About Us

The Children Act 2004 places a duty on every local authority to establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). The core objectives of the LSCB are to:

• coordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority

• ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for that purpose

The Government's Statutory Guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children (2010) defines safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children as:

• protecting children from maltreatment;

• preventing impairment of children's health or development;

• ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;

and undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully

The Brighton and Hove LSCB will therefore ensure that the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children is carried out in such a way as to contribute to improving all five Every Child Matters outcomes.

Brighton & Hove's LSCB has an independent chair: Alan Bedford, and consists of senior representatives from statutory and voluntary sector agencies in accordance with Working Together 2010 as follows:

• Brighton and Hove City Council

• Children and Young People's Trust

• Adult Social Services

• Education Services

• Youth Offending Services

• Sussex Police

• Surrey & Sussex Probation Trust

• South East Coast Strategic Health Authority

• NHS Brighton and Hove

• Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust

• South Downs Health NHS Trust

• Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

• South East Coast Ambulance

• Community and Voluntary Sector Forum

• CAFCASS

• NSPCC