Purpose

This is a grant offered to all local
authorities. The grant has been offered in recognition of the need
for authorities to review their local multi-agency safeguarding
arrangements in response to Working Together to Safeguard Children
(2023). The revised statutory guidance changes requirements with
regard to how local Safeguarding Children Partnerships should be
led. It also
creates specific additional expectations in a number of areas
including:
• Local agreements regarding who can act as the lead
professional for a child in need
• Notifications to the national safeguarding panel following
the death of a care leaver
The grant is also to support the implementation of new statutory
guidance that establishes a national framework for children in
care. The framework sets out what key areas of focus that all
local authority children’s social care services will be
expected to deliver. Both of these initiatives are elements of the
wider government reform strategy for children’s social care:
stable homes built on love.
The grant will be used to create project support capacity to
support the delivery of these expectations within the required
timeframe.

Content

To accept the government grant of
£47,300 to implement service developments linked to
revised
statutory guidance focussed on the delivery of local safeguarding
arrangements. This budget aligns to activity already underway to
prepare for the changes referred to above which have
been developed into a project plan. The development and delivery of
the project plan is supported by an allocated resource from
PIC.
Spend for the grant will be allocated as follows
• £47,300 – to off-set costs linked to the current
acting manager of the Safeguarding Business Unit. The acting
manager is an agency worker with significant expertise of working
in similar positions in other authorities.