Date of meeting: 15 July 2026

Agencies represented:

Children’s Social Care;

Education;

Culture and Community Safety;

Croydon Commissioning;

South West London Integrated Care Board (ICB);

Croydon Health Services;

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM);

Metropolitan Police;

National Probation Service;

Voluntary and Community Sector organisations;

Independent Scrutineer

CSCP Business Team

Chair: Keith Makin, Independent Scrutineer (first half); Risthardh Hare, Director of Children’s Social Care (second half).

Quality Assurance Group examines race, safeguarding oversight and ongoing partnership challenges

Overview

The Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership (CSCP) Quality Assurance Group met in July to review partnership performance, scrutinise safeguarding data and consider findings from recent quality assurance activity.

A key focus of the meeting was understanding inequalities within safeguarding systems and examining how effectively services are engaging children, young people and families from different communities. Members reviewed ethnicity data, considered evidence of disproportionality and discussed the need to strengthen anti-racist practice across organisations.

The meeting also explored ongoing challenges affecting safeguarding arrangements, including partner engagement, increasing demand for mental health services, attendance at multi-agency training and concerns arising from domestic abuse-related audit activity. While progress was recognised in several areas, members agreed that significant improvement work remains necessary.

Positive work highlighted

Partners welcomed evidence that the Quality Assurance Group continues to provide a forum for constructive challenge and honest discussion about safeguarding performance and areas requiring improvement. Members recognised the value of using data and audit findings to identify risks and drive change.

The Group noted improvements in some areas of partnership engagement, including progress made following Section 11 activity and continued development of safeguarding assurance processes. Feedback on the Section 11 process suggested that the tool is helping agencies strengthen oversight of safeguarding responsibilities.

Good sign-up levels were reported for the forthcoming CSCP conference and work continues to develop a more targeted multi-agency learning offer through the new Practice Week model.

Members also highlighted the importance of being able to hold open discussions about race, disproportionality and service effectiveness without attributing blame, recognising this as an important aspect of continuous improvement.

Challenges discussed

The meeting heard that attendance at multi-agency safeguarding training remains inconsistent. Despite efforts to redesign the training programme, participation from several partner agencies continues to be lower than expected, raising concerns about workforce development and shared learning.

Partners discussed evidence showing disproportionate representation of Black children within a number of higher-risk and enforcement pathways, alongside indications that some Asian communities may be underrepresented in safeguarding and support services. Members acknowledged concerns around trust, accessibility of services, cultural competence and whether current approaches are meeting the needs of all communities effectively.

The Group also reviewed findings from a domestic abuse audit which identified concerns regarding referrals to MARAC and the completion of risk assessments. Members noted that some children and families may not be receiving the benefit of established domestic abuse risk assessment processes and that understanding of coercive control requires further development.

Concerns continued to be raised regarding housing engagement within partnership activity. Members discussed the operational impact of limited housing participation and recognised that this remains an ongoing issue for the partnership.

Key discussion items

• Quarter 1 safeguarding performance and partnership assurance.

• Barriers to attendance at multi-agency safeguarding training.

• Ethnicity data, disproportionality and anti-racist practice.

• The ongoing ‘Racism is Silent’ audit.

• Progress and learning arising from the Child Sexual Abuse audit.

• Findings from the Family Justice Centre and domestic abuse referral audit.

• Mental health demand and pressures affecting safeguarding services.

• Partner engagement, accountability and information-sharing arrangements.

  
  

Actions agreed

1. Identify barriers preventing attendance at CSCP training and escalate findings to the Executive Group to support improvement planning

2. Provide evidence and examples where families report feeling judged by services to inform future improvement work

3. Review ethnicity analysis recommendations and identify actions each agency can take to strengthen anti-racist practice

4. Strengthen partnership discussions regarding domestic abuse referrals and MARAC processes

5. Consider introducing stronger requirements for domestic abuse risk assessment processes where safeguarding concerns are identified

6. Explore reasons why domestic abuse referrals and risk assessments are not consistently completed and identify solutions

7. Include concerns regarding limited housing engagement and the impact on safeguarding and public protection activity in future escalation reports.

   
   

Closing statement

The Quality Assurance Group reaffirmed its commitment to scrutiny, learning and continuous improvement.

Members recognised that Croydon’s safeguarding partnership is willing to address difficult issues openly, particularly around inequality, disproportionality and service effectiveness.

However, the meeting concluded that further work is required to improve partner engagement, strengthen domestic abuse responses, increase participation in multi-agency learning and ensure that safeguarding services are accessible, trusted and effective for all communities across Croydon.