What is the OSCB?

Three safeguarding partners

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 presented the option for replacing Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) with new flexible local safeguarding arrangements. The revised statutory guidance underpinning the Act, Working Together, came into force on 29 June 2018 and can be read here guidance.

The Act established collective responsibility and accountability of these arrangements across chief officers in the county council, the clinical commissioning group and the police.

For Oxfordshire the safeguarding partners are:

  • Martin Reeves, Chief Executive of Oxfordshire County Council;
  • Nick Broughton, Interim Chief Executive, delegated to Rachel Corser, Chief Nursing Officer, Integrated Care Board Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West;
  • Jason Hogg, Chief Constable, delegated to Benedict Clark, Chief Superintendent, Thames Valley Police

The three safeguarding partners have made arrangements to work together as an Executive Group with overall accountability for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in our area.

They work with relevant partners through the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board (OSCB), under the leadership of an Independent Chair. The three safeguarding partners (Executive Group) have agreed on ways to co-ordinate their safeguarding services; act as a strategic leadership group in supporting and engaging others; and implement local and national learning including from serious child safeguarding incidents.

The purpose of these arrangements

The purpose of these local arrangements 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 shared effectively to facilitate more accurate and timely decision making for children and families.

 Geographical area

 The geographical area covered by these arrangements is Oxfordshire, with the exception of the Child Death Review arrangements which combine with Buckinghamshire. The Oxfordshire area is based on the local authority boundary in accordance with current arrangements.

Relevant legislation: