Council praised for safeguarding children work

Denbighshire County Council's work of safeguarding children in the county has been praised in a report published today (Tuesday, October 20).

The report, published by the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales, said:
“There is effective leadership in safeguarding by the Director of Social Services, who is also Lead Director for Children and the Head of Service and appropriate scrutiny and involvement of Members.

"The referral and allocation systems work well to ensure speedy decision making, prioritisation and effective response to immediate risks. There are good working relationships with other agencies and effective working together in the child protection processes...The authority has sound organisation in place to safeguard children.

The council acknowledges it can build on this and improve services to children "by further work in tackling the issue of the volume of referrals, ensuring timeliness of child protection conferences, evidencing consistently work done and raising the quality of assessments".

Councillor Morfudd Jones, Cabinet Lead Member for Children’s Services, said: "There is a focus on social services departments across the country to implement the recommendations of reports following high media profile of cases involving children.

“In Denbighshire we fully totally committed to improving access to services, support and information in all cases involving children. Their health and well-being is of paramount importance and we welcome this report which shows many positive attributes and praises the work already done.

"We will not rest on our laurels and we will continue to work with our partners to ensure the best quality services for our children”.