B&NES Community Safety & Safeguarding Partnership
About Us
Welcome to the Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES) Community Safety & Safeguarding Partnership (BCSSP) website.
The BCSSP is a multi-agency partnership which has been established to fulfil the statutory functions of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, Safeguarding Adult’s Board and Community Safety Partnership.
Our core function is to work effectively with our partner organisations with joint purpose to keep children and adults safe and look at how to protect communities across B&NES.
The partnership began in September 2019 when new laws made by the government required changes to the way we worked before. B&NES created a community safety and safeguarding arrangement to maximise how partners work together.
As the BCSSP was formed from merging three different statutory areas of work, we must ensure that our practice is compliant with the responsibilities set out in the frameworks for each of these areas.
Community Safety
The Community Safety Partnership within the BCSSP works to make our communities safer by bringing together local organisations to prevent crime, reduce anti-social behaviour, protect vulnerable people, and address the issues that matter most to residents.
By working collaboratively, sharing information, and engaging with local communities, we develop and deliver coordinated approaches to tackle crime, disorder, and harm. Our aim is to improve community wellbeing, support those affected by crime, and help people feel safe and confident in the places where they live, work, study, and visit
Community Safety Partnerships were introduced by Section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and bring together local partners to formulate and deliver strategies to tackle crime and disorder in their communities. Responsible authorities that make up a Community Safety Partnership are the Police, Fire and Rescue Authority, Local Authorities, Health Partners, and Probation Services.
Safeguarding Children
The Safeguarding Children Partnership within the BCSSP brings together organisations that work with children, young people and families to help keep children safe and promote their wellbeing. The Safeguarding children’s partnership operates in alignment with
Our purpose is to ensure that all partner agencies work together effectively so that children and young people are protected from harm, receive the right help at the right time, and have the opportunity to thrive.
Our core functions are to:
- Coordinate safeguarding work across agencies
We work with local partners, including the local authority, health services, police, education settings, and the voluntary sector, to ensure a joined-up approach to safeguarding children.
- Ensure local safeguarding arrangements are effective
We provide strategic leadership and oversight to make sure that agencies are working together effectively to protect children and improve outcomes.
- Learn from practice and improve services
We review safeguarding practice, undertake audits, analyse local data, and identify learning from serious incidents and safeguarding reviews to improve how organisations work together.
- Develop local policies and procedures
We agree and promote multi-agency safeguarding policies, procedures, and guidance to support consistent and effective practice across the partnership.
- Promote a skilled safeguarding workforce
We support and monitor multi-agency safeguarding learning and development to ensure practitioners have the knowledge and skills needed to safeguard children effectively.
- Listen to the voices of children, young people and families
We seek to understand the experiences of children and families and use their feedback to shape services and improve safeguarding arrangements
- Identify and respond to emerging safeguarding issues
We monitor local needs, risks and trends, and work together to address issues affecting children and young people in our area.
- Publish information about our work
We publish our safeguarding arrangements, priorities, annual reports, and learning from reviews so that professionals and the public can understand how we are working to keep children safe.
Safeguarding Adults
The Safeguarding Adults Board within the BCSSP works to protect adults with care and support needs from abuse and neglect. The Safeguarding adults board operates in alignment with Part 1 of the .
Our core functions are to:
- Lead and coordinate safeguarding across the partnership
The Board provides strategic leadership for adult safeguarding and oversees how partner organisations work together to prevent, identify and respond to abuse and neglect. It helps ensure that safeguarding arrangements are effective across the local area.
- Develop and publish a safeguarding strategy
The Board produces a multi-agency strategic plan that sets out its priorities, objectives and how partners will work together to improve safeguarding outcomes for adults at risk.
- Promote prevention and early intervention
The Board works to raise awareness of abuse and neglect, promote safeguarding as everyone's responsibility, and encourage approaches that prevent harm before it occurs.
- Seek assurance that local safeguarding arrangements are effective
The Board scrutinises and challenges partner agencies to ensure safeguarding practice is effective, person-centred and focused on achieving positive outcomes for adults.
- Commission Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs)
When an adult with care and support needs dies or experiences serious harm and there are concerns about how agencies worked together, the Board commissions a Safeguarding Adults Review. The purpose is to identify learning and improve future practice.
- Share learning and improve practice
The Board promotes learning from reviews, audits and national developments to help improve safeguarding practice across all partner organisations.
The Board publishes an annual report outlining its activities, achievements, challenges and the impact of its work in improving safeguarding arrangements
How does BCSSP operate?
BCSSP operates through a delivery group model made up of multi-agency partners who develop policy, procedures and practice guidance for professionals and volunteers who work with children, young people, families, adults at risk and wider communities across B&NES. The delivery groups also seek assurance from partners to ensure they are operating in line with statutory requirements.
The BCSSP delivery groups provide assurance to the Strategic Assurance Groups (SAGs) through a clear governance and reporting framework. Each delivery group is responsible for overseeing delivery against its agreed priorities, monitoring performance, managing risks, and identifying emerging issues within its area of work. Delivery groups will regularly review data, progress against action plans, audit findings, and lessons learned, escalating significant risks, challenges, and areas requiring strategic direction to the relevant SAG. Through structured reporting, exception reporting, and performance delivery groups provide evidence that partnership activity is being delivered effectively and in line with agreed objectives.
The SAGs (Strategic Assurance Groups) use this information from the delivery groups to scrutinise performance, assess whether outcomes are being achieved, provide strategic challenge and oversight, and gain assurance that statutory responsibilities, safeguarding arrangements, and partnership priorities are being met.
Strategic Assurance Groups (SAGs) provide assurance to the Partnership Executive Board by reviewing performance, risks, and emerging issues identified by partnership delivery groups. Where strategic decisions, additional resources, or cross-partnership action are required, SAGs escalate issues and recommendations to the Executive Board. This enables the Executive Board to maintain oversight, set strategic direction, and ensure partnership priorities, statutory responsibilities, and desired outcomes are being effectively delivered.
This process ensures a clear line of sight from operational delivery through to strategic governance, enabling informed decision-making and continuous improvement across the partnership.
The partnership also has an Independent Scrutineer who is responsible for holding partners to account and providing scrutiny of the child safeguarding arrangements developed by statutory partners.
Our partnership structure can be accessed HERE.
Independent Scrutineer
The BCSSP also has an Independent Scrutineer who is responsible for holding partners to account and providing scrutiny of the child safeguarding arrangements developed by statutory partners. The Independent Scrutineer for the BCSSP provides objective challenge, assurance, and oversight of how effectively agencies are working together to safeguard children, young people, or adults. They act as a "critical friend" to the partnership, offering both support and constructive challenge.
Our Members
The BCSSP statutory members for Safeguarding are
In addition to these members, for matters of community safety, the following also hold statutory responsibilities.
The wider partnership is made up of members from other groups that work directly in the community:
Our Published Arrangements
The updated arrangements for the BCSSP were published on 30th December 2024. They replaced the arrangements published in 2019 when the BCSSP was introduced and ensure that the Children's Partnership acts in accordance with the Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 statutory guidance.
BCSSP arrangements December 2024.