About Us

The Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Children Partnership (SoTSCP) oversees how organisations work together to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of children and young people in Stoke-on-Trent and ensures statutory guidance within Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 is delivered.

Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Children Partnership is led by three statutory safeguarding partners who hold equal responsibility for safeguarding children in our area. The statutory safeguarding partners are:

• Stoke-on-Trent City Council
• Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB)
• Staffordshire Police

Education providers (schools, academies, colleges) are ‘relevant agencies’ that must work with the above partners, sharing information and complying with local arrangements.

The purpose of the local safeguarding children partnerships is to support and enable local organisations and agencies to work together in a system where:

• Children are safeguarded and their welfare promoted.
• Partner organisations and agencies collaborate, share and co-own the vision for how to achieve improved outcomes for vulnerable children.
• Organisations and agencies challenge appropriately and hold one another to account effectively.
• There is early identification and analysis of new safeguarding issues and emerging threats.
• Learning is promoted and embedded in a way that local services for children and families can become more reflective and implement changes to practice.
• Information is share effectively to facilitate more accurate and timely decision making for children and families.

We have a strategic business plan for Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Children Partnership 1st January 2022- 31st March 2026, This will be reviewed annually.

The safeguarding partnership has identified two overarching strategic priorities, three practice priorities and three assurance priorities:

Strategic Priorities

• Lead and embed effective Partnership arrangements to safeguard children.
• Develop and implement a Quality Assurance and Scrutiny Framework.

Practice Priorities

• Child Exploitation
• Neglect (Graded Care Profile 2)
• Safeguarding young children aged 0-2.

Assurance Priorties

• Missing Children
• Serious Youth Violence
• Child Mental Health

The Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Partnership Executive has been established to lead the local Multi-agency Safeguarding Children Arrangements required by Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026

• Lead Safeguarding Partners (LSPs)
• Designated Safeguarding Partners (DSPs)

With five subgroups

• Quality Assurance subgroup
• Education subgroup
• Learning & Development subgroup
• Review subgroup
• Child Exploitation and Missing subgroup

The Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Children Partnership will also work closely with other Partnerships and Boards in the city which include:

• Children, Young People and Familes Strategic Partnership Board
• Stoke-on-Trent Early Help and Prevention Board
• Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Adult Safeguarding Board
• Stoke-on-Trent Health and Wellbeing Board
• Stoke-on-Trent Community Safety Partnership
• Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Domestic Abuse Commissioning Board

Stoke-on-Trent Multi-Agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASA)

Multi-agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASAs) are the statutory framework for the protection of children from abuse, neglect and exploitation. The core objective is to foster collaboration amount local organisations and agencies, ensuring a cohesive and effective response to children and young people at risk of harm. Robust communication, seamless information sharing and tailored service delivery to promote the welfare of children are all key elements to an effective multi-agency safeguarding response.

For each Local Authority area in England, there are three statutory partners. The Lead Safeguarding Partners (LSPs) in Stoke-on-Trent are:

• Jon Rouse, Chief Executive, Stoke-on-Trent City Council
• Simon Whitehouse, Chief Executive Officer, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board
• Rebecca Riggs, Acting Chief Constable, Staffordshire Police

Operational delivery of the MASA is delegated to:

Delegated Safeguarding Partners

• Neil McDonald, Director of Children’s Services, Stoke-on-Trent City Council
• Heather Johnstone, Chief Nursing and Therapies Officer, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board

• Victoria Lee, T/Detective Chief Superintendent, Staffordshire Police

Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Children Partnership are required to publish the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Arrangements, which have been updated in response to revised statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026.

Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships are required to publish a report at least once in every 12-month period.

• Annual Report 2024-2025
• Annual Report 2023-2024

Below you can find the link to the latest annual report from when the joint arrangements with Staffordshire were in place:

https://www.staffsscb.org.uk/about-us/annual-reports/

We take a variety of approaches to scrutiny and quality assurance in order to reassure ourselves about the effectiveness of multi-agency working across the partnership.

The ‘One Staffordshire Information Sharing Protocol’ deals with the emerging issues surrounding information sharing between agencies and organisations that are delivering services for the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of the community.

Promoting and achieving wellbeing is only likely to be successful where organisations work together to ensure that communities; are kept safe; participate in healthy lifestyle choices; are looked after; are provided with the opportunity to succeed; are part of a thriving economy; and live in and enjoy a protected and respected built and natural environment.

The protocol has been produced by a working group made up of representatives from various public bodies whose remit has been to review existing information sharing protocols and replace them with ‘One Staffordshire Information Sharing Protocol’ which accurately reflects the current information sharing climate, legislative requirements and best practice.

This Protocol includes information sharing between services commissioned to deliver health and social care services within the boundaries of Staffordshire (including Stoke-on-Trent) but may also include services delivered outside of the area.

Our aim is to enable partners to co-ordinate effort, collate and exchange information to achieve joint objectives, co-ordinate resources, support one another in addressing common and locally set priorities and comply with the law.

The protocol outlines the purposes for sharing information, the powers that organisations have to share information, the role of partners and what can be expected from them, the process for sharing and scheduled review dates. The protocol alone does not provide the legal right to share information, it sets out the boundaries and guides under which sharing can occur and shows a commitment from its signatories to uphold what is required of them.

One Staffordshire Information Sharing Agreement