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Safeguarding & Special Educational Needs Sub (Community & Children's Services) Committee - Monday, 13th October, 2025 11.00 am
October 13, 2025 View on council websiteSummary
The Safeguarding and Special Educational Needs Sub (Community & Children's Services) Committee met to discuss several reports and strategies related to safeguarding and services for children and adults. These included annual reports from the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) and the City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership Board (CHSCP), updates on the Families in the City programme, and performance reports on adult and children's social care. The committee was also scheduled to discuss and endorse the draft Corporate Parenting Strategy 2025-2028.
Corporate Parenting Strategy 2025-2028
The committee was scheduled to endorse the draft Corporate Parenting Strategy 2025-2028, which outlines the City of London Corporation's vision, values, and strategic priorities for children in care and care leavers. The strategy was shaped by feedback from care-experienced young people, performance data, Ofsted inspection learning, and internal governance processes. According to the report pack, the draft strategy had already been reviewed by senior leadership and shared with a City of London Corporation care leaver for further consultation.
The draft strategy establishes five strategic priorities:
I. Home Stability ensuring safe, secure accommodation II. Health and Wellbeing trauma-informed, culturally responsive support. III. Education, Employment, and Training removing barriers to achievement. IV. Voice of Children and Young People meaningful participation and influence. V. Transition to Independence preparation and ongoing support into adulthood.
The report pack stated that each priority includes specific actions, performance measures, and lead responsibilities across departments, with ongoing oversight supported through quarterly monitoring reports to the Sub-Committee.
City and Hackney Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report 2024/25
The committee was scheduled to review the City and Hackney Safeguarding Adults Board Annual Report 2024/25. The City and Hackney Safeguarding Adults Board is a statutory board required under s43 of the Care Act 2014, and one of its statutory duties is to complete an annual report outlining its achievements in respect of adult safeguarding.
The report included the key achievements of the Board as well as what the Board will prioritise in the forthcoming year. Some of the key achievements for the Board in 2024/25 included:
- Commissioning safeguarding training for frontline staff.
- Organising events throughout November in recognition of Safeguarding Adults Week.
- Hosting a Patient Panel on Safeguarding in the City of London.
- Publishing two discretionary Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs).
The report also set out the Board's strategic priorities for 2025/26, including:
- Developing and implementing a Community Engagement Strategy.
- Establishing a Multi-Agency Dashboard and Conduct regular multi-agency audits.
- Ensuring Learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) and Other Reviews are complete in a timely manner and learning is shared.
- Implementing the updated London Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) Pan-London Adult Safeguarding Policies and Procedure.
- Improving outcomes for people experiencing homelessness by preventing abuse and neglect and strengthening safeguarding responses.
- Minimising the risk of self-neglect and strengthen our multi-agency response.
- Minimising the risk of and strengthen our multi-agency response to financial abuse.
The report also included key data related to safeguarding for the City of London, including that 49 safeguarding concerns were raised, and 30 of those concerns led to a Section 42 Enquiry1.
Families in the City Update
The committee was scheduled to receive an update on the Families in the City programme. Families in the City is the Department of Community and Children's Services (DCCS) and partners' response to national government reform and Best Start Family Hubs for children and young people aged 0-19 years or up to 25 years for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The programme is scheduled to run in its current form until the end of March 2026.
Progress since the last update at the CCS Committee on 19 June included delivery of Phase 1 of the development of the City of London Best Start Family Hub, which includes changes to services for 0-5-year-olds. A Department for Education (DfE) Development Grant is expected in October 2025, which focuses on the early years include workforce and the review of related analysis to assess readiness for potential reform changes, threshold and referral documents. Multi-agency working groups have been set up to focus on particular areas of the reforms. The approach to engaging residents and professionals across the Families in the City programme continues to evolve.
Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) - Annual Report for 2023-2024
The committee was scheduled to receive an overview of the Independent Reviewing service in the City of London covered in the IRO Annual Report for 2024–2025. The IRO service follows the framework of the updated IRO Handbook, which is linked to the revised Care Planning Regulations and Guidance that were introduced in April 2011. The statutory duties of the IRO are to:
- monitor the performance by the local authority of their functions in relation to the child's case
- participate in any review of the child's case
- ensure that any children's ascertained wishes and feelings concerning their case are given due consideration by the authority.
The achievements identified in the Annual Report 2024–2025 are:
- Consistent participation of children in their review meetings
- Consistent IRO visits and communication with children
- Active monitoring of children's care plans and needs between review periods.
- Review minutes, contacts and alerts recorded on children's files within the online record system workflow
- Consolidation of the Pathway and Care Plan process, leading to an increase in care plans being completed within timescale
- Launch of the Caring Life portal.
The IRO service was also scheduled to review recommendations from reporting and planning work required for continued service improvement, and the report pack identified the following areas for improvement:
| Objective | Actions |
|---|---|
| Embed the modify Care Plan template in practice and ensure that the changes are impactful for children in care. | • Work is in progress with a completion date set for reporting year 2025/26. |
| Continue to develop the review process to make it inclusive for children and ensure that anti-racism policies are embedded within the service. | • Review systemic model and how this can be developed in the review process. • Ensure that all children in care are aware of their rights. • Ensure that service providers operate a consistent anti-racist policy. |
| Continue to monitor and flag health assessment timescales, so that children's health needs are assessed in a timely way and intervention is taken to improve health outcomes. | • Monthly meetings to be held with Health managers to ensure that children's health assessments are being completed within timescales. |
| Consideration for new ways to communicate and share information with children as part of their review process. | • Produce a video for new arrivals into care, explaining the national transfer scheme2 (when relevant), their rights as a child in care, and the process for reviewing care plans. |
| Annual Survey and Annual IRO report to be aligned. | • Correlate the reporting period so the annual survey of children reflects the same time period and can be reported on in IRO Annual Report. |
Other Matters
The committee was also scheduled to discuss the following items:
- City of London, DCCS, City of London 2025 Annual Survey
- Adult Social Care Safeguarding Performance Report Q1 2025/26
- Children and Families Service Performance – Q1 2025/26
- Draft Children and Families Service Self-Evaluation 2025
- Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) – Update Report
- Virtual School Annual Report 2024-2025
- CHSCP Annual Report 2024-25
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A Section 42 Enquiry relates to the duty of the Local Authority to make enquiries, or have others do so, if an adult may be at risk of abuse or neglect. ↩
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The National Transfer Scheme (NTS) is a scheme for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC). ↩
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Meeting Documents
Agenda
Reports Pack
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