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Local Safeguarding Children Boards are to set up teams to learn lessons about safeguarding children and apply them locally, when the new structures outlined in the Children Bill come into force, writes Amy Taylor in Newcastle.

Speaking at the National Social Services Conference, Althea Efunshile, the director of safeguarding families and supporting children at the Department for Education and Skills, said the government was currently developing its policy on the local screening teams, although so far the plans were in the early stages.

She added that the teams would make sure that there was an appropriate response to a child dying in the local area, as area child protection committees currently do, but that they would also aim to improve the dissemination of the lessons learned from the incident across local services.

"We are expecting local safeguarding children boards to establish local screening teams to learn lessons and apply those lessons at a local level," Efunshile said.

She added that the teams’ objectives would include identifying child abuse or neglect and providing protection for surviving children. The proposed teams will be accountable to the local safeguarding children boards.

Efunshile stressed that the government was engaged in discussions with professionals in children’ services over how the plans would look and that they had held consultations over the summer.