Transcript

I will try not to keep you here too long, so you can enjoy the remainder of the sunny evening. So, you should all have the papers in front of you, either in paper format or electronic version, and I will be asking you to... I will be inviting your attention to the papers in front of you in a moment or two. Just to say that there are a number of apologies. Is that right, Hannah? Yeah, Chair, we've received apologies from Councillor Chohan and Councillor Aden, and also Nigel Chapman and Rachel Crossley. Thank you very much for that. So, declarations of interest, please. So, let me begin with mine. So, I'm the lead governor of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. Colleagues, anybody? Yes, Tony? I'm the school governor for Brentfield Primary School. Thank you for that. Anybody? Anything else? Thank you. So, deputations, Hannah? None received. Thank you. And minutes, can I suggest that we take the minutes as tabled? Yes. Thank you very much. And, Hannah, as always, thank you very much for producing those helpful minutes for us. Just close the door. Thank you. Any matters arising, colleagues? Thank you. So, then we come to the first substantive paper this evening, which is Brent Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report. And we have the independent chair with us. It's really good to have your company. And thank you very much, along with other colleagues who are here as well, as well as the other independent chair with other colleagues sitting towards the end of that side. Thank you very much to all the colleagues. And I'm going to invite the independent chair to present her report. And then I will bring the colleagues in appropriately. And once we have heard from the colleagues, as normal, we'll have some questions. So, thank you very much. And very good to see you, Nicola. If you want to switch on your microphone, please, Nicola. Thank you. Pardon. Sorry. Thank you. This is the annual report covering 2024 to March 2025. And so, I started in January 2024. So, this was my first full year as independent chair. And as independent chair, the role is to support the Safeguarding Adults Board in gaining assurance about the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements in Brent. So, we don't actually deliver any services at all in Brent. We're not operational. It's very strategic. And the way that we gain that assurance is by having various subgroups that undertake the engine room for the work that we do. And where we identified, when I first started in January 2024, strategic priorities to work through. So, during 2024 to 2025, that's what we did. And the strategic plan is one of the three things that a Safeguarding Adults Board must have. And so, that runs from 2024 and it will finish in 2026. And so, there's three strategic priorities that we've been focusing on. The first is self-neglect. The second is substance misuse and housing. So, not substance misuse necessarily itself, but the housing needs of those who experience substance misuse. And then the third one was around learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews. Because when I came in, we realised that following COVID, there were some backlogs in undertaking the Safeguarding Adults Reviews. And that's what you would have seen last year when I presented, that we had completed some. And during 2024 to 2025, we completed some further SARS. So, Safeguarding Adults Reviews, or SARS, are commissioned when someone with care and support needs dies or is significantly, seriously harmed. And that's due to abuse or neglect. But it's very important to remember that it's about them having care and support needs. So, I'd like to endorse this annual report to you. It demonstrates the work that has been done over the year around strengthening the governance of the board. We've developed further subgroups, and so looking at performance and audits, trying to get underneath the data. So, that's focused in on specific areas to sort of inform our work. We've completed Safeguarding Adults Reviews, and the partners and member agencies have come together. They took part in a self-assessment, and as you can see in the report, that they have, an awful lot of them, and certainly our three strategic partners, have contributed to the report to show what they've been doing around their safeguarding arrangements in Brent. So, our strategic partners are the ICB, police, and adult social care. I always like, in my assurance role, I always like to use appreciative inquiry. So, it's sort of about what's working well, and then we start to look at what needs to improve. And I think my reflection on the last year that's covered in the report is that the board has really come together, working together well. There's good attendance at meetings, there's good attendance, there's been an embracing of the subgroups. The governance, as I say, has been strengthened, and I would say that the learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews has been more impactful. There's been a better quality of reports. So, when we commission a safeguarding adults review, we commission an independent reviewer, and sometimes you can get masses of recommendations, and it's a bit too much to try and get through in such detail that it's very difficult to really see where we're making changes. But I sort of feel really confident in the reviews that we published in the last year that actually we are getting there, then they link to our strategic priorities. I think one of the things that came from one of the safeguarding adults reviews that I spoke about last year, which was Adult G, was around the need to use the high-risk panel more. And that featured in some of the other safeguarding adults reviews as well. And I'm really pleased that there's real evidence now that that high-risk panel is being used well, it's being used from a multi-agency perspective. So, when we sort of completed this report at the end of March 2025, sort of considering what could improve, so what I sort of started developing over last year, and it sort of really sort of kicked off just before the end of the time for this report, was a community engagement project. Because it was really sort of about how we get a community voice onto the board, and I didn't want just someone just sitting there at a meeting where actually, when Brent is so diverse. And so I was really grateful to Healthwatch, I really want to really endorse Healthwatch, the work that they've done to help me with this has been really outstanding. And they've managed to work with me to develop my project, and then get me out into the community to meet a good range of residents. And I've really heard, not necessarily always what I want to hear, but it's meant that I've been able to sort of bring things back to the board, and that will be reported on in this current year's report. And I think then, I think also then we've also improved our working with the Children's Partnership. I think we spoke last year about the transitional safeguarding joint work that we were doing on the back of the work that had been done a couple of years ago. And so we've really built on that, really sort of taken forward, what had already been done, because there was a really good foundation. And we identified three cohorts that we wanted to focus on, those with additional needs, those who are care leavers, and those who experience or are at risk of exploitation. And so we're looking at children who transition into adulthood, and so we're working on that during the year with the aim to be reporting to the joint executive in December to then establish and embed transitional safeguarding in our work next year. But I think there's some real evidence of things moving on there. And I think that's probably all I really wanted to say. I hope that that's the highlights. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for that, Nicola. Grateful to you. And talking about Healthwatch, we have the chief executive of Brand Healthwatch here, Catherine. Really good to have you accompanied this evening, and we are looking forward to having your contribution a bit later on. And of course, we have other statutory partners, as well as our cabinet lead. I will bring our cabinet lead in a moment. But before I do so, let me just come to you, Claudia. And really good to have your company as well. Did you want to add anything to what we've just heard from Nicola before I bring other statutory partners? Your microphone, please, Claudia. I think Nicola's covered it all. But I would just endorse the fact that the board is working well, that we have increased the number of subgroups and that's working well, and that we're actually starting to see some improvement in outcomes as a result, the learning as a result of SAR. We've got structures in place to deliver on that, and we've also got structures in place to deliver on feedback from various organisations on what they have done as a result of learning from SAR. So I think that is a really good part, because that was an area that we were struggling with. So that's developed. Thank you for that, Claudia. And we also have Will and Sue and Jennifer. A very quick. Jennifer is not here yet. We've got a replacement. No, Chair. I'm here for Jennifer Roy. I'm Darren Jones, Director of Nursing within Northwest London ICB. Thank you. Thank you. So, Will, did you want to add anything? Good to have your company as well, Will. Thank you. Nothing to add, but just a quick introduction for those of you who don't know me, Will Lexington-Jones, Detective Superintendent in the Met. Some of you may recognise me from my previous role as Head of Brent Neighboured Policing, where I represented scrutiny for the Community Safety Partnership. I've moved across to the Public Protection. So I'm now Head of Public Protection for Northwest BCU, Brent Barnet and Harrow. And I'm in my third week in the job. So some of my answers may be, I'll take that away. If you'll forgive that. I'll try not to make that too frequent. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Good to have your company. And Sue, I think you were here last year. Thank you very much for coming back. Good to know that we didn't frighten you off. A quick word or two from you then, please. So I just, I would stress the learning actually from the SARS. We've been doing a lot of work with primary care, particularly for safeguarding adults, because we tend to do a lot with safeguarding children, but not so much with safeguarding adults. So we've had some really good learning sessions for learning from the SARS and taking it out to primary care, which has been really good. And also the continuing health care service as well. Great. And Darren, please. Yeah, I mean, I think Sue is obviously one of my deputies who works with the safeguarding in the ICB. And I think, you know, we've seen some really good work happening in Brent that, you know, has really given a lot of assurance to the ICB as well in terms of the work that's been taken around the safeguarding agenda. So it's obviously great that our partners are coming together, both our community and our acute colleagues, and I know they really contribute to the safeguarding arena in Brent. Thank you very much for that, Darren, and Catherine, you were referenced in the opening statement by Nicola. I wonder at this particular juncture, you want to add anything about the partnership work that Nicola was alluding to? Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And thank you, Nicola. That's really great to hear. So we were really pleased to be able to do that piece of work. And the feedback and the real lived experience that we got was really rich and really useful. We would just say that there's more still to be done. I think there's still more communities that are perhaps not as able to speak up without sort of that network of health watch and building that trust. And I think some of the learning that came to us was people were still scared, and I don't know if this is what you found, worried about disclosing, safeguarding concerns because of fear of loss of services or loss of work. So there's still a real barrier there to really hearing the truth. I think that was one of our big takeaways. Great. Thank you very much indeed for that, Catherine. Neil, always good to have your company. And a quick word from you, please. Microphone, please. Thank you very much. Involving a whole range of organisations. And I think, I hope tonight, Scrutiny can really appreciate the work which goes in, not just at operational level from the chair, but also from staff over there. Who I think we should really thank for actually holding the Brenton Adult Safeguarding Board together, and no doubt the Children's Safeguarding Board as well. And secondly, just to highlight the value, and I was very pleased to hear the ICB talk about the partnership and the work which goes on at a place level. And certainly as lead member, with my colleague, Councillor Grau, we have both, from a children and adults perspective, been highlighting to the ICB and to central government. As the NHS transforms and changes, it is vital that the work at place through the safeguarding boards can continue at a place level with good input from the NHS, which I think is really, really crucial. They're probably the main points which I'd want to highlight to you, other than the final point, which is a question which always fascinates me as lead member. And I'm sure will be no doubt for other members, is where does safeguarding stop and quality start? And where does issues around quality stop and safeguarding take over? And that is something which is a lead member I've certainly been trying to challenge and pursue. Thank you. Thank you for that. OK, so there'll be some questions now, Nicola and Tim. So the first question, Kanta, please. Thank you, Kanta. Thank you, Chair. Chair, forgive me. I've got a comment, first of all. I just want to point out, when we got these reports, the really glossy reports, in colour, the font is so small. I find it extremely hard to read. And I think it would be good if there were some highlights or the summary to guide us to what we were interrogating information. Having said that, I suppose the content and the glossary report is difficult to dictate. As I imagine, it's probably done externally. But however, I do believe that I do need to make that point. It is a sort of a criticism. But I did find it really difficult. I do have different glasses. I try different lights. And what happens is when you're struggling to read and the set out wasn't like what we used to. So I do want to get that cleared up, first of all. You know, I'd love to see more content rather than all the colours and the various different fonts. Thank you for that. Also, I just want to say thank you, all of you, for the contributions and highlighting. And welcome, Nicola, as well, to your post. And good to see the partnerships working. However, having tried to read the report in the glossy format that it was in, I did find it really difficult. There's lots of positive spin on it. But there was a little bit of details. What I would like to know, first of all, is having read quite a bit of it in detail, is what happened and what lessons have we actually learned over the last year, since obviously you've taken the role as well, about this work. And also, in the review, the report states, in the glossy bit, they give you the example about Drake. They talk about Stephen, Mark and Joanna case and Indira. And so on page 19. So I just want to know, what do I go away with? What does this committee go away with? What lessons have we actually learned over the last year? Thank you. Nicola, please. Thank you. Thank you. And point taken about the report. And absolutely, we would want the report to be able to be accessible to the community. So we will work on that, I promise. So with Drake and Joanna, Mark and Stephen and Indira, they were the safeguarding adults reviews that we completed over last year. So what lessons do we learn from those? I think what I would start off with is around Mark and Stephen and Joanna really showed us that the substance misuse and housing housing need was absolutely the right strategic priority to have, because they were quite old cases. They weren't absolutely current. And so we have to sort of be mindful of that. But what we identified, what was identified was that they were individuals who had problems with drugs or alcohol. And then they would be self-neglecting and developing long term chronic illnesses and so couldn't live independently, needed some support. And so that's how what we identified, that the learning is about how important it is to have housing that is appropriate for people with such issues. Now, that's the learning. We can't solve that overnight, but it has led to some really sort of thorough work with with housing. And and also there was a ministerial letter last year around how sorry to interrupt your floor. It would be really helpful if you could just say a little bit more about that learning and how your learning then reached out to the housing sector, particularly at Brent Council. Yeah. And also from those individuals perspective, how were you working, for instance, with the Health Watch to ensure that those connections were meaningful enough to ensure that the learning that you're talking about is, in fact, lasting learning. So so what we have done as a board is focused in on the housing. And so we have regular reports around housing and raising awareness of what happened to to those individuals now with with one of the individuals, what a member of the family, because we've always tried to talk to members of the family if there is a safeguarding adults review. And one member of one of the families came back and spoke to us, spoke to me a year ago and said, actually, around the drugs issue rather than that, that there were still issues. And so we're going to I'm going to speak to her again shortly to hear whether or not she's seen any improvements with the housing need for those with substance misuse. And I know that they sort of within the council, there's work going on alongside public health and looking at the substance misuse. So that's the assurance that I get that it isn't solved overnight because housing isn't going to be solved overnight, but that there's efforts to work for those for those two services to work together to to try to improve the situation. For other individuals and in in in similar. Thank you. Thank you. Can't that place. And if other colleagues wants to come in to supplement that in reply, then please feel free to indicate to me. Can't that, please? Just want to highlight. Sorry. You talked about the substance use case is where do the bar of command? And the police have a role in this particular thing, just to reassure us that the partnership, you know, there's the report talks a lot about how strength how you've got, you know, the governance and the strengthening of the partnership. So how did the police actually, because obviously they do work with school children as well. How did that feed into into this particular case? In the particular safeguarding adults reviews that we commissioned, there wasn't particular involvement from from the police and that it was it was because it was about individuals coming to the end of that rather than the younger, younger people. However, what I would say is that we've worked with the safe partnership and because we know that there's the work that's been looked at by the police around things like cuckooing. And so that links up with that. So, um, so, so, so, so yes, it's, it, I think within the report, um, you can see from public health, the level of need around substance misuse is extremely high. So, no, so it's not, it, you know, services operationally clearly sort of are trying to work along these lines. Um, but, um, but, and we're continuing to take forward the learning from those reviews. Um, but again, uh, just to come back, uh, Nicola, how are we ensuring, um, with our partners, statutory partners, as well as non-statutory partners, uh, and organizations like Healthwatch, that, uh, there is this genuine, tangible learning, um, from, from the experience that you have just, um, uh, uh, uh, shared with us, um, how are we, how are we, uh, assuring ourselves that this is really happening on the ground? Do you want to? Yeah. So I've, I've, what I'd like to add is that a lot of the, um, SARS are around communication, partnership working, ensuring that we have those processes. And pathways to be able to communicate with each other. So some of the things that's happened, um, through the safeguarding board is that bringing that partnership together and doing those learning from SARS that Nicola, um, presents, um, you know, as a lunchtime, a lunchtime session, we have the seven minute briefings. And also feedback is collected to, um, to, um, from each organization to highlight exactly what has changed in relation to that SAR. So we all feedback, um, to, to, um, the board on, um, the learning from each SAR that comes forth. And then it's monitored, it's monitored over a period of time, because we'll see from SARS that are coming in, whether it's a repeat of the same issues. So that will be monitored. And if not, then we'll go again with the learning. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, uh, Rochelle, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much indeed for your detailed report, um, and also what the board is doing at the moment. However, I'd like to have seen a more detailed assessment of what improvements have made in the last year and indeed over the past three years and what you've learned from these improvements, uh, in, as regards, uh, performance, um, indicators. Thank you. Thanks for that, Rochelle. Nicola, please. Um, um, as I sort of said, we, you know, we've, we've, um, put together a subgroup to look at, um, performance. And so, um, what we are, what's, that's feeding into the board, um, is specific, um, areas, uh, that we can, such as self-neglect that we can then focus on. So one of the safeguarding adults we've used involved, um, some self-neglect, um, issues and hoarding. And so that's one of the elements that, um, that performance and subgroup, uh, then digs down into some of the data. I think, um, uh, no, so, and I, and I think really sort of what went on during the year that's, um, in the report was very much around getting back to dealing with some backlogs in safeguarding adults reviews and getting back to sort of really sort of, um, firming up sort of the governance, um, for the board. So that then we can sort of take forward, um, that, that learning, uh, and, and be identifying, um, sort of some of the, the performance data that we might want. But we're, we're, it's just a strategic board. So we're not going to look at the operational, um, sort of side, but what I would say is that, um, you know, I, I get my assurance from, um, talk, talking to communities, talking to practitioners and testing out what it is that, you know, what, what, what we're learning and whether or not the learning has been taken forward. So I know that, um, from practitioners that I've spoken to, that there's work going on around self-neglect, there's improvements going on. They've, they've, they've heard about the safeguarding adults review relating to, to self-neglect and, and that we're never going to eradicate it, but they're, they're changing the way that they're working. Um, and, and, and, and also then we, we sort of then sort of develop, um, sort of, and looking at that evidence as well. So again, uh, you, you, you, um, uh, really interesting, um, uh, phrase, um, um, um, the key learning, um, the ongoing learning. And of course, uh, you know, with the nature of, uh, safeguarding, um, we are never going to eradicate it because there's always going to be new, uh, issues, um, always. Uh, so we just got to be mindful, um, of that, but, but I do want to understand a little bit more about the key learning and perhaps, um, our colleagues at the end of the table, perhaps can, uh, can, can chip in here, can, can assist us. So, so tell us, um, Lee, from, from the police perspective, um, uh, the, the, the, the learning that Nikolai's, um, sharing with us. So from the police perspective, what is that learning look like for you and, and how we start learning across your particular organization being embedded? I don't think you're going to love this for my first answer is I'll have to take that one away chair, um, because this is a backward look from the year, uh, under DSU, Brian. And it's very difficult to me to give a credible answer off the cuff to that question, having been in the job for three weeks, um, other than what I think would, you, you would feel as quite a generic answer. Obviously you would have, um, uh, obviously you would have had, uh, some insight into, um, uh, what that learning looks like, uh, in various briefing meetings or, or the afternoon sessions, which, uh, uh, our friend Claudia just alluded to and stuff like that. No, I'm sure you'd be, you'd be less than delighted if I gave you a meandering waffley answer rather than a direct candid answer. I don't have that information, uh, but I will get it for you chair. Yeah, that's very, that that's very, um, uh, uh, helpful, um, uh, to have that candidate reply. Thank you very much for being so honest, uh, Sue and Darren, um, I wonder if I can ask you respectively. I want to be able to understand, um, uh, uh, what that learning in your organizations looks like, because we have heard quite a good, uh, uh, quite a long, um, uh, long, uh, opening remarks, um, very helpful opening remarks about this good learning. Uh, and just now, uh, I, I, I, I just want to be able to make sense of it, uh, tangibly, please. Okay. Um, so I guess we work in the ICB, we work really closely with all the health providers, um, that serve Brent. Um, and we, I guess we tend to see the learning embedded when we are doing supervision, when we're doing training, because there's just a, there's more of an awareness when you're doing supervision. And they are, they are, they are able to identify self-neglect or, um, uh, you know, you know, things that have been brought out with the learning. We also, in health, have the safeguarding, um, health outcome framework, which is, uh, called the SHOF. Um, and that is where providers, health providers have to sort of indicate what referrals are being made and what we can always see as an increase in self-awareness, um, referrals for self-neglect. So, um, they used to be quite low for self-neglect, the referrals, but I think because there is a much greater awareness, so we are seeing all the acute hospitals, so Northwick Park, um, they put in probably self-neglect is usually the first or the second greatest number of referrals. Um, so we, we know that the learning from, um, the case review groups is taken into the providers and they do training sessions and it's brought out in training and we see it in supervision and we see it. Great. Thank you very much indeed. Grateful to you. Um, let me bring it to Sean, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. So diving deeper into the, the value, the effectiveness of the multi-agency partnership, kind of following on for, for the partners. This question is, this question is, is for them. So we've talked a little bit about embedding the learnings into the practice to, to achieve better outcomes. But my question is more about, um, how can you evidence the, um, multi-agency ethos having been embedded into your organization? What I mean by that is how can you evidence the fact that your organization understands the value of working collectively as a partnership? Because if that's not there in the first instance, then we're not, we don't really have the confidence that the learns will be fully taken on board. Thank you for that. Uh, Lee, do you want to go first? Will. Will. Sorry, Will. Sorry, my, my apologies. Will. Yeah, I, I, I think attendance at the statutory meetings and contribution to them is reasonable evidence that we're committed to it. The fact that I'm sitting here now, I hope provides some degree of, of evidence of that. Um, albeit I'm not able to represent my, um, the great work my colleagues have done over the last year as, as well as I, I hope they would like, but all through the multi-agency statutory and some of the non-statutory structures are representatives from all our institutions at different levels from operational up to strategic up to above my head. Uh, at the executive committees represented by the BCU commander on behalf of the assistant commissioner, uh, and equally, we have colleagues embedded in this building in multi-agency safeguarding hubs, uh, uh, and, and in Harrow and Barnett as well. So we, we export full-time warranted officers into the multi-agency arrangements so we can be sure to deliver. Uh, and my detective chief inspector, uh, uh, and my detective chief inspector, Dave LaRiviere, who I wish was here, but he went to the theater, uh, his wife was more frightening than the chair in this instance. Um, would, it, it's effectively his full-time job to coordinate and represent these committees and ensure that they are delivering through child and adult safeguarding along with our other legislative obligations. So one of my three detective chief inspectors, or a third of the, the SLT, if you like, is committed to multi-agency delivery. Great. Uh, Darren. Thank you, Chair. Um, within the ICB, we, well, I chair with Jennifer Roy, the system quality group, and that really is our platform where we get all our partners across Northwest London, including Brent, um, to talk about quality. Um, and what we've taken forward as learning within the system. Um, now that could range from pressure, ulcer prevention to, you know, miscommunication, and we start those system quality group meetings off by provider-led seven-minute learning, which is a really good opportunity for those lessons learned, whether it's from safeguarding adult reviews or from other areas, where we share that learning across Northwest London. And, and obviously with Brent partners around that table, that really is a multi-agency, multi-part in the way of sharing that learning. And we, well, I think in Brent and in Northwest London, we have a very open and honest learning environment within our providers, within healthcare. And, and that becomes very evident in terms of the honesty when they share those seven-minute learning events, where things, Avanor was gone as well as planned, and they take that on board and take that forward. And I think, you know, that's a very brave position to be open and honest in a very big meeting, to do that. Again, uh, it's a really nice phrase, quality, uh, you use quality a number of times in your reply. But, but, but, but I just want to get the sense, what does that quality look like? And, and how is that quality different, uh, after that learning, um, than it was before, um, how, how was the quality different before the learning, please? So if I, I, I hate to use the pressure ulcer as an example, but I think, you know, over the years, we've seen quite a significant decline in the number of severe pressure ulcers that people have developed, um, you know, pressure ulcers across Northwest London. And, and that's because a lot of that learning, um, has been taken back to people who are responsible for pressure ulcer prevention and management using the national guidance and the tools that are available. But that we've seen metrics where we've seen year in year declines in the number of people developing severe pressure ulcers. So I think that's the example I would use is where learning translates into activity. Thank you very much. Claudia, please. Yeah. Um, so just to offer some more assurance, um, I think the learning is about people's curiosity being developed. So, um, for example, the high risk panel, we now get referrals from all agencies. Um, apart from the police, cause you know, but we get a, um, referrals from all agencies where before we wasn't getting referrals, um, from all agencies and, and, and, and it's appropriate referrals. Um, so the aim of safeguarding is to try and prevent, prevent it. So when they come to the high risk panel, we're actually working as a multidisciplinary agency. So we have all, all our partners on the board, on the, on the, um, panel to try and prevent that becoming a safeguarding. So I think that's, that's evidence. It speaks for itself because we've, the referrals have increased significantly. Great. Thank you very much for that. Really grateful to you. Yes, it is Sean. Yeah. So, so you talked about, um, honesty and before coming back to, uh, before coming to Nicola and Neil on their assessment, your assessment as to the seriousness that the partners take kind of the multidisciplinary kind of network. I'd like to ask, and I asked this last year as well, and I want, again, in interest of transparency and, and, and, and, and, and honesty, uh, each of the partners to say what you would want out of the other partners to make the partnership more effective. Thank you. So, uh, Sue and Darren first, and then, uh, Will, please. I mean, I guess, I guess, I mean, we have in our, for a good partnership and a strong partnership, you need to be able to be honest and challenge each other. And I suppose, um, that's what we are able to do. So, I feel very empowered to go and challenge Will, for example, or, um, Claudia, because, um, that is the ethos in Brent. And with the health providers, they are not afraid to escalate. So, that's something that, that, that's working well within the partnership. Would you like anything to make the partnership more effective? Is there anything else that the other partners can do, being a bit more critical, a bit more open? So, I think, I think, I think, I mean, we are all limited by time. We're all limited by funding and things like that. So, that sometimes can get in the way. Um, and you have, you have everyday frustrations. Um, but there's nothing, I suppose, because I cover a number of partnerships, I feel this is a really strong partnership, um, where I'm not worried about raising things. So, I know, at any time, I can raise something, you know, I can go into Nigel if I'm not happy about something. Um, and I, thank you. I think that's a mature, I think that's a mature partnership. Yeah, I've been transparent. Sure. Thank you for that. Uh, Will, please. Yeah, there's a number of things that can make the partnership better, whether they're achievable or not is different matter. So, there's, again, somewhat generic, because I'm new to the partnership, and this is one of three that I sit on. Uh, and that's the point, obviously, for those of you who don't know, I'm sure most of you do. The police are not configured one-to-one anymore with statutory partners and, uh, and, and, and Neural Health colleagues. So, when I was last involved in multi-agency arrangements prior to our reconfiguration, and there was a borough-based system, uh, one could focus entirely on the relationship and developing multi-agency partnerships with one borough. I'm split across three, which makes it more difficult for me and my colleagues. Uh, I've raised this upwards many times. I'm sure other colleagues have. I don't think that's going to change, but what I would seek to do within my own gift is work a bit more closely with my colleagues in the neighbourhood teams who do have a borough-based system. As you know, this was my previous role, and I, I think we could take some of that localism, that local expertise in the neighbourhoods. And, actually, in Brent, it's, there's some opportunities because the person who's taken over from me is Tony Bellis, who did this role, so he has some expertise. So, I think, from the police side, we could develop some greater investment through working more closely with the neighbourhood teams. More broadly, I always think co-location is preferable if it's affordable, and I know there's some policy provision that we should be looking at multi-agency arrangements in co-located, with co-located teams through Families First and other, and in general, it's preferable. But it's quite a, it's quite a costly investment, and it's one that needs to be, again, taken up, and I think has been taken up above my head for the Met, because that's a Met question. You make some interesting points. Thank you very much for that. Catherine, I wonder if I can turn to you. So, as a non-statutory partner, I wonder how does Healthwatch feel about the maturity of the partnership or multi-agency partnership, Liz, for your service users? I certainly think we've seen improvements this year, definitely of the partnership feeling stronger. I think from our users, from the communities that we're working with, the one thing that they're saying they're lacking is that feedback. So, I was going to ask, how does the community know about the learnings from the SARS? How do they engage with that? But also, just from the recent engagement we've done, it's closing that loop. It's coming back to the community to share what has changed, what will change, and keeping that quite current. Another interesting point. So, you will remember, perhaps, Nicola, that there was annual conference which used to take place. And I wonder, that was one of the mechanisms or one of the ways of sharing that communication or messaging, that learning. So, how, in absence of the annual conference, how do you get that messaging right across the geography to a variety of arrays of organisations? So, with the annual conference, we do still have an annual conference. It was just, it was jointly with the children's side. And so, it's just designed slightly differently. But it was really, really powerful in bringing children and adults, workers together, and looking at how do we understand each other a little bit better. So, that works. I think, with the current project, because I think that's quite a good example that Catherine raised, I mean, we're sort of not even half, we're halfway through sort of the project at the moment. So, I've got to do some feedback to those communities that I spoke to. And so, we'll be doing that. And I think your point is that with that community engagement project, that is finishing, the project's finishing in November. And we're in the process of designing an event where we can look at how we can invite and share with local communities. I think, with the learning from safeguarding adults reviews, I think, as Councillor Mistry said, around sort of the report itself, I would want to be able to do more, perhaps, around getting some of that learning out there. So that neighbours can feel that they can, if they're concerned, that sort of thing. Very helpful. Thank you very much. Let me make progress. Tony, please. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Nicola, for your report. But, continuing along the partnership arrangement theme, I'm quite interested in 3.28 and 3.29, where you talk about, you know, joint partnership, safeguarding children into, you know, adulthood, if you like. And, you said you focus on additional needs and exploitation. And I wanted to know, in terms of coordination and continuity, you know, you know, what exactly is the relationship between you as a chair and the chair of the Children's Board? What the relationship is, what the relationship is, and is it based on meetings about a strategic approach, or is it a case-by-case approach that you meet on, and how often do you meet? Because these are important in terms of you saying that you don't want to duplicate, but then you also need to focus on certain areas. And I just want to know how you do that. Thank you for that. Nicola, please. Thank you. So we meet, I'd say, regularly. It probably averages out sort of about once a month. With the transitional safeguarding work, that's what we're doing together. So it's not duplication whatsoever. And so we don't look at case by case, because we wouldn't do that. Not unless there was a safeguarding adults review that featured children as well, and we needed to do something joint there. But we wouldn't do that operational sort of level. But Keith and I have come together to look at and lead the transitional safeguarding project that's currently underway. So we recently held a seminar for practitioners and managers from both the children and adults world. And so we led that together, and now we're analysing what has come out of that. And then we'll be leading a joint case review to sort of look at some of the three cohorts in a little bit more detail. So we don't duplicate at all. We would just be coming together and sharing, me sharing that through an adult lens, Keith through a children's lens, and how can we come together. And so with transitional safeguarding, if we took, I don't know, we'll say the exploitations cohort, we're currently sort of looking at, okay, so there's work underway around in the children's world. So how does that come into when that child who's been exploited, when they reach 18 and come into adulthood, are there the services available? And so that's the sort of thing that we will be looking at and challenging. Thank you very much, Nicola, for that. Keith, did you want to just come in very briefly? Yes, just to really echo what Nicola just said. And very welcome. Good evening to you. And thank you for being here with us this evening, Keith. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I just want to echo what Nicola said. Yes, we, I'd say it's a bit more than monthly, actually. It's probably averaged out a bit more than that. But I want to stress what you've just said, and that isn't duplication, it's actually new activity that's happening. And I would say of real importance to the Children's Partnership, certainly in terms of transition for all those groups, the three cohorts, but very particularly around care-experienced young people transitioning from being children at the age of 18 to adults, where national experiences show us that many, many young people get lost from the system, really. And this joint project is going to be very, very important in ensuring that it doesn't happen. So, yeah, we work very closely together, basically. Thank you for that. Grateful to you, Keith. I'll come back to you, Tony. Let me just make... Oh, okay, go for it. Thank you. Your microphone, please. Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to find out, really, in terms of... We talked about what you learn, the learning aspect of it. Now, in terms of, you know, the transition, is there anything, any strand that is common between the adult and the, you know, children and adult, in terms of what you've learnt? Is there something common amongst... Thank you. ...you know, the two cohorts? Thank you. I think it was, or between the three cohorts, is there something common between the three? Yes. I think, is it a Venn diagram? If we did it as a Venn diagram, yes, absolutely. We're sure that some of those children or young adults, that we were, if we did a huge review and a huge audit, some of those would be, would feature in all three of those cohorts. And so, that, you know, so what we'll be planning, when we get some more information around that and get, do some more analysis, then we'll be presenting a report to the Joint Executive in December, so that then we can look at what needs to be embedded during 2026. And so, for example, it might be that it's children reaching adulthood with additional needs who maybe are autistic, you know, that maybe we've found that there's some where they've had problems at school, and so then that's led to them being more vulnerable to exploitation, or that there's been abuse and neglect, and they've ended up being care experienced. So, what happens to them, what happens, if that's one, what happens to that young adult once they've reached 18, and are the adult services engaged enough to be able to just have that nice, no boundary from children to adults? And I think, and I think in the seminar that we held, that's not sort of from the report that we've presented today, but certainly what our early learning from the seminar that we held, is that there's some evidence of that, but there's probably still a long way to go, but that's what we'll be sort of doing more work on, and you'll hear about next year. Thank you. Thank you for that, Nicola. Claudia, you wanted to come in. So, just to follow on from what Nicola's saying, in relation to transitional safeguarding, from the age of 18, adults have devised a process that we can actually support those individuals that are coming through the transitional pathway. So, the transitional pathway originally was mainly focused on SEND, individuals, children who are under the SEND criteria, but we're now actually looking at children who are under looked after. So, where there are evidence that they will need some kind of support, they might not have a disability, but they might be, for example, at risk of radicalisation or other issues, then we will take responsibility through the transition pathway. And the team that will support them, we've developed a smart 24 that works with any individual that are on the cuffs of care, so they're not quite meeting the CARE Act criteria, but we will support them. It might be that we involve prevent or whatever, but we will actually ensure that we try and prevent them from going down a road that is not, is undesirable. Thank you very much indeed. Kanta, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. How how would you in your partnership identify such cases and especially how confident are all the partners that the cases are being picked up, swept up, identified and then not falling through the cracks? I think you talked about taking learning, impacting and et cetera early on in the presentations. So what measures? I just want to try and make sure that we're not falling through the cracks. The report is really positive, really glossy. Great work. Appreciate that. But there's always because as councillors, we're out there in day to day. We see some cracks. And I know that we report through our channels to Brent Council. But shouldn't we as partnerships, since this whole board is in place? Thank you. Should there not be some more? Thank you for that. Sorry, it's a bit long winded. Nicola, please. Yes. So we had the Indira Safeguarding Adults Review, which, again, was from a few years ago. It wasn't sort of very recent. But what he identified was that different agencies were involved with this lady. And self-neglect was almost normalised. And self-neglect was almost normalised. And so the learning, the impact of that review has been to, again, advance the high risk panel. So that's, and also around escalation as well. So we developed guidance that most of the agencies have got escalation policies in place. But we've designed just a very simple one so that the final point is to me, really. So we, as a board, we wouldn't get to, we wouldn't know if necessarily if they were about the cracks, what we expect is to raise awareness with everybody, including yourselves, to be then assured that if somebody identified somebody who was self-neglecting, then that would be taken to the appropriate agency to adopt social care. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My hope is, my hope is, my ambition is, is that we will do more work around that with Brent Health Matters, more work with Health Watch. And that so that by November, so that by November, we can start to identify how can we actually reach other community groups, because I wouldn't have the capacity to do it all. But, but making sure that actually are all the partners actually doing that and bringing that in. So that's what I've learned sort of so far is, yes, I've been out to those, some of those groups, but actually Brent Health Matters gets out. Thank you. Thank you. And so, so it's sort of just then looking at, are there any gaps? Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Nicola, for your report. Thank you for that. And also part of my question has already been answered. However, I would like to know that you plan to go out in the community and meet as many people as possible. How widely have you been able to do that so far? I understand it's only six months and you have this project running till November. So that's one of the things I wanted to know that. And what has been your experience by meeting these different groups? And also, I have a second question that because Brent has so many different communities and so many different groups here, and some of those groups are pretty difficult to reach. I wonder what sort of special efforts have you made in order to reach these communities so that they can benefit just equally as the others? Thank you. Thank you very much for that, Arshad. Nicola, please. So anyway, that's why I went with Healthwatch to sort of help to identify so that it wasn't done by any partner agency totally independently who we could identify. So it is sort of just these three groups so far that I've worked with. And it's been really interesting sort of just being able to go out. And so there was another group that we were trying to see. But when we say the word safeguarding, they're a bit reticent about it. And so the women's group I went to see, we had to have a translator for me. They thought, what are you going to talk about? They wanted to talk a bit more about children's safeguarding than adults. And so I was able to sort of pass that on. By the end of the session, and they were really wary about me being in there. By the end of the session, we were sitting there laughing, having, they were telling me their history. They didn't want me to leave. They had more to tell me. So at the moment, it's some of that work is actually about if you say the word safeguarding, people just backing away because they, what are they, what are we going to say? And so I've just been out sort of just being me really. I think in, in the dementia cafe, I went to, they wanted a presentation before we were waiting for it. I was just sitting there, just listening to them chatting and talking about the struggles with ambulance services and things. So not, not necessarily safe, particularly safeguarding issues. Maybe it's a bit more quality, but it was just hearing about how light, what life is like for them, really. And so that was where there were carers as well. And then the other group I met with just a drop in cafe and people who had never been before. And so that's why I really appreciated the opportunity to do it and would want to continue, because they are the people who would be in the cracks. And so if they've got care and support needs, we do need to know about them. So it's a, it's a longer term project. And, and, but I will identify by November. Sorry. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very quickly. Catherine, do you want to add anything? Since, since this is a partnership between non statutory partner, your organization and the independent chair. I wonder if you wanted to just supplement the reply. Yeah, only to say, I think it really showed to us the value in that independent local voice, being able to access those communities. Like you say, say the word safeguarding, they think about social services, they think about risk. It's us being able to really broach and broaden that connection for you. So I just think, you know, it was a really good example. Thank you very much indeed. Kanta, did you have a quick point? I've got one very quick one, I think, Chair. Thank you. Yeah. In the last 12 months, I know many of you are new in your job positions. There have been many national incidents that have been on media, that horrific ones, you know, and some of that learning should have probably fed into the partnership boards and everybody who's, who's involved in it and impacted into, into our local incidents. So what do you think in the last 12 months has been the most effective achievement? You could say with hand on your heart that because of this national issue may even have been a local one, which I may not have read about it or heard about it, which you could take it away and say, yes, we've learned something. We understood that. And this is what we're going to take away from the menu. Thank you. Thank you. A quick reply would be appreciated, Nicola. You're running out of time very fast. I think there was the ministerial letter about rough sleeping and rough sleeping deaths and that it wasn't associated with safeguarding. And that was the ask of boards. And I've been really impressed by how all partners have come together. And and we've got a lead now on the board for that. And so we keep hearing about we're hearing about it and we've got a plan of work. And just to finish off, just what really impresses me with Brent is that if I ask a question. And send an email or Kaylee sends an email for me within a week, I've got a meeting with somebody who wants to tell me the answer. And there might be more work to do, but they want to tell me. And I think that has been really, really valuable. Good. Thank you very much for that. Charlie, thank you. So this kind of follows on from that. There's a two part question about how we can learn from other boroughs. So we talked a lot about embedding learnings by reviewing our own essay hours. Are we actively working with other boroughs to learn from what they have had? Because obviously we don't want to wait until it goes wrong in our borough before we learn from that mistake. So that's part one. And for speed, I'll give you part two, which is similar, but it's on the sense of the actual report and how you report back to us and what we can see. Ealing, which is next door to us, has a report which includes a lot of data on the broader trends around safeguarding concerns and inquiries and how they're raised. And that provides useful context, such as seeing that the number of inquiries is going up quite a lot year on year. And I feel like our report is lacking that. So maybe there's a request there for future reports, but also a question about whether you can give us any sense of the overall trends in terms of numbers. Great. Thank you very much, Charlie, for that. Nicola, please. I think to the second part of the question, and I might be wrong, but I think because we probably do the report, the annual report a lot earlier than a lot of boards. And so sometimes the data isn't available. I might be wrong, absolutely wrong there, but absolutely we'll look at that. We do learn from other boards. There's a national analysis that comes out every couple of years around national reviews. And so we always take on board the learning from from those. And I've established a North West London chairs and business managers group so that we can learn from from our neighbors. But also, I know, because the ICB and the police are sort of covering those. So they will bring that learning in as well from from where they're working with other boroughs. Thank you for that. Very final question, then. Rochelle, thank you for waiting so patiently. That's right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Nicola. I'd like to ask you, actually, I felt that there should have been more statistics in the report itself. And you've actually identified five styles which have been completed. So are there more still waiting assessment? And how does that compare to other boroughs? Thank you. We we had a backlog when I started. We had a backlog of safeguarding adults review. So that's why there were a few more than we would normally have. We have referrals come in for anyone can sort of put in a referral for potential safeguarding adults review. But we have caught up. So we haven't when we haven't got a numerous. I think we haven't got any on the go at the moment. And how that compares with other places? Well, it's basically what if I was going if I was looking in from elsewhere, if you had too many or no reviews, I would just be asking questions. So so I think we know you never know how because sometimes a board can just suddenly have a spate of reviews and then there's nothing for a couple of years. But because some of them were quite old reviews and had been had been some delays for various reasons. I feel confident that and knowing that there are referrals coming in where we make a sort of good sort of sound decisions as to whether or not it will go on to a review. So I'm confident that we're we're identifying cases where we need to. Thank you very much indeed. Very, very finally, Nicola and the other colleagues. I just want to find out the key emerging priorities for the next 12 years. Sorry, next 12 months. Sorry, next 12 months. So if you could just say a little bit about how those are being put together, please. So the current strategic plan runs until 2026. So that's where it's the self neglect and the substance misuse and housing. And I think how we will identify the strategic priorities going on from from there will be looking at what what's coming through from safeguarding adults reviews. We'll go back over the ones that we've completed to see if there's any themes that need to be looked at. And and and also but also taking on board what's coming through nationally as well. And what we know about that within. Thank you. Thank you very much, guys, colleagues. Any final point or any recommendations, please, to the independent chair and the team? Yes. Yeah, I've got just on the priorities would be really good to whether we can co-produce one of the priorities for maybe the next year, not the next year, but the year after that with those who have a lived experience of safeguarding. I think then to give them the ownership would be really, really powerful. And another one would could be explore and potentially commission a multi-agency led safeguarding awareness campaign, particularly around self neglect and domestic abuse. Thank you very much. Tony, please. And then Ganta. Thank you, Chair. We've talked about what we've learned or what you've been learning. And I just wanted to recommend that if you itemize what you've actually learned and how you've progressed that in your in your work. And if it comes out in the report, then we'll have a clearer understanding. Thank you very much for that. Ganta, please. Thank you, Chair. Just a recommendation, which I think would help me on the scrutiny to better scrutinize and be helpful, possibly include some national case reviews, which we've only just heard about it here and on national things, and how they would work and impact and locally and maybe just a stats of or just national versus local and what we can take away and whether the learning that we did from it have gone away. Just some some sort of statistics, because a report is very general. But that would give us sort of a focus on localized. I think the point being made. Thank you, Ganta. I think the point being made is the national trends versus the local trends just to just to get the the just to get the full picture. Thank you very much, Ganta, for that. Charlie, please. Yeah, well, really, just to build on that point and my own previous question is specifically to request obviously changes report to include more of that data that might mean changing the time it's done. But also, if we can ask for that information to be shared with us before next year, obviously. So can we get can we have that officially requested? Thank you very much indeed. And really, I'm grateful to you, Nicola, for your very helpful assistance this evening. Thank you for your presentation and equally your helpful replies together with all the other colleagues. I completely take up the in here the point made by Council Clinton about data and will feed that in as lead member. And also, of course, you as a CWB scrutiny will get an opportunity to consider later this year the annual adult social services. Quality local local local local local. What's it called local account? I forget. Yeah, local account. And that obviously has something on safeguarding, which is very much about what comes in. I sense through the front door of the authority and that'd be an appropriate time also to look. Thank you. Thank you. So, Nicola, again, thank you very much for your help. And Claudia and I'm sorry, Will, I've called you leave from my apologies and Sue and Darren. Good to have your company this evening. Look forward to seeing you all again very soon. And also to the incredible colleagues sitting in the public gallery for all the work that you do day in, day out. Thank you very much indeed. All three of you. We are grateful to you. And so we are now going to move forward with the safeguarding around children. And Keith, we are very pleased that you've been able to stay for the first part. But but here it is. If you could just give key headlines from your annual report, please. Thank you, Chair. It's very interesting going second, actually, because it's given me an opportunity to understand what sort of questions you're likely to be asking. So I can engineer my introductory comments to maybe pick up on some of those. And there's quite a lot of read across between the adults board and the children's partnership. And I'll make reference to that. And I hope I don't repeat what Nicola said. But there is read across. There are similar things happening. But the two partnerships are very the two arrangements are very different in law. And Nicola is a chair of a board. Now, we used to have safeguarding boards for children, but that was replaced three or four years ago with this new arrangement that we're now working in, where we have a partnership as equal three way partnership between health, police and the council. And that's set out, that's statutory set out in guidance in working together 23 now. So I don't chair that group of partners that is chaired by the partners on a rotating basis. But we've agreed for this evening that as the independent scrutineer, I'll make the presentation. Thank you. But I just wanted to be really clear on that. So the other really important thing to say about the children's partnership, and it's very similar to the adults board in this respect, is that the role of partnership is to seek assurance on safeguarding. It is not to operationally run the system. So, I mean, the various constituent parts of the system, police, health, council, all run their services. They're operationally obviously responsible for them. The partnership isn't. I just wanted to make that clear. So the role is about, it's about assurance. It's about learning from what's happening locally and nationally. We just referenced that through various means, and they are laid out in the report. I'm not going to go through every detail of the report, obviously. I just want to pick up on what's, what happened in that year, the reporting year, April 24th, March 25th. And the differences from when I presented last year to this scrutiny committee, what's the new things in place fundamentally. I'll just pick up on those and not go through the whole report, if that's... Thank you. Yeah. So, one of the things is that we have developed a new data dashboard. So there's a new scorecard available to the various groups overseeing the partnership. And that's been aided by a new audit system, a software system called FEW, P-H-E-W. I don't know what that stands for, actually, but FEW system. And that is helping the partnership to analyze the data better. I'm going to jump straight to say and answer one of your questions there, really. And that's that we've made a judgment in the partnership collectively to not pepper this annual report with lots of statistics and data and what have you. I've listened very carefully to what you were just saying. And I personally will be, I will be, from this meeting, making a recommendation to the partnership that we may want to consider, including there's a mass of data, dashboard data available, both nationally and locally. And partners may want, the partnership may want to consider including that in the annual report. Very interestingly, Zoe, who's the business manager over there, and I met with a local government association representative this morning, and she was making that point, in fact. So this is quite apposite, really. Another major development in the year is that we're developing plans now to work much more closely with children and young people and to bring their voice in. We've woefully failed to meet with the youth parliament. We've tried. We've had a date, and then we had to change it. And then we had another date where you advised us your attendance wouldn't be great at that meeting. So we changed it again. So, but we are, we're trying to meet with you. And Alice has been liaising with us about that. The main thing we're doing is developing a system of having young scrutineers. So they will work with me to help scrutinize the whole children's partnership. I've actually been instrumental personally in introducing young scrutineers into three other boroughs, actually. And it's, it's been helpful. So we can learn from that and bring that in. So that's a big thing that's happening. We're working much more closely with community safety through Safer Brent partnership. We have community safety representative at the forum now, the Safeguarding Children's Forum. And also the case review group. So that's very helpful. Nicholas talks about the transitional safeguarding project that we have jointly running. So I won't repeat all that, but I'm just, I think that's really important. And just one comment on that. And that isn't usual across, it isn't, it's not the commonality across boards and partnerships over joint projects on this. So we're, we're not unique, but we're close to, yeah. Throughout this period, we had to make sure we were compliant with the new guidance, the new Working Together 23 guidance. And we've introduced those changes. And they aren't great, but they're important. I mean, they're great, not great in number, but important. Basically introduced a couple of tiers into this. And that's lead safeguarding partners, and then deputies to that. So lead safeguarding partners meet a couple of times a year to really focus on big strategic overview. And that is very well attended and very highly represented. So chief executive of the local authority, chief executive of the ICB. And the borough commander from police sit personally in that meeting. So it's very important. Okay. So the executive really of the partnership is, is very well represented. You have very good attendance. We treat education, the whole education sector as a fourth partner. Okay. And I can say more about that. That'd be helpful. But we essentially have very, very good involvement from education. And that's happened. That's been strengthened over this last period. And hopefully we have Council Graal as lead member on the Safe Functions Forum. I mean, you were on the partnership. We made a decision that the forums are more appropriate. All right. Sorry. Sorry. So I do get things wrong. And that's very helpful. Thank you. We had a very successful joint conference. I won't go over that again because Nicholas already talked about that. The partnership is leading on the work involved to introduce the statutory requirements of the children's wellbeing and education bill. That's important. That's not, again, not common across the country. We did a lot of work on online safety. Now we have task and finish group looking at that very important. And I'll just quickly say what our priorities are over the next 12 months. It's basically online safety I just mentioned. That work has started with a survey of schools to see what mobile phone usage is like and what the policies are in schools across the borough, all schools, primary and secondary. We're developing our data collection analysis further. I've mentioned we're wanting to hear the voice of young people and children more. So we're appointing young scrutineers. That's a priority of next year. Our priority is to work on neurodiversity amongst children, particularly amongst young girls, where there's hidden autistic, there's hidden autism amongst girls, really, in primary schools. And that was picked up through one of our multi-agency audits. And we learned from that and we're working on it. And lastly, we're working on transitional safeguarding. Just to repeat that, really. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much indeed, Keith. Really, I'm grateful to you. Gwen, really good to have your company this evening. A quick word from you before we take questions. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Keith's given a really good overview of the report. So I'll try and be brief. There's been a lot of questions tonight about learning and how we respond to recommendations and evidence that's coming out. And I think that's rightly so. So I guess within children's, there's two elements to kind of learning as a kind of multi-agency arrangement. One would be how are we responding to the latest evidence, the latest recommendations about children's safeguarding. And there's a couple of really important examples within this report. One Keith's mentioned, which is the response that we've had to working together, the guidance from 2023. But I'd also mention that there has been a major restructure really successfully carried out by Palbinder within children's social care. And that's in response to the independent review of children's social care. So there's two examples where the evidence changed, the recommendations changed, and we responded as a council, but also with our partners. The other element, I think, to learning is if something goes wrong, how do we look at that incident together and work out what needs to be done? And I think that's where, much like the adults group, it comes down to really strong professional relationships. And I sit on the safeguarding partnership, and I definitely think it's a place of professional curiosity. There is accountability by different agencies, and there's healthy challenge. And there's also the Brent Safeguarding Forum, and we have really good attendance there, including from our education partners. And it's very well attended, and I think there's some really healthy discussion and debate, and people take away action points for their own organisations. So that's what I wanted to say, really. Thanks. Thank you very much indeed, Gwen, grateful to you. I'm not particularly going to ask some colleagues to say anything unless you particularly want to. So Sue, Darren, Will, Catherine, did you want to say anything at this particular moment? Otherwise, I'm going to go straight into the questions in interest of the time. Thank you very much. So first question first then, Itishan. Thanks very much, Chair. I mean, you pre-empted the first question, which was around the lack of kind of data and kind of performance indicators. I mean, how else are we going to assess the performance of the partnership? So it would be good to have those. So without that, we talked a little bit about it, about the learnings and then about the change in behaviour that then leads to positive outcomes. Can we talk a little bit more about how that, I mean, it's difficult to prove without the insight, without the data, but can we talk a little bit about how that is embedded and we don't have the data, but do you have an understanding as to how we can assess the performance of the partnership? Do we have anything at hand that we can kind of discuss? Thank you for that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Yeah. One thing I'd like to say is that it's important, I think, to note that the partnership learns from a number of different sources, okay, and develops from them. So there's national and local and also other borough experiences and rapid reviews and what have you. In this reporting period, we haven't had any rapid reviews, and I think there's nothing to be read into that. And I've looked very closely into our threshold arrangements, how we compare with other boroughs and so on. And I'm completely satisfied that the systems are in place. It's just as coincidental that we haven't had any. However, we do also look at other cases, and I want to give you examples. It does answer your question, I think, in part. And that's that we learned from, for example, a very sad situation where a child fell from a height, fundamentally. And we've done a lot of work with housing, both locally and nationally, on that. And we developed a seven-minute briefing around that and a multi-agency audit around it. So that was very important. A very sad case. I won't go into detail because some of this isn't in the public domain kind of thing. But we learned from it of a young child with quite a high degree of disabilities who very sadly died in circumstances that may or may not have suggested neglect. And what that led to is another seven-minute briefing, but training and preparation of people across health and social care in being more curious in certain circumstances, being more aware of those circumstances and so on. So that was a learning in its own right. I've already mentioned, as well, also, multi-agency audit around mental health problems for children and young people, leading to identifying a real need to think differently and identify differently, girls particularly, and boys, but girls mainly, who are neurodiverse, mainly with autism, at the end of primary school, so top of primary school age. And, again, that's led to differences in practice within services. I'm wondering if, Palvinda, you may want to come in. Palvinda, thank you very much, Keith. So, Palvinda, Keith uses the phrase curiosity, and quite rightly so. And Claudia, in one of her replies also referenced curiosity. And I wonder, with the influence role that you have across the education settings, if you just want to say a little bit about how you ensure that curiosity is in that place. Thank you. Thank you. And good to have your company as well. Thank you, Chair. There's always learning. Sometimes the learning is... Microphone, please. Thank you. It's on. Thank you. Thank you. Is that on? Can you hear me now? Yes. Yeah, sometimes we always do the learning, no matter what level of risk is involved, what level of injury or whatever's happened. And sometimes we find, after pulling all the information from all the agencies that are involved in that young person or child's life, family's life, that it's a single agency issue, something that needs to be taken back. And we're always specific about what the actual recommendation, but also what is going to be done. And then often there's follow up as well. Sometimes it's more than one agency. Sometimes it's very widespread. There's always a follow up plan and a further audit or dip sample that's done to test whether the learning has been done. And some of that involves talking to frontline practitioners about what they've learnt, what techniques they've learnt and put into practice. And that's through follow up audits. The other thing I wanted to say, the example that was given around children falling from heights. We also learnt that there were five local authorities in London through the child death overview panels where that was a pattern and the numbers were high. So we did that piece of work across London, actually, pan London, and that work is now has come up with issues, both from within the local authority, but also within a housing service, because some of these accidents happened on housing estates, etc. And so there's a level of awareness that's needed both within statutory sector, but also with families and communities as well. And so we use all our outlets like family wellbeing centres, for example, which are much easier places for community members to access, to share that information. Another example is cited in the report around a stop and search pilot. All of London contributed to that pilot. And again, there was multi-agency learning. There was a recent inspection, just picking up your point about schools. There was a recent inspection of SEND in the local authority. And again, there was a partnership led multi-agency audit that was done and that sharing of information was channeled. It was fed in by the respective agencies. Schools were heavily involved in that. And they took away both individual learning about that particular child, but also multi-agency learning. And colleagues, members would have seen the report from that inspection. So we are learning all the time. We are picking up issues that might be national issues, not really seen here, but we want to explore whether there's anything here that's hidden that we need to think about that's coming down the line. I hope that helps. Thank you very much, Anita, for that. I'm grateful to you. So I'm now going to ask, you mentioned Brentwood's Parliament. Brentwood's Parliament are very much here this evening. Thank you very much. So your first question first, then, please. So looking at your report, I wanted to ask why the forum isn't partnered with all schools in Brent and only list six schools, which is great. But I feel like I just wanted to know why this is the case, because it could impact other schools, I feel. And I don't know if it's done on a rotational basis or if it's just like only those six schools that are being focused on times of safeguarding. Thank you for that. Excellent question. Case, please. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I think there may be a little misunderstanding. Probably not put it well in the report, but we want to hear from all schools across the borough. It's just that it's impossible to have all the headteachers around the table at one time. So we go in through the experience of some headteachers who then represent the other, you know, they talk with other schools and we're trying to get representation in. It's a really good question. It's one of the ways in which I think young scrutineers system will help us in that, in that we we want to engage much more directly with children and young people in schools. And rather than going through the hierarchy through the headteachers, actually survey out directly to schools. So that's how we want to approach it in the future. So maybe the report is a bit misleading on that. So no, we're not just looking at six schools. Thank you. Parlwinder, please. Thank you, Chair. We have a very active designated schools forum, which is all designated leads in all the schools. We have conferences, there are regular meetings. We have the issues that come through from learning is shared there. We take feedback from the schools. It's a very active forum and that's why I don't. I think he's right. We can't have everyone coming to a meeting. So there are other partnerships and forms that take place that then feed into the safeguarding forum arrangements. Thank you very much for that. Charlie, please. Hi. So first question, kind of building on previous themes was, what specific learnings have we taken from the incident with child Q? What particular, again, just looking at the national pictures, that's a very specific case. So is there anything in particular that we have taken from that? Thank you. So, Will, do you want to start off and then I'll bring other colleagues? It's been pretty substantial. I think there are two parts to it. First is the specific case. I'm sure everyone knows involved intimate search for child. So there's the process which we need to follow. I think it was also just recently in the public domain, the outcome of that particular case for the officers involved indicates how seriously we've taken that. Partially, they simply didn't follow a process that was already there. And then there's the strengthening of that specific process. And then there's training to make sure that everyone, which is most warranted officers who may come into contact with children, know what the process is. Pretty robust. And then there's the broader child first strategy, which was implemented, I don't think entirely as a consequence of child Q, but it certainly would have accelerated it. So the child first strategy, I don't know the degree of detail that that's been discussed here or is. But it's again, it's an open document. It's on it's on open source and it's a child centric approach to how we deal with young people. We mostly come into contact, we often come into contact with young people in not great circumstances, and we typically tip towards enforcement because we're police. So it's really bringing in that contextual element of, well, it's a child first. So this person may have committed an offence, but what other options have we got? What multi-agency referrals do we need to do? If they are going, have to be put into the criminal justice system in any way to do that with as minimal impact as possible. For example, you would do arrest as a last resort. If you do that, going through the custody system referrals from there. And that has been a whole Met training approach, which has led, you know, way above my head from the central front, the frontline policing delivery unit. Commander Kev Southworth leads on it. His central team dispersed training throughout the whole Met and which is ongoing because that's a big rollout with thousands of people. Thank you for that, Palwinda. Did you want to come in? Just there has been specific training on adultification that all agencies have taken part in. And of course, when we do our audits, we're always mindful and curious about whether, you know, this is this is bordering on that. The stop and search audit, although it isn't directly related to Child Q, was about how we have we work together and make sure that we are dealing with young people appropriately. Take taking on board some of the lessons from Child Q. So earlier, when we were looking at the previous paper, Nicola alluded a number of times about her close working partnership with Catherine's organization. And I wonder, Keith, how well do you work with organizations like Catherine's in sense as to what we are hearing from Will about child being the first priority? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. One of the main ways we achieve that is through the Safe Island Children Forum, which is very well represented and has representatives from the community and independent sectors there. And we also have a lay member and we're the partnership is reflecting on whether to have more than one lay member. We did have three at one point and one very sadly died during during this period, actually. So so lay members bring in bring us closer to the community. I've got to echo some of the things Nicola said about that. And that's it. It's a really difficult thing to engage with the community. So so so so so, yeah, lay members and the young scrutineers that we're developing and so on will be our main ways of doing that. I don't think I've answered your question. So you have partly so. So so I understand because I mentioned schools forum and Catherine has talked about the partnership working with organizations like Catherine. Catherine, and I just wanted to understand, yes, you do have that partnership working with schools forum, but but that is one aspect of the community. And I just wanted to understand how well you are working across other non statutory partners. Yes, I mentioned the forum to go back to the point that Will was making in his reply putting child first. Yes, no, absolutely. So we are engaged as pal vendors said we're engaged with a number of we engage with schools very well in a number of ways engage with community organizations as well. We haven't yet worked with Health Watch, although Catherine and I have very few quick words before this meeting. We do in we do intend to engage with you on that. I'd say I'd say I'd say if I'm honest, this is work in progress. So thank you very much for the point of development reply. Just like Will's earlier candid replies, we are grateful to you for being so candid with us. So I'm going to make progress and I'm going to ask Tony for his next question, please. Thank you, Chair. We know that it's a multi agency working partnership you have, and you you're learning from each other. And it's good to know how this learning is actually being embedded. But what comes to my mind is a catalogue of problems and issues, if you like. I'm thinking of county lines, grooming gangs, knife crimes, mental health, you know, a catalogue of problems. And I'm just wondering with this multi agency working, you know, how effective is it actually working in terms of prevention rather than trying to cure the problem? Thank you very much, Tony, for that question. I'll start off with you, Keith, if that's OK, and I'll bring other colleagues in. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Yes, we actually are rather. If it's acceptable to you, Chair, I'd like to bring Palbinder in first. Absolutely. By all means, Palbinder, please. Thank you, Gwen. Yeah, I mean, it's quite a pessimistic question you've asked. I think all of those are legitimate, you know, problems within children's safeguarding that we need to be aware of. But I think without multi agency arrangements, it would be almost impossible to think of how could how to respond to things like that. I think there is work going on in all of those areas, both nationally and locally. For example, we work very closely with the police, and I'm sure our colleague can give further information to identify children at risk of county lines. Baroness Casey wrote an audit into group based child sexual exploitation just came out a couple of weeks ago. So I raised that with officers and they said, you know, there's already a discussion tabled responding to the recommendations in that report. And I did ask a number of questions about the training that social workers undertake and how aware we are as a department of children at risk of that particular problem. So those are two examples from your list. I don't want to start talking about children's mental health because we could be here all night. Thank you. I think we do respond to contemporary issues. And I think those kinds of problems, if anything, tell us exactly why we need to work with different partners, why we need multi agency safeguarding. Thank you for that. Sorry. Let me just let me just bring you in a moment. But let me just turn to Sue and Darren and Will first. So Gwen just talked about one of the reports, recent reports and the learning and going forward with that. And I wonder how your respective organizations are picking up that learning from that report that we've just had. A couple of weeks ago. It's a bit early to answer because it will be a met wide response and a national policing response with partners because it's recently. What within the last two weeks dropped and then we have a public inquiry incoming. So I really don't feel I can give a detailed answer, chair. Let me move to Sue and Darren. Thank you for that. We are grateful to you. Sue. Sue. So I guess the ICB has a Northwest London safeguarding group where reports like that are actually taken. And we discuss with the health providers across Northwest London, how, how we work with it and what we need to put in place to ensure that things are being caught. Yes. Thank you. I want to apologize to Palpinder first. I thought I picked up the messages wrong. I thought you would say some something on it. I'm going to give an exact exact example. And that's online safety, which is an emerging real problem for for children. We've recognized that through through audits and what and other mechanisms. We are working on that with surveying schools. So that's a real example of trying to get ahead of the game in terms of a, you know, current problem. We're always facing a wall of problems. There just are. There just is a wall of problems to face. And as Council Graal said, I just think we'd be in a much worse place if we weren't acting in a multi-agency fashion. And we can, we can do what we can. Can I also just shoehorn in a comment on the, on our police colleagues where I've sat on a number of boards of chair boards. I've been the independent scrutineer and across a number of London boroughs. And I would say our police representation on this partnership is, is really very good indeed. Very strong. We get regular reports in. We're kept up to date. We know what's happening in the Met. Um, and our local police are very responsive. Thank you. Thank you for that. Uh, you wanted to come in. Uh, we'll. Thank you. Thank you. And that's a compliment to my teams. Not me. Been there for three weeks. Um, just, I suppose, building on the, the, the question that Councillor asked about County lines and wider maladies. If, if you roll the clock back 2015, 16, we wouldn't, or we're unlikely have been sitting here talking about County lines, but they were very much in existence, uh, could well have been worse than they are now. And, but for the efforts of the sorts of people in this room and, and many colleagues, we've put a very wide lens on it. Uh, we've utilized the modern slavery act and it's become a focus of multi-agency prevention and police enforcement in terms of the exploiters. So it appears like the problem's grown. I think that's unlikely to be the case. I think it's been more closely scrutinized and therefore it appears to have been grown because we have more information. It seems likely to me we'll be sitting here in 12 months time and lamenting, uh, sexual exploitation, having grown where actually the outcome will probably be that we've looked at it more closely. Very hard to know what you've prevented. Of course. Thank you very much for that. Uh, I'm going to bring, uh, our, uh, young friend, uh, for the next question, please. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to ask about the whole young scrutineers, like recruitment, because I think in theory it sounds good, but I just wanted to know like how, like in more detail, like what their role would be and how they can have an impact. But also like how, like where were they recruited from? Because I would say, perhaps you might say you're going to get them from schools, but you want to cover like every area of the borough where young people are. So you can want it to be really representative of the demographic. A very good question indeed. Thank you. So, uh, Keith, please. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you. Um, we haven't yet established how we, we, we will be recruiting, but we, you know, we have experience from other places on the recruitment there. And also the, uh, the ways in which it didn't work well, and it wasn't full representation in other places. So we're not going to make those mistakes. Um, I, I'm very grateful for your comment about, um, the need for representation across the borough and that will influence how many young scrutineers we have. Maybe, Keith, uh, maybe you might want to, uh, co-design with Brent Youth Parliament as to, um, how that will look like. Um, it sounds like I've made this up, but that was going to be my next comment, actually. It really, really is. Good, good. I think this has to, has to be co-designed and co-produced. Yes. I mean, that's, that's the whole point of it, really. Um, the beginning of your question, you asked what the young scrutineers role would be. Um, in the other places I've mentioned, the role has been really powerful in that we've had the young scrutineers sitting in on and contributing to the main meetings, uh, including the executive meetings. Um, and that actually brings about, I think it brings about a diff, it makes a difference to the meeting in that the, um, it brings to the fore constantly the, the young person's voice. So the young person's voice is always in the room. So that's one way. Um, another way is in, is in influencing the annual report. So the annual report would be written differently. Um, so we'll have children, young person's comments all the way through it. Um, and in two other places I mentioned, um, a, a, a different version of the annual reports being produced, um, which is, um, written for young people. Um, and just one last thing, Chair, we've, um, the other thing we're learning, I've learned in the other places, and I want to, we'll try and apply here, is that the way we communicate is really important. And so communicating through reports is not the way forward. I don't think it's, it's really about, um, engaging through social media, through apps, through, uh, other means. Thank you. And we can only get there through co-producing with you. So thank you. Great question. Thank you. Thank you. And, um, do you have, do you have some sort of timeline, um, when you hope to put this in, uh, place? Uh, hopefully, um, um, the tail end of your, uh, reply, uh, indicates to me that it will be done before the next annual report. Yeah, I mean, actually that's, that's all, that's all I can commit to, to be honest, in, uh, because we haven't, um, got the exact detail of process in place yet. So the ambition is certainly to do within this financial year. Good. Thank you very much for that, Clarity. Grateful to you. So I'm going to make quick progress, if that's okay, looking at the clock. Count up, please. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, Chair. I'll just make my point again about the glossiness of the reports to try and make them a bit more readable goes for both chairs. Sometimes I think thinking outside the box is quite important. And as chairs and as other partners, I always think that besides what's in the report, it's good to work with non-statutory partners out there. There are, for instance, from experience, I know there are a lot of communities who have Saturday weekend schools where it's not just dozens, it's hundreds of children as you go there. And I think early on, the chairs talked about diversity and how many different communities we have. So I think most, almost every community does have this outlet. And I know that some people do work with it, but that's, you know, but also on top of that, you've got things like Wembley Stadium, West Hendon Football Club. And then last week, this week, Monday, I visited, I didn't know it existed, the cricket club at Wilston Green. And I was absolutely shocked. I don't, I believe there are more than 50 to 60 young children. Absolutely amazing. So do we, as chairs, how often do we go into the community? Are you prepared to go into the community besides the one that are the norms, you know, the forums or organizations? So how much engagement are you actually prepared to do? And are we doing in terms of community engagement? Because I think it's really important to reach the young people at a very young age. And a lot of these organizations, I know from personal experience, across the borough, Brent and Harrow, there's easy access to children from a very young age. Thank you for that. Embrace that. Thank you. Nicola, you have already talked about the organizations and the voluntary sector that you're working with. But if you do want to come back, then feel free. But let me bring Keith in first. Thank you, Keith. That's something I haven't personally engaged in, in Brent, yet. But that is certainly one of the things I'll be very, very, very open to and wanting to do. I think we have to be realistic as to how much of that can be done within the time allocation I've got. I mean, actually, not sure. It's a couple of days a month I work, fundamentally. So, yeah, Zoe is too mean to pay me any more than that. But no, that was a very bad joke. I think we've – so that's one way, and I think that's really good. But it's – I keep on stressing the same thing. But I think hearing – I think there's a much wider – Having a mechanism for it would be – Keith, sorry to talk over you. But, Keith, I think the point that Kanta is trying to allude to, that there is a much more wider point, knowing the borough and knowing the community and knowing the borough as a really big picture. And I think we heard earlier Nikolaus portray how she's understanding that big picture, working partly in partnership with a health watch and partly, you know, working with other statutory or non-statutory partners. So I think that is what Kanta is trying to allude to, and working two days a month or something of that nature, maybe it is not practical. But if you were – if there is a possibility of just getting to know the borough that much better, then I think the richness of the work that you and the colleagues do may be slightly much more enhanced, perhaps. But thank you. Perhaps you may take that and think about and reflect on that. Thank you very much for your point. Let me bring Ashad in. Ashad, thank you very much for sitting there so patiently again. Thank you very much, Chair. My question is to the Chair, with regard to a safeguarding issue that stems from four years ago when a two-year-old toddler was sadly died due to the poor housing conditions at the time. And the property belonged to one of the housing associations, but they failed to react to the complaints about it. I'm just wondering if you obviously might have heard it was widely reported in the press, and have you ever had any discussion with officers in the Brent councils or directors to, you know, see if that lessons have been learned from these situations, and if they have, what sort of action has been taken? Thank you. Thank you very much. And other colleagues may want to come in here as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Chair. We have had some discussions within the borough, but we need to extend that. We do need to be talking with our housing colleagues more. I think I'll just be honest and say that. And we need to be assured that the partnership is cited on what the whole housing sector is doing, so private landlords, independent providers, and so on, as well as the council element of this. And that is work in progress, frankly. Thank you very much. If anybody else wanted to come in. Thank you very much. Now, Gwen or Parmina, did you want to say anything from the Brent perspective? Okay. Thank you very much for that question. Ashad, do you want to come back with the supplementary? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for that. As you know, the Brent Council is, you know, very proactive, and they're doing the selective licensing as well as HMOs licensing. But I think that doesn't actually cover the housing association and the local authorities in that. So I'm just wondering if you have any kind of proper discussions, then you would have been told about that. And that would be an urgency to react to rather than the private landlords. Thank you very much. Gwen, you want to come in? I think you raise a really good point about housing associations, and it's one that the housing team are very aware of, that it's, you know, we have probably more of a duty to try to regulate what's happening, particularly as young people. So I think that's something that Councillor Donnelly Jackson is working on currently, is to try and set up a forum for housing associations so that we can hold on, so that they can have a closer relationship with the council. And I think more broadly, from our perspective, we just need a closer relationship with housing. And I think that the rapid increase in the number of children in temporary accommodation has presented a lot more issues surrounding children's health, for example, in housing, that, you know, much more so than we've been used to. But I think that that's something, as Keith says, it's a work in progress, but it's definitely something we see as a program. Thank you very much for that, Gwen. Grateful to you. Oshad, thank you for your question. I'm going to make some progress with Charlie's next question, please. Hi. So you mentioned a couple of times that online safety is a big focus for the coming 12 months. So we know this is a huge issue, obviously nationally. We've had a very specific incidence in Brent back in 2021 with the young girl who took her own life. So my two questions are firstly, and this is the first one is hopefully a quick one, but what was the trigger? Why now? Why is this happening now? Like, as opposed to why not before? Or I'm just interested in the thinking, but probably far more importantly, the task and finish group that you're setting up is very much a time-limited group to look at the problem at a moment in time and establish recommendations. One of the biggest challenges with the online space is it is evolving so fast. So would it not make more sense to set something up ongoing to continually review and adapt and make recommendations? Thank you for that, Charlie. Kiss, please. Thank you. The first part of your question is a very simple answer, and that's that the Safe Highly Forum looked at the online bill, the new online safety bill. And from that, we then commissioned a piece of work from two headteachers who told us about their experiences in schools. I found it, I personally found it a really quite unsettling presentation. And I think it made all the forum members realise how, as you've just said, how quickly this is moving, how we need to be as far ahead of the curve as we can be. So we thought it was a matter of urgency. The task and finish group will probably recommend a continuing group. OK, that's probably where it's going to go. So the task and finish group at the moment is about establishing the current situation, the data, the experience, the evidence. One of the things I've been saying is that the whole thing about online safety is it's moving faster than we can comprehend. So it's actually ahead of us the whole time. So, and I think that was an indication in your question, we'll never, we'll actually never catch up. Thank you. Palominda, you wanted to come in. Thank you. Just very, very quickly. It was also something that young people told us they wanted us to focus on. So it's embedded in the youth strategy refresh that took place recently. Very much for that, Palominda. Next question to Tassie, please. Hi. We have moved on a bit, but eventually just wanted to just make a contribution, really, that Chair, firstly, I want to thank you, obviously, for, so essentially a few things. I want to acknowledge the importance of the work that's already been done through our multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, and I appreciate the Cabinet Leads' efforts in driving those forward. But at the same time, just to add credence to Councillor Effa Pemi, and thank you very much, Mr. Lexington-Jones. At the same time, I do think it's vital that we do give due space to the concerns raised around knife crime and county lines, and I think Mr. Lexington-Jones gave that query earlier, that credence. They're not pessimistic observations. They reflect the lived realities of those young people locally and our children, our nephews, our nieces. So, yes, while the topic is complex and difficult, we do have a duty to engage with it, and I hope that we continue to do so. Thank you. Thank you very much, indeed. Gwen, you wanted to come in. Yeah, I apologise if that's how it came across. I didn't mean that it was pessimistic to raise those issues. I just thought the question was pitched slightly pessimistically, which I think the original question said, with all these problems happening, how do we know that safeguarding has been useful? So, I think that I just want to emphasise that we do take all of those issues incredibly seriously, and they come up on all the different safeguarding forums, and we have lots of working groups in place to address things like county lines. So, yeah, absolutely, we're all committed to dealing with those. Right. So, I'm going to bring this discussion to close here. Just slightly overrun eight o'clock. Thank you for staying behind and your patience. Before I finish this meeting, very finally, do you have any recommendations, Charlie, first, then Itisham, and then Brentwood's Parliament? Charlie? Yeah. So, the first one, I think, is just to reiterate, please do make sure that that is an ongoing thing. But actually, also, you mentioned that report from the two head teachers. I was going to request that maybe the scrutiny committee could get sight of that report so that we can have the same information you have and understanding the problems. Thank you. Itisham, please. Yeah, thank you very much. The first one is probably creating a report, whether it's quarterly or biannually, that looks at how services are supporting young people. So, from a transitional safeguarding perspective, supporting young people aged 16 to 25 who are vulnerable but don't hit the adult safeguarding threshold. So, that's probably the first one. And the second one is improve, save kind of support for youth organisations. So, training, referrals, training, all those likes. Thank you for that. Grateful to you. Yes, thank you. Our first recommendation is just to work with Brentwood's Parliament. We're here, able, willing, anytime we're here. And then the second one is just to reach out to different youth and community groups alongside schools because, like I think was discussed earlier, you can reach the whole borough by targeting these different groups, not just schools because, like, the different groups, but always be in a particular school. So, I think just reach out more. And perhaps reach out to Healthwatch as well. And from what we've heard from Nicola, she's obviously finding it useful to work with Healthwatch or Brent Health Matters or other organs that we have in Brent. And, of course, a couple of colleagues, Rochelle has left for our next meeting, but Ganta and Rochelle both commented, I think other comments may have been made around the data, the key performances, and perhaps I think, Keith, you have already accepted the point in your opening remarks. And I think, Nicola, you have already eluded to accepting the point in a number of your replies. So, hopefully, those comments will be taken on board. But all that remains for me is to thank you once again to each of you for joining us and being very helpful in your presentation and equally very helpful in your responses to various questions that were put to you. And once again, let me just turn to my right and thank three ladies who work incredibly hard, as I was saying earlier, day in, day out. And we do appreciate the effort that you put into it. Thank you very much. So, just for the final bit of this report, any other business? I'm not aware of any other business, Hannah. Thank you very much. So, until we meet you next time, thank you very much and safe journey.