Safeguarding Adults in Manchester –The VCS Leaders Group

The voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector in Manchester has a key role to play as a strategic partner, in developing policies and procedures to safeguard vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect.

Manchester City Council and their Safeguarding Partners, including Macc, have recently undertaken review of the existing governance structures for safeguarding adults at risk and have made some significant changes including developing a Safeguarding Adults Executive Operational Group (SAEOG).

Manchester is facing the combined effects of economic recession, public spending cuts and long standing deprivation in local communities. There is overwhelming evidence that the effects of austerity measures, including the welfare reforms, have increased the challenges that all agencies and VCSE organisations face in keeping children, young people and adults safe, without having a negative impact on their quality of life.

The VCSE sector has a valuable contribution to make to the safeguarding of Adults for two main reasons:

  • We are a significant provider of activities and services in Manchester and, together with our colleagues from Housing Associations, support many of the City’s most vulnerable residents
  • The sector also has close links with communities at the neighbourhood level and with communities of interest across the City

Along with our strategic partners, we share the responsibility to promote and ensure the safeguarding of adults at risk. Parallel to the review led by Manchester City Council, Macc has recently explored with the VCSE, how we can develop a stronger strategic partnership with our Public Sector partners, and contributed our findings to review of the governance structures.

The recommendations from the VCSE included developing a Safeguarding Adults Leaders group to improve the Sector’s engagement and impact within the governance structure led by the Council.

The group would support members onto the SAEOG, which reports to the Manchester Safeguarding Adults Board (MSAB). Macc has a place on the Safeguarding Adults Board and the Safeguarding Children’s Board.

Through the VCS Leaders group (Adults) we hope to develop stronger links between the Board and the wider voluntary and community sector providers, and become more effective in informing the strategic thinking of the Board. This development will also improve Macc’s accountability to the wider VCSE, as a member of the Safeguarding Adults Board.