Update on Family Safeguarding Model

Concerns have been raised about difficulty recruiting domestic abuse officers to help protect vulnerable children in Blackpool.

The town has now adopted a new Family Safeguarding Model which includes a range of experts whose role is to tackle issues such as alcohol and drug abuse, domestic abuse and mental health issues.

It is hoped by intervening earlier, more families can be kept together so fewer children are taken into care.

But a meeting of the council’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee heard Blackpool had struggled to fill all its vacancies for domestic abuse officers due to a national shortage.

Instead it had turned to agency workers, but councillors were told this would not increase the cost of employing people. Minutes from the meeting said domestic abuse officers needed to have a probation service background.

Concerns were also raised about the number of children in Blackpool being taught at home and whether adequate safeguarding measures were in place to protect them.

Chris Coyle, assistant director of Children’s Services, said council’s powers were limited with a requirement of just one annual contact with home-schooled children. But he added the council was investigating the potential to increase such contact points.

The meeting was also told Hertfordshire County Council would visit Blackpool in January to undertake a review of the Family Safeguarding Model and its implementation.

Blackpool was awarded government funding of £764,610 just over a year ago to set up its family safeguarding team, with the model already having a successful track record in other parts of the country.

As well as providing better outcomes for children, it is hoped the new way of working will bring down costs if fewer children need to be taken into care. Figures show the number of children in care in the town was 523 in September.

Blackpool has one of the highest rates nationally of children living in care, but the rate has dropped to 182 per 10,000 population in 2022/24 compared to 194 in 2022/23. This remains much higher than the national rate of 71 for England.

Children’s Services is currently forecast to overspend by £3.3m on its budget during the current financial year, after over-spending by £6.6m last year.