The Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel met on Tuesday 23 September 2025, to discuss a presentation from the Assistant Director Operational Child's Safeguarding & Specialist, and to review the panel's terms of reference. The panel was also scheduled to discuss the next steps for the panel's work.

Deep Dive Process

The panel was scheduled to discuss the deep dive process, its rationale, and the intention to develop Terms of Reference from this meeting.

At the previous meeting on 19 June 2025, the panel had agreed that the 11-16 age group would be a focus for the upcoming deep dive, with the aim to highlight where the Families First Partnership (FFP) could best support this age group.

The Executive Director of Children's and Adults Services (EDC) noted at the previous meeting that the new government wants to focus on early prevention, and that FFP emerged from this. He said that:

From a Department for Education perspective, the desire is to focus to early prevention and supporting families to avoid escalation into serious interventions.

He also noted that Hounslow Council already undertakes early interventions, which creates a risk in terms of the expectation that childcare costs will go down.

The EDC also noted that one of the key elements of the new proposals would be the new multi-agency child protection teams that would include the police and NHS in addition to local authority child protection teams.

Terms of Reference

The panel was scheduled to discuss and agree on its draft terms of reference. Terms of reference are documents that outline the scope, objectives, and responsibilities of a committee or organisation.

Other Business

The agenda for the meeting also included:

• Welcome and Introductions
• New Co-optees
• Apologies for absence, declarations of interest or any other communications from Members
• Notes of the meeting held on 19th June 2025
• Next Steps
• Urgent Business
• Date of the Next Meeting