Although the temperature was near freezing I wrapped up in several layers of clothing and went out in the afternoon, stopping first in Shields to get some more Christmas cards finding that those which interested had been reduced so that buying one pack the second came at half price, 25 % reduction if the two packs are of the same price, but the shop was also reducing the Value Added Tax by the two and half percent recently announced by the chancellor.
I then went to the bank for cash and on the way bank discovered that what had been a large clothing outlet had become a second Wilkinson’s, almost the same size of shopping area but with more food items. It has been in its present form since June so it has only taken me six months to find out!. The Italian restaurant by the car park was also open decorated with Christmas lights at the door and inside whereas previously I had thought it had closed. I also stopped at Lydl‘s for some tins of their prepared salmon in a tomato and parsley sauce, some Italian Salami and tags for presents. They had several attractive Christmas items including inexpensive boxes of chocolate covered nuts. I resisted. As the annual supply of Lakeland Goodies had arrive although those for me was kept modest and will be spread over the year, he says defiantly with more ambition than certainty.
At Staples the plastic pockets are now 50% more than a year ago and the cost of white card goes up and up so I could reach the point of being without until a special offer comes up. It is difficult at times to work out the cost of the project in terms of what could be saved and passed or passed on now, and yet I have developed by continuing sense of identity and day to day purpose from engagement in the work and which in fairness at times I know I have created a particular volume of potential interest and that if completed the work will be a unique chronicle of aspects one life and its times.
The television set is going to require repair which is an additional nuisance an arranging this is a priority for the morrow. (This morning I decided to try and again altered the links connecting the aerial direct to the TV and removing and refitting the mains plug and it works and I can get Sky and the Parliament Channel through the scart lead connections. I have yet to establish if I can also still play DVD‘s, CD’s and play and record Video Tapes.
Monday was an extraordinary day for the future protection of children at risk in the community with the publication of the joint inspection report into Haringey(Tottenham) and an aggressive response from Ed Balls, the Minister with overall responsibility, Only the passage of time will show if this has been a change for the worse or the better. Faced with a giant of a petition over a million signatures, the genuine wrath of the Conservative opposition at the ineptitude of the Government response, Ed Balls who one presumes had little knowledge if any of the details of the Victoria Climbie Inquiry launched an immediate inquiry through inspectors of Education, Health and Police insisting that they reported by December 1st and then launched his justifiable anger at the findings upon the local authority and those within the local authorities at all levels of responsibility. Also well done David Cameron as Opposition leader for drawing attention that the local authority was not fit for its purpose as the lead child life protection authority.
However I am far from satisfied with the Government performance, at a political and administrative level action taken following the death of Baby P (in August 20076 that over 15 months before the conclusion of the criminal trial) I fully understand the need to limit public discussion and the release of information prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings but this should not prevented three levels action.
My first question is why the government did not act as soon as they were notified of the death of the child in the particular circumstances and in the context that Victoria Climbie Public Inquiry had placed the local authority and its child life protection in the international spotlight within the past decade.
In my day we would have immediately notified the head of the regional office of the Government Inspectorate who undertook the function of liaison between Government and the National Ministry and individual local authorities as well as the authorities collectively, who also provided advice and support including on training for new developments and whose officers would undertake special inspections and assessments visits as well as the formal inspection of services. During my period of experience the role of regional inspectorate changed several times but throughout while the department and the Inspectorate had different roles, responsibilities and levels of accountability there was always an open door through which I and senior management could communicate immediately either with the designated departmental link officer, any officer appointed for specific purposes or with the had of the inspection service and vice versa
This close but formal relationship meant that the Inspectorate would have been able to have advised government if a death appeared to be a one off situation or could reflect wider problems with the department and its management.
Even though the day to day relationship between the latest form of child care and protection department of local authorities and the Education Inspectorate and Civil Service and Ministerial structure presently in force will be different now from what happened in my day I find it unbelievable that immediately the death occurred, when the Inquest was completed and criminal proceedings initiated, that the administration of the local authority and in government first, and then the politicians at all levels would not have been advised of the situation and the action required and being taken.
The regional chief inspector would have been immediately notified, and supplied documentation as requested. I would have then advised the Chief Executive of the Local authority and the Chief Legal officer and the heads of all other local authority departments and agencies that were known to have had direct contact with the child and the child’s family. I would have also notified the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Social Services Committee and the Chief Executive would have advised the Leader and deputy Leader of the Council. Because of the exceptional circumstances, the leaders of other political parties would have been advised of the death and measures being taken and all the other agencies involved would have had their own mechanism for advising their boards, committees chairs and legal advisers.
Obviously if the department or an agency had no contact with the child before its death, or had not been placed on the at risk register the approach may have been be less dramatic and speedy than in a situation where the child was in care or on the at risk register and subject to the local collective at risk protection arrangements. However there would still have been in depth reviews to ensure that there was no missed opportunity for an involvement given that the child should have had contact with health visitors, attended school, visited a doctor and so forth. Each agency would undertake a review and the findings shared unless the issue of disciplinary proceedings occurred in which instance there would have national procedures to follow. Those who work in local government at officers have in effect three masters. The first is the law governing their duties in relation to their clients, the child needing protection in this instance, the democratically elected employers and the Government through its inspectorate and liaison services.
What I have described would be standard, Given that the death occurred in a local authority where a child had previously be killed, where there had be a public inquiry and where there had been considerable criticism and action had followed in relation to individuals and systems, then the matter would have been given the highest priority. If this was not the situation then those within the local authority or within government need to explain why not?
It would not have just been a matter for the government to immediately establish that that the involvement of all the agencies prior to the death was investigated but to have checked that the investigation was as thorough as the guidelines required and more so in the particular circumstances. This should have been undertaken immediately and concluded in terms of the role of the various agencies and individuals involved. The concern would be in relation to the role of individuals and their agencies and not the criminal investigation by the police into the cause of the death of the child although the local authority and other agencies would need to have cooperated fully with the police in the provision of their information, and obviously if the police formed the opinion that there had been criminal negligence on the part of individual officers or of officers collectively then this could well have affected this part of the process until the criminal investigation and any criminal proceedings were concluded. It is my understanding that this did not apply in this instance and the outcome of the inquiry/inquiries should have been completed and submitted to the Civil Services and to Ministers although its findings in relation to individual directly involved may had to await the outcome of proceedings. This was the responsibility of each agency involved and of the agencies collectively to undertake in relation to the particular child and the particular workers involved.
However this was only the first of three different level’s of action which would have been initiated and monitored by government. The appropriate Minister in consultation with Civil Service and Inspectoral colleagues should have immediately launched an inspection of the child protection services provided by Harringey Council and the other authorities and agencies involved in terms of their policies, procedures, staffing and resources and quality of service provision in terms of current requirements against the background of the criticisms in the previous case and the recommendations or requirements for changes and further action. This should not have been paper exercise as we have seen it was possible to undertake such a joint review quickly and reaching significant conclusions with a month.
I do not understand why it took the anger of the Conservative Leader of the Opposition and a Petition by the Sun Newspaper. for the Education Minister to act. It could and it should have happened over a year ago. On behalf of Baby P I want to know why not? However Baby P had died but there were a large number of children on the at risk register whose safety has clearly been established was not as protected under the local arrangements for child protection as they should have been. This reveals local authority negligence, but does it also reveal Government negligence?
Thirdly that such a situation had occurred in a local authority where within a decade there has been public inquiry should have led to an immediate investigation into how the changes introduced as a consequence of that case were working in practice. I do not understand why it took a year before this happened. I believe that only by knowing why this was delayed for a year can there be any confidence that the latest measures announced will be any more effective than those previously.
There is one other issue which I shall mention before going into more of the background A judge has ruled that dead child shall be known for ever more as Baby P and this is the name placed on his grave. I believe Baby P should receive an explanation as to why in death his identity has been removed. Where is the justice in this? Surely the interests of others, which is presumable the justification cannot over ride the interests and rights of the dead child?
It is worth reminding something of the history of what has happened to child care and life protection since Children’s departments were created in 1948. Between 1948 and 1971 Children’s Departments were responsible for children placed on committed into public care and then looked after in residential homes, foster homes or with their families under supervision, and for child protection services which included the identification and supervision in association with other agencies. After 1963 there was greater involvement working with children, young people and their families to prevent the admission of children to care, appearing before the courts and remaining in care and this included the provision of practical and financial assistance, not otherwise available. Following 1969 Children and Young Persons Act the Approved school where delinquents were sent for a fixed period years after which they were released on licensed supervision to a probation officer, was changed and such young people were committed to the care of the local authority who could decide to place them in special residential establishments with education on the premises or other facilities. I will return to the history in a moment but first the present situation
The Education Ministry is now called the Department for Children, Schools and Families and there is now a separate Government Department with its own Ministerial Team concerned with further education and lifelong leaning, skills and innovation.
In addition to Ed Balls the Cabinet Minister with overall responsibility for the Department for Children and Skills he is assisted by a team of four Ministers one of whom represents the Department in the House of Lords. They will be supported by an appropriate team of civil, public servants at their London headquarters. There will be the most senior civil servants who concentrate on the role of Ministers as part of government, participating the various inter departmental committees where the functions of their department interact with other government departments, preparing and presenting any new legislation or changes in legislation, preparing the budget on an annual basis and monitoring expenditure, preparing for the fortnightly hour long answering oral questions and providing answers to written question about policy and practice from any Member of the Parliament, or from individual Members of Parliament regarding individual issues arising in their constituency. There is also the role of the department internationally and there is the relationship between Ministers and the media in terms of their official duties.
A feature of the British system and which is significantly different from that in the USA is that when a different political party forms the government, the top officials do not change and remain under the overall control of the Secretary of the Cabinet, or of the individual civil services heads of the departments. As was brilliantly portrayed in the series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister there is a constant tension between the Ministers who want to put their political policies into practice and the top civil servants who know what can and cannot to be done, and who at times also lead a weak Minister a long policy and decision taking issues according to the civil service view rather than the party political view. To combat becoming over influenced the Ministers in a department usually have a small team of political advisers and there will also be a small private office staff who will for example be responsible for the Minister‘s diary and travel arrangements and who tend to try and act as a bridge between the Minister, the departmental head of the civil servants and the political advisers.
It is very easy for a new Minister to become overwhelmed by inheriting a full diary of meetings and visits and to start to be led by officials rather than leading the officials. There is also a tradition that the civil services does not pass on party political background knowledge from one Minister to another and especially when Ministers are of different Political parties otherwise it would be natural for Ministers to spend time digging up the dirt on colleagues and political opponents.
I also suspect that this approach of concentrating on current issues and filing the past is what happened when the papers of Ministers, the top Civil Servants and those of the Inspectorate were transferred from the Department of Health to the new Children’s and skills Department Both top officials and Ministers at the new department would have received comprehensive information on all current activities and current resources and as much as possible would have been incorporated into the registry of the new department, available if there is need but not brought to the attention of the top servants or the Ministers at the time responsibilities were transferred. However there is one political exception in this instance Beverley Hughes, the Minister for Children transferred from the Department of Health Team to the Department of Children and School’s team
What I have described in the norm for transfers and there is nothing sinister about what happens. My in depth knowledge comes from being involved between 1970 and 1974 with the great changes involved with the creation of Social Service department from 1971, the recreation of the National Health service with the abolition of Local Authority Medical Officers of Health and the transfer of many of the functions and services to social services, to education or to the new Area Health Authorities in 1974 together with the compressive reforming of local government outside of London. I was involved first as a headquarters executive in creation of one of the biggest social service departments in 1970 and in the creation of a new local authority, one of the smallest in 1974. I also had a national role at the time as President Elect of the Association of Child Care Officers and the first chairman of the Family and Child Care Section of the British Association of Social Workers, so my knowledge was national as well as local in depth.
What happened then and which may have been a factor at Harringey when the Child care services were transferred from the Social Services Directorate to the new Education Directorate is that in 1971 Managers and practitioners were de skilled over night. I moved from my knowledge and experience in child care to having responsibility for services for the elderly, for the physically and mentally disabled and those with Mental Health problems and for staff with varied training, work interests skills and experience.
The Managers came from different backgrounds departmental and political cultures. By political and departmental culture I do not refer to the party political difference which generally affect policy and resources issue. For example you could have a political and departmental culture which liked to delegate as much as possible mixed up with one that liked to be involved in very kind of decision. I moved from a local authority where the Social Services Committee met eight or nine times a year, where the Chairman and Vice chainman of the Social Services Committee only came to the Headquarters office for a briefing before the Committee and had a briefing before the subsequent meeting of the full council and where we never saw them or any politicians unless we attended a conference or some specially arranged activity or inter authority meeting, to one where all sixty six members of the Council had my home phone number and contacted me if there was problem in their area which could not wait until the following day for them to come in and see me at the office. In the first authority only some decisions were reported to the Social Services Committee and even fewer matters to the Council. In the second authority there were sub committees and committees involving politicians every week and every decision had to be reported from sub committee to committee and from committee to Council and could not be implemented until agreed at Council In the first local authority I was interviewed and appointed and signed a contract as Assistant County Director of Social Services over one day by the new Director and a deputy Chief Executive while in the second Councillors made every appointment from office cleaner to home help and I was appointed at full meeting of the Council with some sixty of the sixty six members present.
Now this difference in culture had its impact on the quality of service provided in two ways. In the latter the Councillors were in touch with their constituents around the clock so when I sat in on a sub committee for example providing grants for telephones for people with a physical disability, or for a family seeking help with their electricity Bill, and the social worker involved came in and present the application briefly outlining the family circumstances , councillor often provided relevant missing information or explained to the social worker why they had been mislead. However such an approach could mean that one became so bogged down in individual matters that one missed the wider picture. In the former situation I had to work hard to find out how policy decisions worked out in practice and could not always wait for the results of formal research projects. We were one of the first departments to employ a small teams conducting research with a brilliant research leader who went onto become not just a Director of Social services but a local authority Chief Executive. I also kept in close contact with the 15 area based fieldwork team leaders and banged as loudly as I could on the door of my superiors when those representing what was happening in practice told me that something needed to changed or taken back to the drawing board,
One of the things we did and which I then introduced in the second local authority was to establish a register of all complaints, their nature and the outcome, and in the second authority although I was the head of the department and kept busy, I insisted on seeing every reply to every formal complaint and I determined which I would see after the reply had been sent and which I would see myself with the papers before it was sent out, changing the response, or calling for more information in some instances. Moreover I reported the full list of complaints, by their designated number to the Social Services Committee once a month and which enable any member of the Committee if they had a query or were dissatisfied to raise the issue. Despite the problems which could arise, and did, as a consequence of Councillors having such an intimate involvement with what staff did or did not do, regardless, of their level of training or position, the outcome was that we never experienced the kind of case which has hit the headlines in most other local authorities from time to time and why I believe I was nominated by the Department of Health to be the Social Services professional on a judicial inquiry into the death of a child where the mother had already been sent to prison. I had reached national office quickly as someone who wrote about the reality of being a front line child care officer, and then about the problems of being a front line generic social worker. but who also was realistic about the variations in standards and quality of work within and between children’s and then social service departments.
I had worked in one London borough where we had painstakingly gone through every inherited client record, page by page, summarising the key information and creating a chronological summary, such was the awfulness of the information to hand and our justified suspicion that the records were created after which no one had listen what was in them and what was not. A lot of codswallop is spoken to and by the media about the pressures on child care social workers and other professionals today. I suspect that then as now there are those who pay close attention to what has gone on before and maintaining updated and clear records and those who do not.. Home Office sponsored research several decades ago found that often those with the biggest case loads frequently also had the energy, made the time and possessed the skill and also kept good paper week which they also constantly re read.
I once worked for one the biggest child care local authorities in the country and discovered that level of child care was appalling. Every day I received 100 requests from child care officers to confirm their decision, such as ordering additional tooth paste for a child in care, I kid you not, or approving the request to allow a child in a residential home to go to their family for the weekend and where I would require a social worker to have visited to ensure that the circumstances and the supervision would be satisfactory. I had at headquarters a matching copy of the file of every child in care or under supervision of that held by area managers and team leaders, but oddly not by the staff in the residential child care homes. Now if I had read 100 files a day and every decision I, and another newly appointed colleagues would have done nothing to prepares the department for becoming part of Social services Department a year later, sow we devised a system of delegations down to Area Officers, Team leaders and individual workers which with the approval of the Children’s officer was put into immediate effect and enabled us to concentrate on reviewing the quality of practice which was one of my strengths. I discovered that some statutory requirements to protect children in foster care, for example had never been implemented since they were established in 1948, twenty two years before. In fact many local authorities and their senior management to this day are great at taking decision, passing resolutions, introducing new legislation, but have no system for first ensuring that it is implemented and then reviewing its outcome
I should also record two aspects of the chaos and disastrous implementation of national policy and legislation at a local level which occurred in 1971 and 1974. In 1971 and this continued until the 1990’s in some local authorities, Child Care services were put under chief officers and deputies who had no previous experience of work at any level in a child care department and this I believe in the position of the Director of the Children, Family and Schools service at Harringey. In 1970 the appointment was often Male Chief Welfare Officers who had no professional social work qualification in England and who had worked within or part of local Health Authority departments, a few and worked as heads of mental health departments, a few came from Probation, a few from the non statutory sector or had an academic social work background and two had been local authority medical officers of health, in Liverpool and in South Shields. I had been requested in 1970 and again in 1974 to write short biographical notes about each new Director Appointment and had written to each before requests information which they would like to have published. This gave me a unique perspective on those appointed to the position of Director of Social Services.
Many of those appointed did not understand the nature of trained social worker practice or the nature of child care work in general. Some immediately put people who had no child care experience or training in charge of individual child care and protection cases or in the management and supervision of those undertaking this work. All too often the experienced front line child care officer had enough and retired, or moved into the non statutory child care sector, or found themselves in supervision or management of work where child care formed only a minority percentage of their responsibilities. Those of us who opposed generic practice were lone voices and warned and kept warning of the disaster ahead.
In Cheshire the Director had the good idea persuading the Council, and the Director of Education that the department should incorporate aspects of the word of Education Welfare Officers in the new Social Services Department. I believe there were about thirty such officers at the time and the decision was that about half would remain with education and cover the basics such as school attendance, free school meals and assistance with uniforms and such like important aspects of ensuring that all children received education and were not prevented because of lack of clothing or food to make the best of what was available, and that the other half would transfer to the department as social worker assistants but with the opportunity to be trained as social workers. It was my personal decision who came over and who stayed from those who wanted to come over and I obtained the assistance of the departmental training officer because of the assessment that individuals were likely to be accepted for professional training. It was one of the most successful pieces work in my career because although not everyone who wanted to transfer was able to do so at that time no one appealed against the decisions, those who came over went on to social work training and without exception according to the team managers formed a valuable asset to the service. They also provided in valuable new bridging link between the department and individual schools in relation to the needs of children in trouble at school and children in care or under supervision. However the flaw from the outset was that along with all other social work assistants and social workers their role was generic and the schools then had to cope with social workers undertaking some of duties of education welfare officers who had no previous experience of child care or schools. It was not surprising that complaint upon complaint arose from the schools and eventually a compromised was reached while I was employed and that position reverted with all the functions passed back after 1974.
It took over half a decade to effectively reverse the damage generic social working created in the authority where I was the head of department although we were one of the first authorities to create a child care department within a social services department with an Assistant Director of Child Care, two Principal Officers one responsible for field work and the other for residential and day care services, specialist sections dealing with adoption and fostering, with the courts, with services for children under five and for child protection and specialist child care workers, including senior practitioner post. The quality of work was not without criticism but we provided the right framework and a framework which worked closely with education, health and the police and where in fact the department pioneered arrangements with the police involving senior managers and practitioners.
This brings me to perhaps the most important point to be made and one that the response of Ed Balls and national politicians has at last come to recognise. You cannot take decisions about the survival of am individual child at risk by committee. It is essential that in every area there is a committee bringing together the senior officers of all the agencies statutory and independent who can be involved with one child and their family to ensure that effective arrangements for working together exist and that effectiveness is constantly reviewed and not just when things go wrong in an individual case. The monitoring system ought to ensure that all relevant information about a child at risk is shared and considered at meetings of all those involved with a child held when appropriate although getting doctors teachers health visitors and social workers together is a difficult and expensive activity but to day with computers it ought to be possible to share relevant and key formation, such as visits made and by whom, the purpose of visits or contacts and the outcomes together with such information as to who live in the home, the relationships and the sleeping arrangement, issues such as drug taking and background of violence and such like as long as it can be verified and justified, However the decision to remove a child from home into a temporary of safety should be given priority an clearly should not be initiated by the police or child care officers or other persons without consulting all hose in direct contact with the child and family and getting legal advice but the principle of better being safe than sorry must apply. However society needs to ensure that those who are accountable for the decisions have been given the necessary authority and the necessary resources and give them support if they have taken good decisions based on good information but which turns out to be different from practice.
And this is where I get back to Ministerial accountability as well as that of Local Authority Politicians, Local authority heads of service, supervisors and front line practitioners. In 1974 there was chaos because government had decided on the Big Bang approach with major reorganisations of local government and the health service within three years of the creation of social service departments and generic social service department. Children in public care were lost as were children at risk in the community. This arose because information about a child in the care of one authority in residential care where responsibility should have been transferred was sometimes not, and only came to light if a vigilant head of a residential establishment or member of staff noted that the usual three or six monthly visit or review had not taken place and made enquiries. There was also a tendency to close cases before they were transferred and for decisions about this not to be adequately supervised or checked either by the re transferring authority or the recipient authority.
I had the experience in the 1980 child care inquiry where a child had been in and out of care, continually discharged back to an alarming home situation where foster parents neighbours and others had made repeated complaints and where when the file disappeared at the same time as the senior officer responsible left the department to go and train new social workers, the department made no attempt to recreate the lost file, and even after the child had died and criminal trial had taken place and the enquiry had been announced and all relevant papers assembled, there was no one in senior management who realised, including the keeper of the record that the department was required by law to keep as separate record of every child placed with foster parents in a register. Consultation of the register in this instance revealed two important additional fostering placements and where the foster parents were surprised they had not been contacted and where they were able to express the concerns they had at the time. This was managerial incompetence and their QC representing the local authority was as appalled as myself that this situation had arisen and only came to light because of my knowledge and background.
This is also the situation when another QC representing a front line worker argued until I intervened that the duty under the law to preventing children entering and remaining in care ran parallel alongside the duty to care and provide protection. I humbly suggested that the latter had priority and the QC admitted that it had been a proposition, that is, a try on. But again without my knowledge of the law and good practice the point might have gone unchallenged and it a proposition that I sometimes hear still being made to day. This was also the case where the decision of the local authority to return the remaining children to the mother once she was discharged from prison would never have been debated had it not been for a senior Police officer with the George Medal Balcombe Street siege who blew the whistle, not only was he reprimanded and lost his chance at promotion but retired and died a broken man within a couple of years after.
I mention these things because it is difficult for individuals to go against the current tide, orthodoxy and fashion and it is right that government should be cautious about proposals and assessments from Mavericks such as me. I did not expect that when I argued in the September 1992 Guardian article for the kind of division of social services between adult and child care and for the adult service to aligned to health and the child services to education in some form that it would be immediately taken up, although by then it was clearly the right thing to do and which was recognised by everyone except those within the service with a vested interest. However I did think that the government would have learnt not to make the kind of mistakes it had made in 1971 and 1974 and then made again around 1990, to introduced the new unworkable Community Care changes and the New Children‘s Act in another Big Bang approach. Again I warned the Minister and I warned the House of Commons Social Service Committee writing four papers about the inevitable problems. When the Association of Directors of Social Services had not even bothered to submit evidence, my papers were used to enable them to give oral evidence and counter what I was saying. Again I was proved right and they wrong but such is life expect for the unnecessary harm that was done to individuals in the interim.
A good example of the problem that can arise if Minister listen to ad hoc ideas regardless of the source without proper investigation arose with the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act in which Approved schools became community homes with education on the premises and responsibility for the young people involved was transferred from probation to social services.
The Magistrates Association took the government Minister involved in the Children and Young Person’s Act out for a meal and persuaded that an amendment should be introduced to appoint an independent visitor for any child placed in residential establishments with education on the premises if no one visited within three months, I know this because the Minister in Lords told me on the day the new amendment was introduced and that there had been no time for the officials to investigate the new development. When they did undertake a survey of establishments which included some special educational residential establishments they discovered that the new law applied to these but there was no one in the former approved school who did not have an existing visitor. There was no harm therefore in the development despite the extra costs and indeed some forgotten children in the education system got attention, However it underlines that a balance needs to be made between dealing with situations and being aware of all the likely consequences and ensuring close monitoring and review.
The Main Findings of the 200 Review of Practice at Harringey.
7. The main findings of this inspection, described below, point to significant weakness in safeguarding and child protection arrangements in Haringey. They also show that the arrangements for the leadership and management of safeguarding by the local authority and partner agencies in Haringey are inadequate.
There is insufficient strategic leadership and management oversight of safeguarding of children and young people from Haringey by elected members, senior officers and others within the strategic partnership.
There is a managerial failure to ensure full compliance with some requirements of the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, such as the lack of written feedback to those making referrals to social care services.
The local safeguarding children board (LSCB) fails to provide sufficient challenge to its member agencies. This is further compounded by the lack of an independent chairperson.
Social care, health and police authorities do not communicate and collaborate routinely and consistently to ensure effective assessment, planning and review of cases of vulnerable children and young people.
Too often assessments of children and young people, in all agencies, fail to identify those who are at immediate risk of harm and to address their needs.
The quality of front line practice across all agencies is inconsistent and not effectively monitored by line managers.
Child protection plans are generally poor.
Arrangements for scrutinising performance across the council and the partnership are insufficiently developed and fail to provide systematic support and appropriate challenge to both managers and practitioners.
The standard of record keeping on case files across all agencies is inconsistent and often poor.
There is too much reliance on quantitative data to measure social care, health, and police performance, without sufficiently robust analysis of the underlying quality of service provision and practice.
One has to press wanting to know that if this is the position now what was it like in August 2007? Who now speaks for Baby P?
I then went to the bank for cash and on the way bank discovered that what had been a large clothing outlet had become a second Wilkinson’s, almost the same size of shopping area but with more food items. It has been in its present form since June so it has only taken me six months to find out!. The Italian restaurant by the car park was also open decorated with Christmas lights at the door and inside whereas previously I had thought it had closed. I also stopped at Lydl‘s for some tins of their prepared salmon in a tomato and parsley sauce, some Italian Salami and tags for presents. They had several attractive Christmas items including inexpensive boxes of chocolate covered nuts. I resisted. As the annual supply of Lakeland Goodies had arrive although those for me was kept modest and will be spread over the year, he says defiantly with more ambition than certainty.
At Staples the plastic pockets are now 50% more than a year ago and the cost of white card goes up and up so I could reach the point of being without until a special offer comes up. It is difficult at times to work out the cost of the project in terms of what could be saved and passed or passed on now, and yet I have developed by continuing sense of identity and day to day purpose from engagement in the work and which in fairness at times I know I have created a particular volume of potential interest and that if completed the work will be a unique chronicle of aspects one life and its times.
The television set is going to require repair which is an additional nuisance an arranging this is a priority for the morrow. (This morning I decided to try and again altered the links connecting the aerial direct to the TV and removing and refitting the mains plug and it works and I can get Sky and the Parliament Channel through the scart lead connections. I have yet to establish if I can also still play DVD‘s, CD’s and play and record Video Tapes.
Monday was an extraordinary day for the future protection of children at risk in the community with the publication of the joint inspection report into Haringey(Tottenham) and an aggressive response from Ed Balls, the Minister with overall responsibility, Only the passage of time will show if this has been a change for the worse or the better. Faced with a giant of a petition over a million signatures, the genuine wrath of the Conservative opposition at the ineptitude of the Government response, Ed Balls who one presumes had little knowledge if any of the details of the Victoria Climbie Inquiry launched an immediate inquiry through inspectors of Education, Health and Police insisting that they reported by December 1st and then launched his justifiable anger at the findings upon the local authority and those within the local authorities at all levels of responsibility. Also well done David Cameron as Opposition leader for drawing attention that the local authority was not fit for its purpose as the lead child life protection authority.
However I am far from satisfied with the Government performance, at a political and administrative level action taken following the death of Baby P (in August 20076 that over 15 months before the conclusion of the criminal trial) I fully understand the need to limit public discussion and the release of information prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings but this should not prevented three levels action.
My first question is why the government did not act as soon as they were notified of the death of the child in the particular circumstances and in the context that Victoria Climbie Public Inquiry had placed the local authority and its child life protection in the international spotlight within the past decade.
In my day we would have immediately notified the head of the regional office of the Government Inspectorate who undertook the function of liaison between Government and the National Ministry and individual local authorities as well as the authorities collectively, who also provided advice and support including on training for new developments and whose officers would undertake special inspections and assessments visits as well as the formal inspection of services. During my period of experience the role of regional inspectorate changed several times but throughout while the department and the Inspectorate had different roles, responsibilities and levels of accountability there was always an open door through which I and senior management could communicate immediately either with the designated departmental link officer, any officer appointed for specific purposes or with the had of the inspection service and vice versa
This close but formal relationship meant that the Inspectorate would have been able to have advised government if a death appeared to be a one off situation or could reflect wider problems with the department and its management.
Even though the day to day relationship between the latest form of child care and protection department of local authorities and the Education Inspectorate and Civil Service and Ministerial structure presently in force will be different now from what happened in my day I find it unbelievable that immediately the death occurred, when the Inquest was completed and criminal proceedings initiated, that the administration of the local authority and in government first, and then the politicians at all levels would not have been advised of the situation and the action required and being taken.
The regional chief inspector would have been immediately notified, and supplied documentation as requested. I would have then advised the Chief Executive of the Local authority and the Chief Legal officer and the heads of all other local authority departments and agencies that were known to have had direct contact with the child and the child’s family. I would have also notified the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Social Services Committee and the Chief Executive would have advised the Leader and deputy Leader of the Council. Because of the exceptional circumstances, the leaders of other political parties would have been advised of the death and measures being taken and all the other agencies involved would have had their own mechanism for advising their boards, committees chairs and legal advisers.
Obviously if the department or an agency had no contact with the child before its death, or had not been placed on the at risk register the approach may have been be less dramatic and speedy than in a situation where the child was in care or on the at risk register and subject to the local collective at risk protection arrangements. However there would still have been in depth reviews to ensure that there was no missed opportunity for an involvement given that the child should have had contact with health visitors, attended school, visited a doctor and so forth. Each agency would undertake a review and the findings shared unless the issue of disciplinary proceedings occurred in which instance there would have national procedures to follow. Those who work in local government at officers have in effect three masters. The first is the law governing their duties in relation to their clients, the child needing protection in this instance, the democratically elected employers and the Government through its inspectorate and liaison services.
What I have described would be standard, Given that the death occurred in a local authority where a child had previously be killed, where there had be a public inquiry and where there had been considerable criticism and action had followed in relation to individuals and systems, then the matter would have been given the highest priority. If this was not the situation then those within the local authority or within government need to explain why not?
It would not have just been a matter for the government to immediately establish that that the involvement of all the agencies prior to the death was investigated but to have checked that the investigation was as thorough as the guidelines required and more so in the particular circumstances. This should have been undertaken immediately and concluded in terms of the role of the various agencies and individuals involved. The concern would be in relation to the role of individuals and their agencies and not the criminal investigation by the police into the cause of the death of the child although the local authority and other agencies would need to have cooperated fully with the police in the provision of their information, and obviously if the police formed the opinion that there had been criminal negligence on the part of individual officers or of officers collectively then this could well have affected this part of the process until the criminal investigation and any criminal proceedings were concluded. It is my understanding that this did not apply in this instance and the outcome of the inquiry/inquiries should have been completed and submitted to the Civil Services and to Ministers although its findings in relation to individual directly involved may had to await the outcome of proceedings. This was the responsibility of each agency involved and of the agencies collectively to undertake in relation to the particular child and the particular workers involved.
However this was only the first of three different level’s of action which would have been initiated and monitored by government. The appropriate Minister in consultation with Civil Service and Inspectoral colleagues should have immediately launched an inspection of the child protection services provided by Harringey Council and the other authorities and agencies involved in terms of their policies, procedures, staffing and resources and quality of service provision in terms of current requirements against the background of the criticisms in the previous case and the recommendations or requirements for changes and further action. This should not have been paper exercise as we have seen it was possible to undertake such a joint review quickly and reaching significant conclusions with a month.
I do not understand why it took the anger of the Conservative Leader of the Opposition and a Petition by the Sun Newspaper. for the Education Minister to act. It could and it should have happened over a year ago. On behalf of Baby P I want to know why not? However Baby P had died but there were a large number of children on the at risk register whose safety has clearly been established was not as protected under the local arrangements for child protection as they should have been. This reveals local authority negligence, but does it also reveal Government negligence?
Thirdly that such a situation had occurred in a local authority where within a decade there has been public inquiry should have led to an immediate investigation into how the changes introduced as a consequence of that case were working in practice. I do not understand why it took a year before this happened. I believe that only by knowing why this was delayed for a year can there be any confidence that the latest measures announced will be any more effective than those previously.
There is one other issue which I shall mention before going into more of the background A judge has ruled that dead child shall be known for ever more as Baby P and this is the name placed on his grave. I believe Baby P should receive an explanation as to why in death his identity has been removed. Where is the justice in this? Surely the interests of others, which is presumable the justification cannot over ride the interests and rights of the dead child?
It is worth reminding something of the history of what has happened to child care and life protection since Children’s departments were created in 1948. Between 1948 and 1971 Children’s Departments were responsible for children placed on committed into public care and then looked after in residential homes, foster homes or with their families under supervision, and for child protection services which included the identification and supervision in association with other agencies. After 1963 there was greater involvement working with children, young people and their families to prevent the admission of children to care, appearing before the courts and remaining in care and this included the provision of practical and financial assistance, not otherwise available. Following 1969 Children and Young Persons Act the Approved school where delinquents were sent for a fixed period years after which they were released on licensed supervision to a probation officer, was changed and such young people were committed to the care of the local authority who could decide to place them in special residential establishments with education on the premises or other facilities. I will return to the history in a moment but first the present situation
The Education Ministry is now called the Department for Children, Schools and Families and there is now a separate Government Department with its own Ministerial Team concerned with further education and lifelong leaning, skills and innovation.
In addition to Ed Balls the Cabinet Minister with overall responsibility for the Department for Children and Skills he is assisted by a team of four Ministers one of whom represents the Department in the House of Lords. They will be supported by an appropriate team of civil, public servants at their London headquarters. There will be the most senior civil servants who concentrate on the role of Ministers as part of government, participating the various inter departmental committees where the functions of their department interact with other government departments, preparing and presenting any new legislation or changes in legislation, preparing the budget on an annual basis and monitoring expenditure, preparing for the fortnightly hour long answering oral questions and providing answers to written question about policy and practice from any Member of the Parliament, or from individual Members of Parliament regarding individual issues arising in their constituency. There is also the role of the department internationally and there is the relationship between Ministers and the media in terms of their official duties.
A feature of the British system and which is significantly different from that in the USA is that when a different political party forms the government, the top officials do not change and remain under the overall control of the Secretary of the Cabinet, or of the individual civil services heads of the departments. As was brilliantly portrayed in the series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister there is a constant tension between the Ministers who want to put their political policies into practice and the top civil servants who know what can and cannot to be done, and who at times also lead a weak Minister a long policy and decision taking issues according to the civil service view rather than the party political view. To combat becoming over influenced the Ministers in a department usually have a small team of political advisers and there will also be a small private office staff who will for example be responsible for the Minister‘s diary and travel arrangements and who tend to try and act as a bridge between the Minister, the departmental head of the civil servants and the political advisers.
It is very easy for a new Minister to become overwhelmed by inheriting a full diary of meetings and visits and to start to be led by officials rather than leading the officials. There is also a tradition that the civil services does not pass on party political background knowledge from one Minister to another and especially when Ministers are of different Political parties otherwise it would be natural for Ministers to spend time digging up the dirt on colleagues and political opponents.
I also suspect that this approach of concentrating on current issues and filing the past is what happened when the papers of Ministers, the top Civil Servants and those of the Inspectorate were transferred from the Department of Health to the new Children’s and skills Department Both top officials and Ministers at the new department would have received comprehensive information on all current activities and current resources and as much as possible would have been incorporated into the registry of the new department, available if there is need but not brought to the attention of the top servants or the Ministers at the time responsibilities were transferred. However there is one political exception in this instance Beverley Hughes, the Minister for Children transferred from the Department of Health Team to the Department of Children and School’s team
What I have described in the norm for transfers and there is nothing sinister about what happens. My in depth knowledge comes from being involved between 1970 and 1974 with the great changes involved with the creation of Social Service department from 1971, the recreation of the National Health service with the abolition of Local Authority Medical Officers of Health and the transfer of many of the functions and services to social services, to education or to the new Area Health Authorities in 1974 together with the compressive reforming of local government outside of London. I was involved first as a headquarters executive in creation of one of the biggest social service departments in 1970 and in the creation of a new local authority, one of the smallest in 1974. I also had a national role at the time as President Elect of the Association of Child Care Officers and the first chairman of the Family and Child Care Section of the British Association of Social Workers, so my knowledge was national as well as local in depth.
What happened then and which may have been a factor at Harringey when the Child care services were transferred from the Social Services Directorate to the new Education Directorate is that in 1971 Managers and practitioners were de skilled over night. I moved from my knowledge and experience in child care to having responsibility for services for the elderly, for the physically and mentally disabled and those with Mental Health problems and for staff with varied training, work interests skills and experience.
The Managers came from different backgrounds departmental and political cultures. By political and departmental culture I do not refer to the party political difference which generally affect policy and resources issue. For example you could have a political and departmental culture which liked to delegate as much as possible mixed up with one that liked to be involved in very kind of decision. I moved from a local authority where the Social Services Committee met eight or nine times a year, where the Chairman and Vice chainman of the Social Services Committee only came to the Headquarters office for a briefing before the Committee and had a briefing before the subsequent meeting of the full council and where we never saw them or any politicians unless we attended a conference or some specially arranged activity or inter authority meeting, to one where all sixty six members of the Council had my home phone number and contacted me if there was problem in their area which could not wait until the following day for them to come in and see me at the office. In the first authority only some decisions were reported to the Social Services Committee and even fewer matters to the Council. In the second authority there were sub committees and committees involving politicians every week and every decision had to be reported from sub committee to committee and from committee to Council and could not be implemented until agreed at Council In the first local authority I was interviewed and appointed and signed a contract as Assistant County Director of Social Services over one day by the new Director and a deputy Chief Executive while in the second Councillors made every appointment from office cleaner to home help and I was appointed at full meeting of the Council with some sixty of the sixty six members present.
Now this difference in culture had its impact on the quality of service provided in two ways. In the latter the Councillors were in touch with their constituents around the clock so when I sat in on a sub committee for example providing grants for telephones for people with a physical disability, or for a family seeking help with their electricity Bill, and the social worker involved came in and present the application briefly outlining the family circumstances , councillor often provided relevant missing information or explained to the social worker why they had been mislead. However such an approach could mean that one became so bogged down in individual matters that one missed the wider picture. In the former situation I had to work hard to find out how policy decisions worked out in practice and could not always wait for the results of formal research projects. We were one of the first departments to employ a small teams conducting research with a brilliant research leader who went onto become not just a Director of Social services but a local authority Chief Executive. I also kept in close contact with the 15 area based fieldwork team leaders and banged as loudly as I could on the door of my superiors when those representing what was happening in practice told me that something needed to changed or taken back to the drawing board,
One of the things we did and which I then introduced in the second local authority was to establish a register of all complaints, their nature and the outcome, and in the second authority although I was the head of the department and kept busy, I insisted on seeing every reply to every formal complaint and I determined which I would see after the reply had been sent and which I would see myself with the papers before it was sent out, changing the response, or calling for more information in some instances. Moreover I reported the full list of complaints, by their designated number to the Social Services Committee once a month and which enable any member of the Committee if they had a query or were dissatisfied to raise the issue. Despite the problems which could arise, and did, as a consequence of Councillors having such an intimate involvement with what staff did or did not do, regardless, of their level of training or position, the outcome was that we never experienced the kind of case which has hit the headlines in most other local authorities from time to time and why I believe I was nominated by the Department of Health to be the Social Services professional on a judicial inquiry into the death of a child where the mother had already been sent to prison. I had reached national office quickly as someone who wrote about the reality of being a front line child care officer, and then about the problems of being a front line generic social worker. but who also was realistic about the variations in standards and quality of work within and between children’s and then social service departments.
I had worked in one London borough where we had painstakingly gone through every inherited client record, page by page, summarising the key information and creating a chronological summary, such was the awfulness of the information to hand and our justified suspicion that the records were created after which no one had listen what was in them and what was not. A lot of codswallop is spoken to and by the media about the pressures on child care social workers and other professionals today. I suspect that then as now there are those who pay close attention to what has gone on before and maintaining updated and clear records and those who do not.. Home Office sponsored research several decades ago found that often those with the biggest case loads frequently also had the energy, made the time and possessed the skill and also kept good paper week which they also constantly re read.
I once worked for one the biggest child care local authorities in the country and discovered that level of child care was appalling. Every day I received 100 requests from child care officers to confirm their decision, such as ordering additional tooth paste for a child in care, I kid you not, or approving the request to allow a child in a residential home to go to their family for the weekend and where I would require a social worker to have visited to ensure that the circumstances and the supervision would be satisfactory. I had at headquarters a matching copy of the file of every child in care or under supervision of that held by area managers and team leaders, but oddly not by the staff in the residential child care homes. Now if I had read 100 files a day and every decision I, and another newly appointed colleagues would have done nothing to prepares the department for becoming part of Social services Department a year later, sow we devised a system of delegations down to Area Officers, Team leaders and individual workers which with the approval of the Children’s officer was put into immediate effect and enabled us to concentrate on reviewing the quality of practice which was one of my strengths. I discovered that some statutory requirements to protect children in foster care, for example had never been implemented since they were established in 1948, twenty two years before. In fact many local authorities and their senior management to this day are great at taking decision, passing resolutions, introducing new legislation, but have no system for first ensuring that it is implemented and then reviewing its outcome
I should also record two aspects of the chaos and disastrous implementation of national policy and legislation at a local level which occurred in 1971 and 1974. In 1971 and this continued until the 1990’s in some local authorities, Child Care services were put under chief officers and deputies who had no previous experience of work at any level in a child care department and this I believe in the position of the Director of the Children, Family and Schools service at Harringey. In 1970 the appointment was often Male Chief Welfare Officers who had no professional social work qualification in England and who had worked within or part of local Health Authority departments, a few and worked as heads of mental health departments, a few came from Probation, a few from the non statutory sector or had an academic social work background and two had been local authority medical officers of health, in Liverpool and in South Shields. I had been requested in 1970 and again in 1974 to write short biographical notes about each new Director Appointment and had written to each before requests information which they would like to have published. This gave me a unique perspective on those appointed to the position of Director of Social Services.
Many of those appointed did not understand the nature of trained social worker practice or the nature of child care work in general. Some immediately put people who had no child care experience or training in charge of individual child care and protection cases or in the management and supervision of those undertaking this work. All too often the experienced front line child care officer had enough and retired, or moved into the non statutory child care sector, or found themselves in supervision or management of work where child care formed only a minority percentage of their responsibilities. Those of us who opposed generic practice were lone voices and warned and kept warning of the disaster ahead.
In Cheshire the Director had the good idea persuading the Council, and the Director of Education that the department should incorporate aspects of the word of Education Welfare Officers in the new Social Services Department. I believe there were about thirty such officers at the time and the decision was that about half would remain with education and cover the basics such as school attendance, free school meals and assistance with uniforms and such like important aspects of ensuring that all children received education and were not prevented because of lack of clothing or food to make the best of what was available, and that the other half would transfer to the department as social worker assistants but with the opportunity to be trained as social workers. It was my personal decision who came over and who stayed from those who wanted to come over and I obtained the assistance of the departmental training officer because of the assessment that individuals were likely to be accepted for professional training. It was one of the most successful pieces work in my career because although not everyone who wanted to transfer was able to do so at that time no one appealed against the decisions, those who came over went on to social work training and without exception according to the team managers formed a valuable asset to the service. They also provided in valuable new bridging link between the department and individual schools in relation to the needs of children in trouble at school and children in care or under supervision. However the flaw from the outset was that along with all other social work assistants and social workers their role was generic and the schools then had to cope with social workers undertaking some of duties of education welfare officers who had no previous experience of child care or schools. It was not surprising that complaint upon complaint arose from the schools and eventually a compromised was reached while I was employed and that position reverted with all the functions passed back after 1974.
It took over half a decade to effectively reverse the damage generic social working created in the authority where I was the head of department although we were one of the first authorities to create a child care department within a social services department with an Assistant Director of Child Care, two Principal Officers one responsible for field work and the other for residential and day care services, specialist sections dealing with adoption and fostering, with the courts, with services for children under five and for child protection and specialist child care workers, including senior practitioner post. The quality of work was not without criticism but we provided the right framework and a framework which worked closely with education, health and the police and where in fact the department pioneered arrangements with the police involving senior managers and practitioners.
This brings me to perhaps the most important point to be made and one that the response of Ed Balls and national politicians has at last come to recognise. You cannot take decisions about the survival of am individual child at risk by committee. It is essential that in every area there is a committee bringing together the senior officers of all the agencies statutory and independent who can be involved with one child and their family to ensure that effective arrangements for working together exist and that effectiveness is constantly reviewed and not just when things go wrong in an individual case. The monitoring system ought to ensure that all relevant information about a child at risk is shared and considered at meetings of all those involved with a child held when appropriate although getting doctors teachers health visitors and social workers together is a difficult and expensive activity but to day with computers it ought to be possible to share relevant and key formation, such as visits made and by whom, the purpose of visits or contacts and the outcomes together with such information as to who live in the home, the relationships and the sleeping arrangement, issues such as drug taking and background of violence and such like as long as it can be verified and justified, However the decision to remove a child from home into a temporary of safety should be given priority an clearly should not be initiated by the police or child care officers or other persons without consulting all hose in direct contact with the child and family and getting legal advice but the principle of better being safe than sorry must apply. However society needs to ensure that those who are accountable for the decisions have been given the necessary authority and the necessary resources and give them support if they have taken good decisions based on good information but which turns out to be different from practice.
And this is where I get back to Ministerial accountability as well as that of Local Authority Politicians, Local authority heads of service, supervisors and front line practitioners. In 1974 there was chaos because government had decided on the Big Bang approach with major reorganisations of local government and the health service within three years of the creation of social service departments and generic social service department. Children in public care were lost as were children at risk in the community. This arose because information about a child in the care of one authority in residential care where responsibility should have been transferred was sometimes not, and only came to light if a vigilant head of a residential establishment or member of staff noted that the usual three or six monthly visit or review had not taken place and made enquiries. There was also a tendency to close cases before they were transferred and for decisions about this not to be adequately supervised or checked either by the re transferring authority or the recipient authority.
I had the experience in the 1980 child care inquiry where a child had been in and out of care, continually discharged back to an alarming home situation where foster parents neighbours and others had made repeated complaints and where when the file disappeared at the same time as the senior officer responsible left the department to go and train new social workers, the department made no attempt to recreate the lost file, and even after the child had died and criminal trial had taken place and the enquiry had been announced and all relevant papers assembled, there was no one in senior management who realised, including the keeper of the record that the department was required by law to keep as separate record of every child placed with foster parents in a register. Consultation of the register in this instance revealed two important additional fostering placements and where the foster parents were surprised they had not been contacted and where they were able to express the concerns they had at the time. This was managerial incompetence and their QC representing the local authority was as appalled as myself that this situation had arisen and only came to light because of my knowledge and background.
This is also the situation when another QC representing a front line worker argued until I intervened that the duty under the law to preventing children entering and remaining in care ran parallel alongside the duty to care and provide protection. I humbly suggested that the latter had priority and the QC admitted that it had been a proposition, that is, a try on. But again without my knowledge of the law and good practice the point might have gone unchallenged and it a proposition that I sometimes hear still being made to day. This was also the case where the decision of the local authority to return the remaining children to the mother once she was discharged from prison would never have been debated had it not been for a senior Police officer with the George Medal Balcombe Street siege who blew the whistle, not only was he reprimanded and lost his chance at promotion but retired and died a broken man within a couple of years after.
I mention these things because it is difficult for individuals to go against the current tide, orthodoxy and fashion and it is right that government should be cautious about proposals and assessments from Mavericks such as me. I did not expect that when I argued in the September 1992 Guardian article for the kind of division of social services between adult and child care and for the adult service to aligned to health and the child services to education in some form that it would be immediately taken up, although by then it was clearly the right thing to do and which was recognised by everyone except those within the service with a vested interest. However I did think that the government would have learnt not to make the kind of mistakes it had made in 1971 and 1974 and then made again around 1990, to introduced the new unworkable Community Care changes and the New Children‘s Act in another Big Bang approach. Again I warned the Minister and I warned the House of Commons Social Service Committee writing four papers about the inevitable problems. When the Association of Directors of Social Services had not even bothered to submit evidence, my papers were used to enable them to give oral evidence and counter what I was saying. Again I was proved right and they wrong but such is life expect for the unnecessary harm that was done to individuals in the interim.
A good example of the problem that can arise if Minister listen to ad hoc ideas regardless of the source without proper investigation arose with the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act in which Approved schools became community homes with education on the premises and responsibility for the young people involved was transferred from probation to social services.
The Magistrates Association took the government Minister involved in the Children and Young Person’s Act out for a meal and persuaded that an amendment should be introduced to appoint an independent visitor for any child placed in residential establishments with education on the premises if no one visited within three months, I know this because the Minister in Lords told me on the day the new amendment was introduced and that there had been no time for the officials to investigate the new development. When they did undertake a survey of establishments which included some special educational residential establishments they discovered that the new law applied to these but there was no one in the former approved school who did not have an existing visitor. There was no harm therefore in the development despite the extra costs and indeed some forgotten children in the education system got attention, However it underlines that a balance needs to be made between dealing with situations and being aware of all the likely consequences and ensuring close monitoring and review.
The Main Findings of the 200 Review of Practice at Harringey.
7. The main findings of this inspection, described below, point to significant weakness in safeguarding and child protection arrangements in Haringey. They also show that the arrangements for the leadership and management of safeguarding by the local authority and partner agencies in Haringey are inadequate.
There is insufficient strategic leadership and management oversight of safeguarding of children and young people from Haringey by elected members, senior officers and others within the strategic partnership.
There is a managerial failure to ensure full compliance with some requirements of the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, such as the lack of written feedback to those making referrals to social care services.
The local safeguarding children board (LSCB) fails to provide sufficient challenge to its member agencies. This is further compounded by the lack of an independent chairperson.
Social care, health and police authorities do not communicate and collaborate routinely and consistently to ensure effective assessment, planning and review of cases of vulnerable children and young people.
Too often assessments of children and young people, in all agencies, fail to identify those who are at immediate risk of harm and to address their needs.
The quality of front line practice across all agencies is inconsistent and not effectively monitored by line managers.
Child protection plans are generally poor.
Arrangements for scrutinising performance across the council and the partnership are insufficiently developed and fail to provide systematic support and appropriate challenge to both managers and practitioners.
The standard of record keeping on case files across all agencies is inconsistent and often poor.
There is too much reliance on quantitative data to measure social care, health, and police performance, without sufficiently robust analysis of the underlying quality of service provision and practice.
One has to press wanting to know that if this is the position now what was it like in August 2007? Who now speaks for Baby P?
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