'Sharp increase' in child safeguarding cases in Peterborough as council reviews practices

Peterborough City Council (PCC) faced a “sharp increase” in enquiries to its child safeguarding service at the beginning of the year with more coming through in January 2023 than in any month last year.

There were 285 enquiries in January, up from 138 in December and an average of 217 per month across the year.

There was also a “significant increase” in the number of referrals, with 303 in January up from 166 in December and an average of 193 per month last year.

The uptick comes as PCC reviews the way its safeguarding system, which it runs with other agencies across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, is run day-to-day.

It's also reviewing safeguarding thresholds, which it says is “in part” why the number of referrals has risen.

Peterborough’s child safeguarding service is one of the council’s services which were visited by Ofsted inspectors earlier this year.

The council says it has an action plan in place for these services which it shared with the education watchdog ahead of its visit.

But details of the plan will not be made public until after its report is published next month, it says.

PCC’s children’s social care services were rated Good by Ofsted after its last full inspection in 2018 and was described as “conscientious” after a visit in 2021 with “good attention” being paid to children’s physical and emotional wellbeing.

A further visit, during which Ofsted will look at a wider array of PCC’s children’s services including those provided by its internal and external partners, is due this summer.

In recent months, PCC has also faced an increase in the number of children in care with the rise beginning in September 2022.

Following a baseline of around 350-60 for several months, this climbed to 400 in between September and January.

PCC says there are several factors at play including the number of separated migrant children coming to Peterborough from the Government’s National Transfer Scheme and an increase in children presenting complex behaviours which require intervention.

However, the number of children subject to protection plans in Peterborough has dropped over the past year, from more than 200 at the start of 2022 to 108 in January 2023.

PCC says it’s undertaking a review “to understand if the numbers are in line with what we expect for Peterborough” as this is “significantly lower than our regional and statistical authorities”.