Children: Protection

(asked on 10th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the accountable officer for health in multi-agency safeguarding partnerships has the (a) seniority and (b) health expertise required to commit the Integrated Care Board to decisions on policy, resourcing and practice matters following the transfer of statutory responsibility for child safeguarding from Clinical Commissioning Groups to Integrated Care Boards under the proposals in the Health and Care Bill.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 18th January 2022

The statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ designates accountable officers or chief nurses of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and their counterparts in local authorities and police forces as representatives of the three safeguarding partners in an area. This provides an equal and joint responsibility for local child safeguarding arrangements. All existing child safeguarding responsibilities for CCGs will transfer to the respective integrated care board. The guidance sets out clear expectations on appropriate delegation and this will continue to apply to safeguarding partners for health.

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