New safeguarding partnerships show promise but hampered by funding issues and lack of government support

Funding  issues, a lack of government support and insufficiently senior police representation are hampering the impact of the multi-agency partnerships that replaced local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) in 2018-9, despite signs of progress.

That was the message from a review of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements by Sir Alan Wood, the government adviser whose 2016 report led to the scrapping of LSCBs on the grounds they were insufficiently effective and struggling to manage their wide remit.

In a follow-up report published last week, Wood said there were “grounds for optimism and belief that change is happening, improvement in practice is beginning to embed, and is impacting on outcomes for children”.

Read more here

Sharing options