Progress has been made in developing an effective partnership response to the needs of at risk children and adults in Dundee according to a series of new reports.
The work of the Dundee Child Protection Committee, Dundee Adult Support and Protection Committee, Dundee Violence Against Women Partnership and Tayside Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) Strategic Oversight Group during 2021/22 will come under the spotlight next week.
As well as noting progress, Dundee City Council’s community safety and public protection committee will also be asked to combine three of the four separate annual reports into a single 2022/23 yearly summary.
The partnerships, made up of representatives from a range of backgrounds including police, health services, local authority, health and social care, prison service, fire and rescue service, community planning and the third sector have overall strategic responsibility for the continuous improvement of protecting people policy and practice in Dundee.
Council community safety and public protection committee convener Christina Roberts said:“The work of these four independently chaired bodies is vital in directing, overseeing and supporting services for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and I am happy to note the progress that is being made on all fronts.”
Elaine Torrance, who is independent chair of both the Dundee Adult Support and Protection Committee and the Dundee Child Protection Committee said:“I am pleased to report that among many initiatives we introduced during 2021/22 was improved arrangements for providing an initial response to vulnerable adults and after intensive work to increase awareness and understanding of adult protection issues, a positive impact on referral activity from NHS Tayside.
“A joint inspection of services for children and young people at risk of harm rated the local multi-agency response as ‘Good’ and a dedicated Kinship Care Team was established working in partnership with Tayside Council on Alcohol.to support Kinship carers, many of whom are providing care for children and young people impacted by parental drug and alcohol use.”
Ann Hamilton, independent chair of the Dundee Violence Against Women Partnership said:“We have continued our sector leading approach to establishing gendered services through producing public directories, training for key staff, further expansion of specific services for women and the meaningful involvement and influence of women and girls with lived/living experience. We are thereby providing services which more effectively and sensitively meet the needs of women in Dundee.
“It is a positive step to also be able to report that Police Scotland has significantly increased its Domestic Abuse Liaison Officer capacity which will help with effective safety planning for victims and robust onward referral to advocacy and support services.”
Alan Small, independent chair, Tayside Mappa Strategic Oversight Group said:“Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic it is heartening to report that we have made good forward progress including the development of training programmes for operational staff and improved information sharing across all partners.”
Across the board Protecting People Services in Dundee in 2021/22 also benefitted from the development of a local implementation plan for trauma-informed practice and a greater focus on meaningful involvement of people with lived and living experience, both members of the public and the workforce.
Looking ahead the report indicates that future activity will focus on a number of areas including improving data analysis and quality assurance and further developing connections between the individual Protecting People Committees to enable more joint working on areas of risk and need, including domestic abuse, drug and alcohol use, prevention activity, lived experience involvement and trauma-informed approaches.
The community safety and public protection committee meets on Monday (February 20).
Dundee City Council
Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.
