About us

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Welcome to the Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership website.

Our aim is to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in Barnet, and to achieve this we work collectively to improve safeguarding practice and respond to local issues.

We welcome professionals, volunteers, parents, carers, and - most importantly - children and young people to our website. We hope the different sections help you to understand our work and provide useful information about local services and how to tackle abuse and neglect. 

Our vision

Our vision is to enable children, young people and families to thrive and achieve, and a core part of our approach is to foster resilience. We aim to create a Family Friendly Borough, a place where children and young people excel and enjoy living.

We bring together a broad spectrum of organisations in Barnet who work with children and young people and our new board structure has allowed us to collaborate more effectively with a range of partners. We strive to work closely with children and young people, as well as practitioners and volunteers in Barnet, to hear their views and experiences and use this to shape our priorities.

Our purpose is to support and enable local organisations and agencies to work together in a system where:

• children are safeguarded and their welfare promoted
• partner organisations and agencies collaborate, share and co-own the vision for how to achieve improved outcomes for vulnerable children
• organisations and agencies challenge appropriately and hold one another to account effectively
• there is early identification and analysis of new safeguarding issues and emerging threats
• learning is promoted and embedded in a way that local services for children and families can become more reflective and implement changes to practice which are shaped by the experiences and concerns of Barnet children and families
• information is shared effectively to facilitate more accurate and timely decision making for children and families.

The statutory safeguarding partners in Barnet      

Jenny Goodridge Director of Quality & Safety, North Central London CCG

John Hooton Chief Executive, London Borough of Barnet

Barry Loader Detective Superintendent, Head of Safeguarding, North West Basic Command Unit, Metropolitan Police Service

We coordinate our activities through our board structure which involves all our local partners. To find out more about what we do, please take a look at our annual reports and multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. 

We have recently undergone our first annual independent scrutiny. Please find the report, produced by Red Quadrant, here which outlines our effectiveness 

Get in touch

We'd love to hear from you, if you have any questions, suggestions or comments about the work of Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership please drop us an email at bscp@barnet.gov.uk.

Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements

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Barnet Children Safeguarding Partnership’s multi-agency arrangements for child safeguarding can be viewed here.This sets our local arrangements, board structure, funding and governance for how we will safeguard and improve the wellbeing of children and young people in Barnet. A visual guide for our governance can be found here

Background

In 2015 the government commissioned a review into Local Children’s Safeguarding Boards by Alan Wood. The report published in 2016 made a number of recommendations on how safeguarding partners, such as local authorities, police and clinical commissioning groups should work together.

The government supported a number of findings, agreeing that effective multi-agency arrangements were ones that were responsive to local circumstances and engaged the right people. They agreed that the current system for local child safeguarding partnerships was too inflexible and needed to change. 

Working Together to Safeguard Children July 2018 is statutory guidance that replaces Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015. The new guidance supports key changes put into law by the Social Work and Children Act 2017.

In 2021 Alan Wood published a review of new LSCP and found that practitioners were reporting renwed confidence upon the new arrangements in improving safeguarding arrangements, but that it was still 'early days'. His report can be found here 

What’s different?

Local Safeguarding Children's Boards are no longer statutory and were replaced by multi-agency safeguarding arrangements or MASA. 

The guidance did not prescribe what this new arrangement should look like, only that responsibility rests with three safeguarding partners ‘with a shared and equal duty to make arrangements to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in a local area’.

These partners will provide the strategic leadership for safeguarding children. Under the Children’s Act 2004 as amended by the Children and Social Work Act 2017; these three safeguarding partners are:

• the local authority Chief Executive
• a clinical commissioning group for an area any part of which falls within the local authority area
• the chief officer of police for an area any part of which falls within the local authority area.

Many of the functions that the new MASA will undertake will be similar to those under Local Children Safeguarding Boards, such as implementing local and national learning from serious case reviews.

The BSCP has taken the opportunity to look afresh at how as partners we work together to improve outcomes for children and young people in Barnet.

We have made a number of key changes to our governance to streamline the number of meetings and improve the effectiveness of working when we do come together. This is set out in detail in our multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

We are focused on working with families, local communities and local services to provide our children with the support and opportunities they require at all stages of their life. We recognise how strong partnerships and communities are essential to making sure that Barnet’s children and their families receive the best possible start in life and the best possible care and help when they need it. It is our ambition is to drive forward a strong partnership that enables children and families to thrive and achieve.

BSCP Annual Reports, Independent Scrutiny reports & Business Plans

Our annual reports are published in line with Working Together 2018 and provides an update on our activities and impact over the past year.  Now that Working Together 23 has been published, from September 2024 BSCP will seek to publish its Annual Reports each year in September. 

In the meantime, BSCP is pleased to publish the 2022-23 Annual Report. The Annual Report provides an overview of multi agency safeguarding practice over the period September 2022 - September 2023, key learning and impact upon the local system of practice change and, for the first time, an overview of outcomes as a result of our focus upon shared safeguarding themes of: Safer Sleeping, FGM, Recruitment & Retention and Family Networks. 

BSCP is also pleased to publish its latest independent scrutiny report dated January 2024 . Tasked with scrutinizing the effectiveness of our multi agency safeguarding arrangements, it was outlined by the team of scrutineers that:  “There are robust partnership arrangements to ensure that children in Barnet are safeguarded and their welfare promoted. Our confident judgement is that the Multi-agency Safeguarding Arrangements for Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership continue to comply with Working Together 2018 and that the partnership is well placed to take forward the changes and new arrangements in Working Together 2023 with minimal disruption. The last year has further consolidated and strengthened the Partnership arrangements, with evidence that key partners have stepped up to their responsibilities in the Partnership and are involved and committed. There continues to be a culture of openness, respectful challenge, and a willingness to learn, which has positively impacted on safeguarding children and families in Barnet. Hearing and acting upon the voice of children and young people is a significant strength in Barnet, which has been further reinforced by the innovative participation of children, young people, and their families.”

Our 2024/25 Business Plan can also be found here which outines our shared safeguarding themes and priorities for the next year. 

Previous Annual Reports can be found here: 

2020-21 Annual Report 

2021-22 Annual Report 

2022-23 Annual Report 

Our boards

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We have a number of boards which provide strategic oversight and deliver the work of Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership. Our multi-agency partners including Barnet Council, Metropolitan Police Service, North Central London CCG, health providers, education and the voluntary sector are represented across the boards. 

The terms of reference set out in more detail the objectives and membership of each of the groups, as well as how the boards interlink to improve safeguarding of children and young people in Barnet. 

If you have any questions about our board structure or would like to raise an item for consideration at one of our boards, please email BSCP@barnet.gov.uk. 

The Leadership Forum provide strategic direction for the Partnership with a membership of the three senior leaders from the London Borough of Barnet, Metropolitan Police Service and North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group. The Leadership Forum oversee all of the Partnership's activities and receive regular updates from the subgroups. Terms of reference here.

The Performance and Quality Assurance Panel has a crucial scrutiny and assurance function, reviewing multi-agency performance data and a range of annual reports including from the MASH, LADO, Vulnerable Adolescents Community Partnership, 0-19 Strategic Partnership and Education. PQA takes an active role in monitoring and advising many of the BSCP activities, including multi-agency audits, the training programme, Section 11 audits, Professional and Young People Forums and thematic deep dives. It also receives regular reports from the Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector subgroup. Terms of reference here.

The Learning and Thematic Review Group is an independently chaired meeting looking at serious safeguarding incidents and deaths involving children and young people. It undertakes Rapid Reviews, oversees local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews and other bespoke learning activities, and monitors the implementation of recommendations. It also reviews national Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews and other relevant learning and good practice to implement in Barnet. Terms of reference here.

The Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector Group has recently been reinvigorated in Barnet with a new strategy and terms of reference. Its membership consists of larger community groups from Barnet and umbrella organisations which represent the VCF sector. Its aims are to bring the voice and knowledge of VCF organisations to the Partnership, as well as to improve safeguarding practice across the sector and increase engagement with Partnership activities and training.

For a visual guide to our Boards and our govervance please click here 

Conducting local child safeguarding practice reviews

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One of our core statutory duties as Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership is to respond to serious safeguarding cases and identify learning for local agencies.

 In Barnet the independently-chaired Learning and Thematic Review Group will be responsible for commissioning, overseeing and implementing local child safeguarding practice reviews. This group is responsible for deciding whether or not to commission a review against the criteria set out within the Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018 and Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023

 This group will have representation from the 3 statutory partners of the Local Authority Childrens Social Care team, Police and Health representation. In addition the group will lean on input from education, public health and legal colleagues and will draw on wider partners when specific expertise is required. These representatives will be senior safeguarding leads for the relevant agency or those with senior managerial responsibility for safeguarding. Any representative or deputy must be able to:

• Speak with authority for the safeguarding partner they represent
• Take decisions on behalf of their organisation or agency and commit them on policy and practice matters
• Hold their own organisation or agency to account on how effectively they participate and implement learning.

 The group will oversee shared action plans with details of each action relevant agencies are to take forward in response to the recommendations arising from rapid reviews, child safeguarding practice reviews, single-agency reviews and other relevant national reports.

 The independent chair will require each agency to report on the steps taken to implement learning and report on the impact this has had to improve safeguarding in Barnet. There will be a systemic and child-centric approach to improvement and partners will collaborate and be held to account about improvements required.

 National Safeguarding Practice Review Panel

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has a responsibility for how the system learns from serious child safeguarding incidents. LTRG will communicate with the National Panel about Rapid Reviews and decisions made about whether to propose a local or national child safeguarding practice reviews. LTRG will also attend to National Panel publications and work to implement local learning in Barnet.

 Criteria for local child safeguarding practice reviews (CSPRs)

16C (1) of the Children Act 2004 (as amended by the Children and
Social Work Act 2017) states: Where a local authority in England knows or suspects that a child has been abused or neglected, the local authority must notify the Child Safeguarding Practice Review
Panel if:
(a) the child dies or is seriously harmed in the local authority’s area
(b) while normally resident in the local authority’s area, the child dies or is seriously
harmed outside England

The local authority should notify the panel of any incident that meets the above criteria via the Child Safeguarding Online Notification System. It should do so within five working days of becoming aware it has occurred. Though the responsibility to notify rests on the local authority, it is for all three safeguarding partners to agree which incidents should be notified in their local area. For BSCP we use the ' Case for Consideration ' meeting and template form which brings the 3 statutory partners together - you can review this process here  . Where there is disagreement, the safeguarding partners should follow local dispute resolution processes.

If stautory partners decide to make a Serious Incident Notification then a Rapid Review must be convened within 15 days of that notification. The aim of this rapid review is to enable Partners to:
• gather the facts about the case, as far as they can be readily established
• discuss whether any immediate action is needed to ensure children’s safety and share any learning appropriately
• consider the potential for identifying improvements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
• decide what steps they should take next, including whether to undertake a child safeguarding practice review (CSPR)

As soon as the rapid review is complete, the safeguarding partners should send a copy of their findings to the panel. They should also share with the panel their decision about whether a local child safeguarding practice review is appropriate, or whether they
think the case may raise issues that are complex or of national importance such that a national review may be appropriate. They may also do this if, during a local child safeguarding practice review, new information comes to light suggesting that a national
review may be appropriate. As soon as they have determined that a local review will be carried out, they should inform the panel, Ofsted and DfE, providing the name of the reviewer they have commissioned. 

Cases will also be considered for local CSPRs where:

• The safeguarding partners have cause for concern about the actions of a single agency.
• There has been no agency involvement and this gives the safeguarding partners cause for concern.
• More than one local authority, police area or clinical commissioning group is involved, including in cases where families have moved around.
• The case may raise issues relating to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of children in institutional settings.

Local CSPRs will be undertaken where the case raises issues of importance in relation to the area and the National Panel will be notified of the decision and the appointed lead reviewer. The local authority must also notify the Secretary of State for Education, and Ofsted of the death of a looked after child. The local authority should also notify the Secretary of State for Education and Ofsted of the death of a care leaver up to and including the age of 24. This should be notified via the Child Safeguarding Online Notification System. The death of a care leaver does not require a rapid review or local child safeguarding practice review. However, safeguarding partners must consider whether the criteria for a serious incident has been met and respond accordingly, in the event the deceased care leaver was under the age of 18. If local partners think that learning can be gained from the death of a looked after child or care leaver in circumstances where those criteria do not apply, they may wish to undertake a local child safeguarding practice review. The local authority, on behalf of the safeguarding partners, has a duty to notify the panel about all serious incidents that meet the criteria. The number of serious incidents notified is not a reflection of local area performance. Making a notification, will ensure that earning is identified and fed back into the system to prevent future harm or death. The link to the Child Safeguarding Online Notification form for local authorities to notify incidents to the panel is available on the Report a serious child safeguarding incident page on GOV.UK

 

Following formal SIN notification to the national child safeguarding practice review panel, BSCP’s Partnership Manager will lead on supporting the Partnership to complete the Rapid Review. The Rapid Review will be chaired by the Independent Chair of the LTRG.  The Independent Chair will support the Partnership in its decision making as to whether a local CSPR is to be undertaken or not. If a local CSPR is not undertaken, the Chair will direct the LTRG group to take forward the learning and embedding in practice. Every Rapid Review must be signed off by all 3 statutory partners.

 

Any disagreements arising in respect of all of the above will be managed through a defined resolution protocol.

Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews

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When a child dies or is seriously harmed, including death by suspected suicide, and abuse or neglect is known or suspected to be a factor in the death, the Safeguarding Children Partnership may decide to conduct a Child Safeguarding Practice review (formerly known as Serious Case Review or SCR) to examine organisations' involvement with the family and identify learning for future improvement.

Below are the case reviews conducted in Barnet and associated learning materials. 

Child A CSPR - May 2023

BSCP concluded a local CSPR in Spring 2023 following the death of a mother and her child who resided in Barnet. The full local CSPR has been submitted to the national child safeguarding practice review panel and other relevent bodies. However, to support the protection of the identity of those involved in this review,  the Partnership agreed to provide a brief learning review of which has been disseminated across multi agency partners and actions are tracked through the respective partnership sub groups. 

7 minute briefing

Child L CSPR - February 2023

“Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership (BSCP) today publishes a local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR). An LCSPR is undertaken when it is considered that there is potential to identify improvements to practice and for national learning. The LCSPR report entitled ‘ Child L’, is an independent review into harm experienced by a child who was known to both Barnet and Brent multi-agency safeguarding services. The child is now safe and well in the care of the local authority.

The review was conducted jointly with Brent Safeguarding Children Partnership and included an extensive analysis of the multi-agency services provided to Child L and his mother. The review includes a summary of learning for Barnet, for Brent and nationally. The review also found a number of examples of strong and committed multi-agency safeguarding practice over the unprecedented Covid19 pandemic.  Barnet and Brent accept the recommendations of the review in full and continue to take action, both locally and nationally, to take forward the recommendations.”

Child L local CSPR

Child L 7 minute briefing for multi agency services

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Learning Review Child G, July 2019

Child G final report and action plan

Briefing note: Child G

Non-mobile children bruising and injury protocol 2019

Pathway for non-mobile children bruising and injury 2019

Leaflet for parents and carers

SCR Child E, January 2018

Child E report

Child E action plan 

SCR Child A, May 2016

Child A report

SCR Child D, April 2009

Child D executive summary

SCR Child S, 2008

Child S report

Further information

The NSPCC website contains a library of all Serious Case Reviews conducted in England, where you can find more information on the serious case review/child safeguarding practice review process. There is also a series of thematic briefings on learning from case reviews which can be found here.

The NSPCC has published a set of briefings looking at practice issues relating to how professionals in different agencies communicate and make decisions. They provide a more detailed understanding of practice issues highlighted by the SCR reports and can help support change and improvement work at national and local levels.

The National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel publish thematic reviews and other learning reviews of national relevance. 

Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)

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Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)

The North Central London Child Death Overview Panel (NCL CDOP) extends its deepest sympathies to bereaved families following their unimaginably difficult loss.

We hope that our panel will provide support for those who have suffered the loss of a child and help us improve safeguarding.

The panel review the deaths of under 18 residents in the North Central London (NCL) boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington, to help us to learn lessons from these deaths and to help identify ways to prevent future tragedies.

The panel meets after all information about the death has been gathered. It is attended by public health, the police and social services. We look at all child deaths in NCL individually and seek to learn from each of them.

All the deaths are anonymised, and any lessons learned are shared with practitioners and parents both locally and nationally.

We welcome the views of parents/carers and you should contact the panel chair, Susan Otiti to share any issues you think might be relevant, or that might help us learn lessons for the future.

To contact the NCL CDOP, please email Huda.charif@nhs.net. You can find out more about how the child death process works on the NCL webpage.  

Notification of a child death to the CDOP for London Borough of Barnet

Any agency/professional should make a notification to our e-CDOP if they become aware of:

• a child death occurring in borough of Barnet
• a death of a child normally resident in this borough but occurring elsewhere.

Following notification of the death of a child, the coordinator for CDOP will establish which agencies and professionals have been involved with the child or family either prior to or at the time of death by contacting the lead practitioner in each agency.

Relevant practitioners will then be sent a link to complete the e-CDOP Form B, and practitioners are kindly requested to complete as much information as possible about the child and family, but we recognise that it may not always be possible to complete all fields.

Professionals receiving Form B for completion should retrieve their agency’s case records for the child or other family members and complete the form with any information known to them or their organisation (usually within 10 to 14 days).

If you cannot access the link to the e-CDOP above, please notify the Child Death Overview Panel via our Single Point of Contact, Terri Graham (terri.graham@barnet.gov.uk). 

Joint Agency Response Meetings

Following an unexpected child death, our Designated Doctor for CDOP will convene a meeting of key professionals in order to:

• ensure support for the bereaved family members, as the death of a child will always be a traumatic loss - the more so if the death was unexpected
• identify and safeguard any other children in the household or affected by the death
• respond quickly to the unexpected death of a child
• make immediate enquiries into and evaluate the reasons for and circumstances of the death, in agreement with the coroner when required
• enquire into and constructively challenge how each organisation discharged their responsibilities when a child has died unexpectedly (liaising with those who have ongoing responsibilities for other family members), and whether there are any lessons to be learnt
• collate information in a standard format using the CDOP Form B
• co-operate appropriately post death, maintaining contact at regular intervals with family members and other professionals who have ongoing responsibilities to the family, to ensure that they are appropriately informed (unless such sharing of information would place other children at risk of harm or jeopardise police investigations)
• consider media issues and the need to alert and liaise with the appropriate agencies
• provide bereavement support as needed, for any other children, family members or members of staff who may be affected by the child's death
• determine if abuse or neglect appear to be possible causes of death, children's social care and the police should be informed and a referral to Learning and Thematic Review Group considered.

Resolution policy

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Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and frontline staff need confidence in talking with each other about decisions that have been made, discussing any concerns regarding those decisions and where there isn’t agreement, escalating those concerns as appropriate.

Equally important is the culture of how we work, and it is vital that frontline staff are encouraged to remain professionally curious and to raise issues where they feel that their concerns for children and young people aren’t being addressed.

Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership has agreed a resolution policy for dealing with professional disagreements, setting out clear stages of escalation. This protocol is to be found here . and has been agreed by the Partnership as of September 2023. 

Information sharing

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What is an information sharing agreement?

An information sharing agreement provides a framework for the secure and confidential obtaining, holding, recording, storing and sharing of information between participating partner agencies or organisations. Organisations that provide public services have a legal responsibility to ensure that personal information is lawful, securely controlled and protective of the rights of individuals.

Why do we need to share information?

Sharing information about individuals between public authorities is essential to keeping people safe and ensuring they receive the best services. This sharing must only happen when it is legal and necessary to do so. In addition, adequate safeguards must be in place to protect the security of the information.

Our Information Sharing Agreement

In Barnet we have incorporated an over-arching pan-London Data Sharing Agreement which includes Barnet MASH, Early Help and Multi-agency Child Exploitation, as well as the BSCP activities. 

This provides us with a clear and agreed basis for what information we will share and why. All our key local partners have signed the Information Sharing Agreement and this underpins practitioners' work with partners. 

The Department for Education also provides advice on information sharing for practitioners involved in safeguarding services to children and young people. This guidance has been update to reflect GDPR (general data protection regulation) and it supercedes previous published guidance. 

Policies and procedures

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Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership (BSCP) is governed by, and adheres to different policies and procedures, developed in accordance with the Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 and other national guidance.

London Child Protection Procedures provide standards for agencies and a framework to promote children’s welfare and protect them from abuse and neglect.

We also have a series of local policies and procedures for Barnet, you can find them here.

Licensing

Barnet SCP Licensed Procedures

CSE License Information 

BSCP Tobacco and Electric Cigarettes Information

BSCP Safeguarding Children Policy for Licensed Premises

BSCP Explosives License and Fireworks Registration

Quality assurance

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One of the core functions of the BSCP is to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of what is done by the safeguarding partners individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people and to advise them on ways to improve.

This requires the Partnership to develop its own comprehensive overview of the quality, timeliness and effectiveness of multi-agency practice in Barnet.

Our approach to multi-agency quality assurance has four components:

1. Monitoring partner compliance with the statutory requirements to have effective safeguarding arrangements in place (Section 11 audit process)

2. A performance management framework which collates data from across the Partnership about safeguarding activity.

3. ‘Outcomes-based accountability’ approach, asking three questions:

• How much did we do?
• How well did we do it?
• Did it make a difference?

4. A multi-agency quality assurance and audit programme. This is designed to provide much more information about the quality of the work being undertaken and its impact on outcomes for individual children and young people. 

Please see our seven-minute briefings from our recent multi-agency audits on child sexual abuse and vulnerable adolescents. 

This system complements and feeds into the Framework for Learning and Improvement which helps to promote a culture of continuous improvement across the partnership.

Further information about the quality assurance work of the BSCP can be found in our annual report.

Section 11 audits & safeguarding checklist

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The Barnet Safeguarding Children Partnership (BSCP) undertakes an annual Section 11 audit process of all agencies, as identified in Working Together 2018.

What is Section 11 of the Children Act?

Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places duties on a range of organisations and individuals to ensure their functions, and any services that they contract out to others, are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

For further information regarding these duties please refer to Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018.

Section 11 audit process

This Section 11 Audit is designed to support statutory organisations to review and reflect honestly on their safeguarding practice and assure themselves they are fulfilling their statutory duties. BSCP will provide feedback on submissions to help organisations identify strengths and areas for development and to share examples of good practice locally. Submissions will also shape the support we provide to organisations in the coming year, for example we have provided targeted training around the voice of the child. 

The BSCP has two self-assessments. The first is the Section 11 audit for statutory organisations. The latest version of the audit tool can be found here. 

We also have a self-assessment audit tool (called a Safeguarding Checklist) for Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector organisations. This can be found here   This is a more condensed version of a Section 11 and easier to manager for non-statutory organisations. 

For schools, Section 175 safeguarding audits are carried out by Barnet Education and Learning Service. 

Please note our Section 11 audit tool and VCFS Safeguarding Checklist are currently under review and we will share latest versions as soon as these are available. 

How to complete the self -assessment

Organisations are asked to provide a brief description of how they meet the criteria and to either attach or provide a link to evidence demonstrating they meet the criteria. Organisations are also asked to give a RAG rating for each thematic area and identify key actions needed to improve. 

BSCP will provide feedback on the submissions and organise learning events to share good practice between organisations. If you have any questions about the Section 11 audits or the safeguarding checklist, please email BSCP@Barnet.gov.uk and email your returns to the same address. 

Learning and Improvement Framework

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The Learning and Improvement Framework [LIF] outlines how the Partnership intends to monitor, evaluate and quality assure safeguarding arrangements and services for children and young people in Barnet.

The partnership has a number of key quality assurance functions including:

• assessing the effectiveness of help being provided to children and families, including early help
• assessing compliance of agencies against statutory duties
• undertaking reviews including child safeguarding practice reviews and other local learning exercises
• delivering multi-agency training in the protection and care of children, and evaluating this regularly to monitor impact  
• developing multi-agency policies and procedures and thresholds that support partnership working and meet statutory guidelines
• enabling effective learning and improvement across the partnership, including from child safeguarding practice reviews. 

The aim of the LIF is to support the partnership to deliver its quality assurance and learning functions and will:

• support BSCP to fulfil its statutory obligations
• make sure that the outcomes from reviews and other learning opportunities are used to influence practice development
• support a culture of continuous improvement and learning
• ensure that pathways are in place which identify the link between learning outcomes and improved services
• ensure that single and multi-agency training and learning is consistently audited and reviewed to ensure best quality and that learning form this is used to develop training programmes accordingly
• seek the views of children and families experience of services
• use performance monitoring to assess the performance of all partners against core priority areas including: Right Plan Right Time (thresholds), improving assessments for children, improving planning for children and improving the timeliness of interventions.