Warwickshire Liberal Democrats are continuing to seek assurances that Children’s Safeguarding is working effectively in the County.
This comes in light of the recent reports from Rotherham and elsewhere, and today’s report published by Ofsted entitled “The sexual exploitation of children: it couldn’t happen here, could it?”
Jerry Roodhouse Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Warwickshire County Council said: “We need clear assurances from the Warwickshire Safeguarding Board and senior officers, that we in Warwickshire are doing all we can to ensure we have the correct safeguarding systems in place. It is the duty of elected members to ensure that this is the case.”
The Lib Dem group put forward a motion on Child Sexual Exploitation at the last Full Council meeting on 28th October, which received the unanimous support of all elected members. Subsequently the Children & Young People Overview & Scrutiny Committee has agreed to set up a special meeting to scrutinise in detail the Annual Report of the Safeguarding Board. It will also establish a small group of councillors to work with officers on the implementation of new multi-agency working group arrangements early in 2015.
Liberal Democrat councillors will continue to play a full and active role in ensuring that elected members get the assurances they need, that everything possible is being done to ensure that children are safe in Warwickshire.
The Liberal Democrat motion approved by Full Council on 28th October was as follows: “This Council notes the tragic and systemic failures exposed by Professor Alexis Jay’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997- 2013),that whilst the report focusses only on the failures of the agencies in Rotherham, previous cases show that these problems are not exclusive to one area, that Professor Jay identified a lack of scrutiny and of political leadership on the issue as key factors in the circumstances that led to so many children being exploited in Rotherham. The Council therefore: 1) resolves to ensure that Warwickshire’s own local safeguarding board and members have all the means necessary to monitor and challenge the practices within the council. 2) calls on all other local agencies working with vulnerable children to ensure similar co-operation with the political and professional scrutiny necessary to guarantee Warwickshire’s protection of every one of its children from the experiences detailed in Professor Jay’s report.