention needed to manage these risks, and the conversion rate of Section 42 enquiries was in part lower that it otherwise might be due to the amount of discretionary work put in at the triaging stage. There was capacity to help manage risk without getting into lengthy enquiries, and extant multi agency partnerships with the Police Force and Mental Health Services could be broadened to further avoid the need to progress to Section 42 with all referrals. He suggested that he would be more concerned if the number of referrals continued to rise as these numbers could become unsustainable.

On the point of increased referrals – The Chief Constable, North Yorkshire Police, added reassurance that the Police Force had made considerable investment in its workforce for the Vulnerability Assessment Team, which was currently a bottleneck for referrals, and that this was one of the limited areas being prioritised for further investment in the coming year.

The board asked how safeguarding were dealing with Neurodivergent residents and particularly those transitioning from Children’s to Adult’s Social Care, where issues have arisen in the past due to this milestone representing a change in all the rules, and it should not be assumed that young people are aware of this.

The Director of Adult’s Safeguarding said that a transitional protocol had been put in place to identify those with potential need in this area, with the intention of identifying young people who may need safeguarding support into adulthood. Alongside this there was both a strategic and an operational transitions group looking at individuals and cohorts in order to better support their transition between services. As the plan detailed, there was a specific focus on training and governance within the workforce for younger adults and the particular types of harm that they experience.

The Corporate Director of Children’s and Education added that it was important to recognise and understand much more about neurodiversity; how young people don’t fully develop their brains until 25 and how being supportive rather than punitive at a young age was important. Moving forwards, the Children and Wellbeing Schools Bill which would be mandating Multi-Agency Child Protection teams from 2027, strengthening what can be done for children moving into adult life.

The board expressed that the inclusion of homeless and rough sleepers in the report was positive, as this cohort were historically harder to engage.

The Independent Chair of City of York Safeguarding Adults Board responded that it had not been hard to engage this group, rather a way had not been found to engage with them, which was an important distinction.

She concluded that there was now a much better understanding of the well-being principle under the Care Act, and how that was not simply about older people, but about anyone struggling with care and/or support.