Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member Housing

RESOLVED THAT

The new Safeguarding Policy be approved.

The Cabinet Member Housing introduced the report and explained that the council’s current Safeguarding Policy was due for renewal. To ensure consistency and best practice across the districts, the Gloucestershire District Safeguarding Network proposed that a template county-wide safeguarding policy be developed that could then be adapted to meet the council’s specific needs

Taking input from lead Cabinet Members, the Senior Leadership Team and service managers, the new policy reflected the aspirations of the Council to effectively embed safeguarding practice across the council. The policy incorporated both safeguarding children and vulnerable adults into the new document. The Cabinet Member highlighted the wide ranging topics covered as outlined on page 1 of the policy. He explained that the aim of the policy was to raise overall awareness of safeguarding, the signs of abuse and information on what to do if any form of abuse was identified or suspected; protect children and vulnerable adults from harm while using services that Council was responsible for by ensuring services have safe working practices in place and to ensure that employees, casual workers, volunteers and elected Members associated with CBC were able to report any safeguarding concerns appropriately. He was pleased how CBC and its partners operated safeguarding which he believed was ‘everyone’s business’.

A Member requested that the number of the Designated Safeguarding Officer be included on the list of useful numbers on page 16 of the report in order to be easily and readily publicly available. The Cabinet Member Housing agreed to do this.

The Leader highlighted the importance of the document which would embed safeguarding practices across the council giving confidence for staff to raise issues where they arose.

RESOLVED THAT

The new Safeguarding Policy be approved.