11 years on, council promises progress on safeguarding shortcomings

Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Councillors have been given assurances that “concerted efforts” will be made by a Gwent council to address historic safeguarding issues that were criticised by Audit Wales in a report.

At a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Corporate Governance and Resources scrutiny committee on Thursday, June 19 councillors received the annual safeguarding report.

The report is a response by the council to a review of corporate safeguarding arrangements in November last year by Audit Wales – who said that Blaenau Gwent had not made “sufficient progress” and not addressed the outstanding recommendations they gave the council in 2022.

The issue was first raised by Audit Wales with Blaenau Gwent back in 2014.

‘No concerns’

Director of corporate services and s151 officer Rhian Hayden said  “This is around the corporate element of safeguarding activity, there is no concerns around safeguarding activities in education or social services.

“No child or vulnerable adult was placed at risk because of these elements.

“Audit Wales do acknowledge that some progress has been made but not enough to address in full a number of recommendations made over the years.

“In response the council has developed an action plan to address the weakness that have been identified.”

She added that following “feedback” from the committee and the Audit and Governance committee, senior staff would be reviewing the action plan.

Committee chairwoman, Joanne Wilkins said: “The action plan is crucial here, if we’re going to monitor performance, we need to be clear that progress is being made and that is the tool to do it and the sharper it can be the better.”

Cllr Keith Chaplin (Labour) said: “The one thing that did strike is that this has been ongoing since 2014.

“I’m sure on each occasion after (Audit Wales) reviews there would have been action plans produced, reports to committee, and 11 years on were still here with an unsuccessful recommendation and a number of actions that are still to be taken.”

“Given the lack of progress over 11 years should the council be commissioning external help to ensure this plan is robust and guide it along and ensure it gets properly implemented.

Failings

Ms Hayden said: “I don’t think we need to bring anybody else in, we are clear on our past failings and what we need to do.

“We are making a concerted effort and recognise that improvements need to be made.”

“We will expect you to hold us to account when we bring this action plan forward and monitor our success or failure.”

Ms Wilkins said: “How often we are going to be updated on our progress because it is really important, I don’t want to leave it a year.”

Ms Hayden said: “I would ask you give us a few months, and an update will be brought to you in September or October time.”

Committee agreed this timescale.

The Audit Wales recommendations are:

“The council needs to take further action to fully comply with the recommendations in our October 2019 follow-up report on corporate arrangements for safeguarding of children.”

“The council needs to strengthen its monitoring arrangements of third parties so it can assure itself that they comply with the council’s safeguarding policies.”