The Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee meeting on 2 July 2025 reviewed the annual reports for the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board and the Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership, focusing on their activities and progress between April 2024 and March 2025. The committee also reviewed the Scrutiny Recommendations Tracker.

Brent Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report

The committee received the annual report from the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) for the period April 2024 to March 2025. The report detailed the SAB's work in strengthening governance, focusing on strategic priorities such as self-neglect, substance misuse and housing needs, and learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs). Nicola Brownjohn, the Independent Chair of the SAB, presented the report, highlighting improvements in the board's effectiveness and its commitment to community engagement. Key activities included the establishment of a Performance and Audit subgroup, the completion of four SARs, and the development of a community engagement project in partnership with Healthwatch Brent.

Several partners provided updates on their contributions to safeguarding adults. The Metropolitan Police, through Detective Superintendent Sukh Kanwar, outlined improvements in their Public Protection teams and collaboration with the SAB. The North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB), represented by David MacSweeney, emphasised their commitment to sharing learning from serious incidents and embedding safeguarding into commissioning processes. Brent Council's Adult Social Care, through Marcia Richards, detailed the creation of a new Supportive Multi-Agency Response Team 24 (SMART 24) and a Safeguarding Risk Unit. Other partners, including Brent Probation Service, Brent Community Safety, London Ambulance Service, London North West University Hospital Trust, Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Brent Regulatory Services, and the Department for Work and Pensions, also provided overviews of their safeguarding activities.

During the discussion, Councillor Kanta Mistry raised concerns about the readability of the report and the need for more detailed data and lessons learned. Nicola Brownjohn acknowledged the feedback on the report's format and committed to improvements. The committee engaged in a detailed discussion about the effectiveness of multi-agency learning and how it is embedded into practice, with representatives from various agencies explaining their approaches to training, supervision, and collaborative working. Questions were also raised about the effectiveness of the partnership, with partners sharing what they would like to see from each other to enhance collaboration. The importance of transitional safeguarding, the transition of young people from children's to adult services, was a significant theme, with joint work between the SAB and the Safeguarding Children Partnership (SCP) highlighted.

The committee also discussed the community engagement project, with Nicola Brownjohn and Catherine Pickford from Healthwatch Brent detailing their efforts to reach diverse communities and gather lived experiences. Concerns were raised about reaching hard-to-reach communities and ensuring that safeguarding concerns were not falling through the cracks. The discussion also touched upon the impact of national incidents on local safeguarding practices and the key emerging priorities for the next 12 months, which include continuing the focus on the current strategic priorities and exploring co-production of priorities with individuals with lived experience.

Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership Annual Report

The committee also reviewed the annual report for the Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership (BSCP) for the period April 2024 to March 2025. Keith Makin, the Independent Scrutineer of the BSCP, presented the report, highlighting the partnership's compliance with the updated Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 guidance. Key developments included the establishment of Lead Safeguarding Partners (LSPs) and a Joint Executive Group, strengthening collaboration with the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB), and formalising education representation as a fourth partner.

The report detailed the BSCP's activities, including a joint safeguarding conference with the SAB, the commissioning of an audit platform, and work on online safety. The partnership's priorities for the next 12 months were outlined as online safety, developing data collection and analysis, capturing the voice of young people through young scrutineers, focusing on neurodiversity, and continuing work on transitional safeguarding.

Updates were provided by statutory partners: the Metropolitan Police, represented by Detective Superintendent Will Lexington-Jones, outlined their new five-year Child Strategy and initiatives like Operation Encompass and a stop and search audit. The North West London ICB, through Gwen Grahl, Cabinet Member for Children's Services, Education & Employment, and Palvinder Kudhail, Head of Safeguarding and Quality Assurance, discussed their multi-agency training programmes, the ICON initiative, and the implementation of the Child Protection – Information Sharing Service (CP-IS).

The committee engaged in a thorough discussion regarding the effectiveness of multi-agency working, the embedding of learning, and the use of data and performance indicators. Questions were raised about specific learning from national incidents, such as Child Q, and how this informed local practice. The role and recruitment of young scrutineers were also discussed, with an emphasis on co-design and ensuring representation across the borough. The effectiveness of prevention strategies in addressing issues like county lines, grooming gangs, and knife crime was debated, with partners emphasising the necessity of multi-agency collaboration.

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the challenges and strategies related to online safety, particularly in light of recent incidents and the evolving nature of the online world. The committee also explored the partnership's engagement with schools and community groups, with a recommendation to broaden outreach beyond formal school settings. The issue of housing conditions and their impact on child safeguarding was raised, with a commitment to strengthening relationships with housing colleagues.

The committee also discussed the recruitment and retention of social care staff, noting the challenges faced by both adult and children's social care services. The report detailed reasons for staff attrition, including workload, burnout, and management supervision. The Council outlined its strategies for improving recruitment and retention, including incentives, training, and technological solutions to reduce administrative burdens.

Finally, the committee reviewed the Scrutiny Recommendations Tracker, noting progress on previous recommendations and suggestions for improvement.

Decisions Made:

• The committee resolved to recommend that the Council develop a dashboard to track school performance and provide early warning indicators of potential Ofsted rating risks.
• The committee resolved to recommend that the Council support after-school learning opportunities and develop community group structures for learning and mentoring outside of school.
• The committee resolved to recommend that the Council commit to a proactive approach in identifying staff pressure points and utilise technological solutions to support staff, including reducing admin tasks.
• The committee resolved to recommend that the Council conduct further research into the reasons for the attainment gap for Boys of Black African and Caribbean Heritage, considering barriers to learning and creating a community of practice to improve their educational attainment, engagement, and well-being.
• The committee resolved that a future paper should be presented to the Committee on the subject of adult and children's social work coordination and cross-working opportunities, including the recent joint work on transitional safeguarding.
• The committee made an information request for Brent-specific reasons given by Social Care workers for leaving the organisation at their exit interviews.