Council needs to do more on corporate safeguarding

Powys County Council has pledged to strengthen corporate safeguarding arrangements after a report from an Audit Wales review.

The report, published today, follows a review of the council between June and September this year and contains recommendations for improvement in key areas.

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The latest review found that the council had met or partially met some of the recommendations Audit Wales identified in reports they published in 2014 and 2015.

However, Audit Wales found that the council still does not have proper control of its corporate safeguarding arrangements, which exposes both the council and its residents to risk.

Audit Wales have identified further recommendations to help the council urgently focus and strengthen its corporate safeguarding arrangements.

Cllr Richard Church, Cabinet Member for a Safer Powys and Lead Member for Safeguarding, said:

"We accept the findings of this review and I would like to thank the auditors for their work.

"Before we received the review findings, the council had already identified a number of actions to improve our corporate safeguarding arrangements. In the summer, we put an action plan in place to drive improvement and we have started to implement this plan, including approving a Corporate Safeguarding Policy.

"We have reviewed and updated our action plan to ensure it fully addresses the recommendations outlined by Audit Wales to guarantee that we are on the right path to strengthening our corporate safeguarding arrangements.

"I want to reassure residents that Audit Wales had no concerns over the safeguarding arrangements that are in place in our education or social care settings.

"The recommendations focus on the whole council.  Every member of staff and every councillor has a responsibility to ensure that people they deal with through their work is safe from harm and abuse, and that they know how to identify people who may be at risk and to alert the right people as quickly as possible.

"We are committed to meeting all of the recommendations and securing the improvements to ensure that the arrangements we have in place keep our residents safe from harm and abuse."

The Audit Wales report can be found by visiting here: https://www.audit.wales/publication/powys-county-council-follow-review-arrangements-corporate-safeguarding