Recommendations
It is very important that the public have confidence in the systems that are provided in their name. This cannot have been helped by the considerable delay in publication, by the removal of harder hitting passages and by the fact that the Board is chaired by the Director of Social Service. This is not about lack of trust in our officers or indeed specifically, Swansea's Director of Social Services, it's all about the public perception of independence.
I would suggest consideration of the following for the future:
- All SCRs should have the same format
- All SCRs should be published within 6 months
- All SCRs should be entirely independent of any of the agencies that provided services. This would probably require the responsibility being taken away from the Safeguarding Children Board.
- The person responsible for commissioning the SCR should also be entirely independent.
And
- Urgent consideration be given to extending, by law, the Council Scrutiny process to cover all publicly funded agencies operating in the public sphere.
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