Barnet still had the second-highest level of contacts in North London, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

The number of contacts made to Barnet’s children’s safeguarding hub has fallen but remains around 9% higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The borough’s multi-agency safeguarding hub (Mash) was contacted 10,799 times during the six months to 28th April – down slightly from 10,847 during the previous six months.

A report presented to Barnet Council’s children and education overview and scrutiny committee on Thursday (8th) states that the figures show “positive signs of a stabilising system”.

Barnet had the second-highest level of contacts to Mash in the North London region, according to the latest quarterly figures, with the highest percentage increase (15%) since the previous quarter. It was ranked fifth-highest for the rate of contacts across all London boroughs.

The report states that while there are “notable increases in contacts to the Mash from education and health agencies”, the higher rate of contacts is not leading to a higher rate of referrals to children’s social care, which “suggests that there is not an increase in safeguarding risk”.

There were 1,334 referrals to social care during the most recent six-month period, with 10% of these seeing no further action taken – a higher figure than for any of the five years to 2020.

Labour committee member Liron Woodcock-Velleman pointed out there had been a “relatively large increase in referrals with no further action” and asked if that was a “communication problem” or an “issue with provision”.

Tina McElligott, the council’s director of early help and children’s social care, replied that the ratio of contacts coming into the Mash was “disproportionately high” compared to the pre-pandemic years, but the number of children needing a safeguarding response was lower.

Tina said “no further action” meant that “it does not need ongoing social care intervention”, but the individuals can be signposted to other help. She added that the council tried to make sure it was not doing “statutory assessments on families unnecessarily”.

According to the report, a social worker was appointed to the Mash hub in March to work with partner agencies and ensure they are “clear on the support available for children and families so they can be directly referred for help rather than sent to Mash”.

Conservative committee member David Longstaff raised concerns over a separate section of the report that revealed a return-home interview was not offered for 70% of looked-after children who went missing from their care placements during the past twelve months.

Tina replied that every child who goes missing is offered a return-home interview, but some children who go missing frequently may have one interview per five missing episodes as part of their care plan.

She said some children are reported missing daily, but the issue is that their whereabouts are not known rather than that they go missing for a period of time.

Cllr Longstaff pointed out that a separate statistic stated that an interview was “not applicable” for 8% of children who went missing. He said interviews should always be recorded, otherwise “it looks to the naked eye that we have just not bothered”.

Tina explained that a “commissioned provider” carries out interviews for children who live outside the borough, while the early help service focuses on those living within Barnet. She said she would look into the issue further and respond to Cllr Longstaff.

After questioning officers, the committee agreed to note the report.

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