Northamptonshire to set up multi-agency for child protection

The way that child protection cases are dealt with in Northamptonshire is set to change, the county council has said.

The authority is to form a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (Mash) which will be a central resource to tackle child protection.

Police, other emergency services, probation, social services and the NHS would work in the same office and share information.

The council said this would help to deal with cases quickly.

Andrew Grant, in charge of social services, said: "Putting everyone in the same room means people can communicate better.

"If a child is in danger, we will be able to reduce the amount of time it takes to get all of the information together."

The council has just started a pilot study with the police, in which six social care staff have gone to work as a joint child protection team at Northamptonshire Police headquarters for three months.