The struggling authority – children's social care services were judged “inadequate” by Ofsted in March – has decided to act after an independent review of safeguarding procedures at 114 schools across the city earlier this year found just two met all the criteria of a good policy.
The council has worked with the review’s author, child protection campaigner Jonathan West, to develop a plan to tackle the inconsistency in schools’ safeguarding arrangements.
A key part of the plan will be to introduce a model safeguarding policy based on best practice that will be adopted by all local authority-run schools. The council will also work with the Department for Education to encourage academies and independent schools in the city use it.
The policy will emphasise that all child protection concerns “must” be reported to the authorities and provide clear procedures for doing so – the review found that many schools’ safeguarding procedures only required staff “should” pass on concerns.
Writing on his blog, West said: “If the model policy (with the all-important statement that child protection concerns "must" be reported) is adopted by governors, then staff at least will have a contractual obligation to follow the policy. A model policy adopted city-wide will bring practice up to the standard of the best schools that scored 10 out of 10 in my initial survey.
??“Furthermore, there are benefits from standardising on a single policy. It means that training can be designed round the policy; that reviewing schools' safeguarding arrangements is easier because it is known in detail what they ought to be doing; and as staff move from school to school during their careers, they will be immediately familiar with the safeguarding arrangements at their new school because they are the same as at their old school.”
West added that he hoped the plan would be in place by September for the start of the new academic year. He is meeting the council later this week to finalise how it will be delivered.
The move represents a significant turnaround by the council, which initially questioned the methodology used by West to assess schools' policies.
West carried out his review to show that failings in safeguarding procedures at Little Heath Primary School, the school attended by four-year-old Daniel Pelka before his death at the hands of this mother and her partner in March 2012, were representative of a wider problem at the city's schools. The serious case review into Daniel's death last year highlighted flaws in the way concerns about Daniel's wellbeing were passed on between his school, health and care agencies.
