Brent Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) has unveiled its strategic plans for the next two years, with a strong emphasis on protecting adults with complex needs and intervening earlier to prevent harm. Approved in March 2026, the board's new priorities will tackle mental health, suicide prevention, and homelessness as they relate to safeguarding, alongside a wider aim to prevent harm for individuals requiring care and support.
Nicola Brownjohn, Independent Chair for the Brent Safeguarding Adults Board, presented the annual report for April 2025 to March 2026 to the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee. She highlighted the board's success in completing its previous strategic plan, which focused on self-neglect, housing needs, and substance misuse. Key achievements included the development and launch of a Self-Neglect Toolkit and improved governance through the Performance & Audit subgroup.
The new strategic plan for 2026-2028 will be guided by three core principles, or golden threads
: community engagement, the digital world, and an effective workforce. The board is committed to strengthening its engagement with the community, ensuring that residents' voices actively shape safeguarding practices. To this end, the board has been developing a community engagement and sort of group with the co-production team within the council.
The Chair led a project during 2025 to look at how the Board can engage with the community more effectively. This work including visiting community groups in Brent to talk about safeguarding and culminated in a workshop for the SAB in November 2025 led by the Brent Co-Production Team where they heard a first hand account from an individual who had experienced Brent Safeguarding processes first hand. It was agreed that a formalised approach needs to be embedded into the Board. The Board will work with the co-production team in 2026 to look at how it can receive more direct and regular feedback from residents.
The board also acknowledges the significant risks and opportunities presented by the digital world. It will be checking keeping a check with partners about the digital world. So one sort of from a from an abuse perspective from safeguarding and the adults and who might be out there around no inclusivity and sort of if we're looking at anyone with learning disabilities or maybe the elderly who might not be able to sort of access the digital world in the same way that others. But also how we use it within organizations and how it's that's that's working for us.
An effective workforce for the Brent population
is also a key priority, acknowledging that good safeguarding needs an effective workforce across the system, from senior leaders to the practitioners working directly with people with care and support needs.
The board is aware of significant structural staffing changes that have or are coming to effect across it's statutory partners
and will monitor change and support collaborative ways to adapt and ensure services are still prioritising users safety.
Addressing the siloed nature
of agency contributions, particularly concerning housing and safeguarding, is a key focus. The board aims to achieve A better understanding of housing and homelessness issues across Brent and ways to find a more flexible approach to working with people who are homeless.
This will involve gaining assurance through monitoring the deaths of those living on the streets via the mortality panel report. Furthermore, Adult Social Care (ASC) has enhanced joint working through SMART24, which facilitates rapid multi-agency decision-making for adults at risk with overlapping needs such as substance misuse, homelessness, and exploitation. Regular Housing Clinics, jointly chaired by ASC Mental Health Team and Housing, are also enabling coordinated risk planning, earlier intervention, and consistent escalation pathways for adults experiencing housing insecurity and substance-related harm.
Regarding specific metrics for success, the board Expects the multiagency partnership to develop a Suicide Prevention Strategy and Plan, will seek assurance about the work being done to prevent suicides
and will Promote suicide awareness training for the workforce and agencies will be required to report on the impact of the training in supporting staff to talk to people with suicidal intent
. For homelessness, the board Will be informed by the 'Built for zero' work on how street homelessness is being reduced
. The report also mentions that The impact of implementation and usage of the toolkit will need to be tested in 2026/27, and amended to reflect feedback received from practitioners. Partners will share further in the report how the toolkit has started to be introduced and used across the system. In the coming year, the Board will look to seek further assurance on what impact this has had in how practitioners approach working with self neglect and hoarding cases.
During the committee meeting, councillors raised concerns about the lack of baseline data in reports to measure progress and the perceived siloed nature of some agency contributions. Nicola Brownjohn acknowledged these points, stating that the new strategic priorities inherently rely on strengthened multi-agency working. Recommendations from the committee included a request for Brent-specific data with trend analysis in future reports, suggestions for redesigning reports for better digestibility, and a proposal for a consultation with all councillors to gather their experiences with the safeguarding team. This consultation is proposed to occur in approximately six months
from the meeting date of June 30, 2026, and the methodology would involve specifically consult and ask for feedback on their experiences of engaging with the safeguarding team.
The annual report also detailed the achievements of partner organisations, including Brent Adult Social Care, the Metropolitan Police, and the North West London Integrated Care Board, in areas such as workforce capability, quality assurance, and multi-agency coordination. The board's budget for 2025/26 was £68,415, with contributions from the three statutory partners: Brent Council (54.1%), the NHS West and North London Integrated Care Board (38.6%), and the Metropolitan Police (7.3%).
As the SAB unusually incurred no SAR reviewer fees in 25/26, there was an underspend and funds not spent were moved to reserves. These reserves will be drawn upon to cover the costs of independent reviewers commissioned to undertake reviews where the budget in any given year is insufficient to cover the costs incurred, ensuring the Board can continue meeting its statutory requirements. The budget is primarily spent on Chair fees including additional hours invested for community engagement work,
learning events and running a joint Learning and Development offer with the Children's Partnership,
and the set up costs for the launch and implementation of the Podcast project.
More information on the committee's discussions can be found in the Public reports pack for the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 30 June 2026: https://democracy.brent.gov.uk/documents/g8754/Public%20reports%20pack%20Tuesday%2030-Jun-2026%2018.00%20Community%20and%20Wellbeing%20Scrutiny%20Committee.pdf?T=10
