The Children Act 2004 requires each local authority to establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB), to be made up of representatives from the agencies and bodies which have regular contact with children or responsibility for services to them in the local area. This includes children’s social care, police, education, early years and Sure Start, health services, youth offending teams and probation services.
LSCBs replace Area Child Protection Committees (ACPCs). Their core objectives are to co-ordinate and ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority by which it is established.
The functions of LSCBs fall into seven categories:
- developing policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
- ensuring that single agency and multi-agency training on safeguarding and promoting welfare is provided in order to meet local needs
- communicating and raising awareness of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and how this can best be done
- monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of what is done by Safeguarding Board agencies both individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
- participating in the local planning and commissioning of children’s services
- collecting and analysing information about the deaths of all children in the area
- undertaking Serious Case Reviews, where a child has died or been seriously harmed in circumstances where abuse or neglect is known or suspected to have to have played a role.