PSCP Governance Structure
In September 2025, the Partnership’s Board agreed the governance structure below.
PSCP Board
The strategic PSCP Board meets quarterly and is responsible for the oversight of the work that is being done in Plymouth to safeguard children. The strategic subgroups report to the PSCP Board, which is chaired by a Delegated Safeguarding Partner (DSP)- this is currently the Director of Children’s Services in Plymouth.
The Board is attended by DSPs and other strategic leaders from agencies and partners across the city.
Strategic Subgroups
The Partnership currently has six strategic subgroups:
Families First Partnership Programme Board
Chaired by Children’s Services & meets 6 weekly.
This group:
• Provides strategic oversight and leadership to implement the new social care reforms.
• Ensures an agreed partnership implementation plan is in place and is achieving against the submitted DfE delivery plan.
• Ensures projects are resourced appropriately and remain within their allocated resources.
• Identifes, manages and resolve dependences and risks across the programme.
• Agrees any updates, or escalations to go to the PSCP Board or Lead Safeguarding Partners.
• Reviews and agrees key messages and consistent reporting for the partnership workforce.
Multi-Agency Performance and Quality Assurance (MAPQA) subgroup
Chaired by Children’s Services & meets bi-monthly.
This group:
• Supports the creation and delivery of our Quality Assurance and audit activity and monitors performance of partnership activity.
• Passes actions from reviews to the working groups and receives assurance when these are completed.
• Provides assurance to the PSCP Board and strategic safeguarding partners that children and young people in Plymouth are being adequately safeguarded.
• Where safeguarding arrangements are less than satisfactory, this group should be aware, alert the wider Partnership to any issues identified as well as provide recommendations for how things could be improved.
Child Safeguarding Practice Review (CSPR) subgroup
Chaired by NHS Devon ICB & meets bi-monthly (unless meeting for a Rapid Review or local CSPR)
This group:
• In accordance with Working Together 2023, and any guidance issues by National Panel, initiates a local Child Safeguarding Practice Review in serious safeguarding cases where
o abuse or neglect of a child is suspected and,
o the child has died or has been seriously harmed.
• Delivers and oversees local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (CSPR) to identify improvements in safeguarding practice and protecting children from harm, and makes actions from recommendations for improvement and assurance to the Multi-Agency Performance and Quality Assurance Group which will pass these actions to the relevant Working group.
Workforce Development (WFDG) subgroup
Chaired by the Learning and Development Lead of the Business Unit and meets bi-monthly.
This group identifies and delivers against the learning needs of the multi-agency workforce by:
• Undertaking an annual training needs analysis.
• Ensuring the PSCP is offering a diverse and high quality training delivery programme that meets the identified safeguarding learning needs.
• Supporting the implementation of learning that results from national and local reviews/events.
• Delivering recommendations from the Partnership.
• Considering emerging practice issues and respond accordingly.
Strategic Families First Front Door subgroup
Chaired by Police and meets every four weeks.
This group:
•Works as a partnership to provide multi-agency strategic direction for the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub.
•Holds the MASH operational group to account for performance and quality assurance activity against agreed objectives.
Early Help Partnership Board
Chaired by Plymouth City Council and meets bi-monthly.
Further information on the responsibilities of this group to follow.
Operational Working Groups
The Partnership’s operational working groups are linked to each of the Partnership’s current priority areas and report into the Multi-Agency Performance and Quality Assurance subgroup.
Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Working Group
Chaired by Children’s Services and meets bi-monthly.
The group is responsible for:
• Co-ordinating our multi-agency approach to Child Sexual Abuse and reporting into the DASV and VAWG partnership board within Safer Plymouth and into the Plymouth Safeguarding Children Partnership.
• Developing performance measures and monitoring multi-agency effectiveness with regards to CSA following any audit and learning review recommendations from the PSCP.
• Having an overview of workforce development relevant to CSA.
• Utilising and updating the purpose-built practice guidance and toolkit and reading across to the Workforce Development partnership group.
• Responding to emerging issues – for example from local and national safeguarding reviews or research, audit work or Ofsted reports.
Domestic Abuse & Children (DA&C) Working Group
Chaired by NHS Devon ICB and meets bi-monthly.
The group is responsible for:
• Co-ordinating our multi-agency approach to Domestic Abuse and Children, and reporting into the DASV and VAWG partnership board within Safer Plymouth and into the Plymouth Safeguarding Children Partnership.
• Developing performance measures and monitoring multi-agency effectiveness with regards to DA following any audit and learning review recommendations from the PSCP.
• Having an overview of workforce development relevant to DA.
• Utilising and updating the purpose-built practice guidance and toolkit and reading across to the Workforce Development partnership group.
• Responding to emerging issues – for example from local and national safeguarding reviews or research, audit work or Ofsted reports.
Neglect Working Group
Chaired by Action for Children and meets bi-monthly.
The group is responsible for:
• Co-ordinating our operational multi-agency approach to neglect.
• Delivering on actions and recommendations identified through audit and/or learning reviews from the Partnership.
• Utilising and updating the purpose-built practice guidance and toolkit and help implement the neglect strategy.
• Responding to emerging issues – for example from local and national safeguarding reviews or research, audit work or Ofsted reports.
• Identifying and implementing performance measures to support QA work and the strategy.
• Reading across to other safeguarding groups, including the MAPQA group for QA work and the WFDG for training opportunities.
Safeguarding Adolescents (SA) Working Group
Chaired by Police and meets bi-monthly.
The group is responsible for:
• Co-ordinating our operational multi-agency approach to Adolescent Safeguarding.
• Delivering on actions and recommendations identified through any audits and/or learning reviews within the Partnership.
• Utilising and updating the purpose-built practice guidance and toolkit and help implement the adolescents strategy.
• Identifying and implementing performance measures to support QA work and the strategy.
• Responding to emerging issues, for example from local or national reviews or research, audit work or Ofsted reports.
• Assisting with the implementation and embedding of the new Adolescent Safety Framework processes.
• Reading across to other safeguarding groups.
Reference Groups
In addition to our subgroups and working groups, we also have two reference groups. The Young Safeguarders, who support the Partnership to ensure the voices of children and young people are heard, and the Safeguarding in Education Reference Group, where education colleagues meet with other agencies across the city to feed into the Partnership’s work.
Young Safeguarders
Supported by the Children’s Services Participation Team and meet bi-weekly.
More information can be found about the Young Safeguarders and the work they do on the Young Safeguarder’s Page.
Safeguarding in Education Reference Group.
Chaired by ACE Schools and meets half-termly.
Representatives from the Education sector come together to discuss current practice in relation to safeguarding, and share information from the other partnership groups, including updates in relation to Prevent, information on new training offers through the PSCP and current themes and trends in relation to safeguarding adolescents.
Subgroup Member Expectations
Our subgroups are made up of members from agencies all across the city.
Please take a look at the subgroup member expectations document below.