Update: family (children)

By letter dated 17 November 2008 the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (CSF) commissioned Lord Laming to carry out a review of the progress made to implement effective safeguarding arrangements for children and young people (CYP). The Government took this step following the high-profile case of 'Baby P'.

Lord Laming last reported in relation to the country's child protection system following the death of Victoria Climbie. That inspection and report made recommendations which led to the Every Child Matters (ECM) discourse.

The progress report was published on 12 March 2009, and makes 58 recommendations.

Chapter 1 considers the progress made in recent years. Lord Laming praises the Government for the ECM policy and recognises 'there is an impressive degree of individual commitment and enthusiasm for [ECM] and for the vision of what a 'good' childhood should be' (para. 1.2).

While acknowledging the achievements made and that central government and local agencies are only halfway through the ten-year ECM strategy, the report is clear that there remain several challenges in the system; and it addresses those challenges. Chapters 2-8 deal with different aspects of the system in turn and Lord Laming makes various suggestions for change within his general commentary in each section '“ aside from the formal recommendations. Below is a brief summary of each chapter and the main recommendations made.

Leadership and accountability

Lord Laming focuses on the different echelons of management and leadership, from a national level to key roles in local authorities. Key recommendations are that the Home Secretary and the Secretaries of State for CSF, Health and Justice should collaborate to set strategic priorities for the protection of CYP. Those priorities should then be drilled down and be reflected in frontline services.

The Cabinet Sub-Committee on CSF should undertake work with all government departments that impact on safeguarding to take action to create a comprehensive approach to children. The purpose of those recommendations is to assist the development of a performance management system, which should lead to the improvement in the quality of services for child protection.

There is also a need for effective indicators for safeguarding to be created as those currently in use are poor. Only a small proportion of local areas have chosen to adopt the National Indicators as their own targets (as part of their Local Area Agreements). As such the National Indicators need to be revised to better describe improved outcomes and services for CYP. Those indicators are to be specifically agreed by the Department of Health (DoH) and the Home Office so that they are also reflective of performance management frameworks of respectively the health sectors and police authorities.

Recommendations are made for the improvement of leadership of the roles of the designated councillor as Lead Member for Children's Services, the Children's Trust, the Local Authority Chief Executive and the Director of Children's Services (DCS). To assist the efficient working of those roles, position holders will require training as well as up-to-date and detailed management information for their areas to then analyse, scrutinise and challenge service delivery.

The report advocates that the performance of senior managers should be assessed against the quality of outcomes for the most vulnerable CYP. There must also be better partnership working and a shared culture between senior managers in partner agencies (e.g. health and the police).

Referral points (and points at which assessments of risk are undertaken) in all agencies should be regularly reviewed by the highest levels of leadership to ensure work at these crucial points is being carried out properly.

Support for children

This chapter considers the work that social workers and health visitors do with CYP and pays credence to the idea that professionals must have the ability and time to maintain effective contact with CYP and their families to achieve positive outcomes.

The commentary notes that any professional coming into contact with a child should be aware that it is unacceptable to do nothing when a child may be in need of help, that early intervention must be better understood as it is not simply an approach which only applies to babies and toddlers, and that all service provides must look critically at how referrals to their services are received in order to ensure that their 'front doors' are managed well.

Among the recommendations which seek to improve this area is that Ofsted should revise the inspection regime for schools so that eminence is given to their child protection responsibilities. Also, the DoH and DCSF should strengthen current guidance and implement systems and training allowing Accident & Emergency staff to tell if a child has been presented previously to A&E or is the subject of a Child Protection Plan. The guidance would be expected to deal with what staff should do if there are concerns and be clear that staff should ensure that no child is discharged while concerns for his or her safety remain. It is recommended that Children's Trusts take action so that all needs assessments include evidence from all professionals involved, take account of previous assessments and case histories, and include direct contact with the child.

Some discussion is then given to local authorities' internal policies which govern provision of support and services. Lord Laming comments on the increasing use of the term 'thresholds' '“ these being the limits to access to services, usually for budgetary reasons. He confirms that thresholds have no statutory basis and have no part in the Framework for Assessment of Children in Need and their Families. As a result of the operation of inconsistent and high thresholds, services are being restricted and therefore opportunities to intervene and support are missed. Local authorities are encouraged to urgently address this issue so that CYP identified as being 'in need' have early access to effective specialist services and support.

Constant and effective monitoring should also be in place to track and ensure progress of the child in need by all agencies involved. That can be done properly only where clear objectives are set with timescales incorporated into plans. To assist social workers, it is recommended that the Social Work Task Force (SWTF) should establish guidelines on guaranteed supervision time for social workers. Within six months it is expected that DCSF will have completed a feasibility study of the Integrated Children's System (ICS) taking into account the concerns identified.

Interagency working

Lord Laming makes reference to the fact that while co-operative working is becoming the norm, all too often it relies on the goodwill of individuals. His concern is obviously that it should be the approach that underpins the work of all professionals involved. The recommendations of this chapter are that all police, probation, adult mental health and drug and alcohol services should have referral processes that are clear and prioritise safeguarding. He recommends that there be automatic referrals where domestic abuse or drug or alcohol abuse may put a child at risk of abuse or neglect.

One would have hoped that referrals in these circumstances were automatic, but the evidence put before Lord Laming presumably demonstrated a gap.

The National Safeguarding Delivery Unit will be tasked with formulating guidance on referrals and assessment systems for children affected by these situations. The DCSF is told to make it a statutory requirement that schools, adult mental health and drug and alcohol services are represented on Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs).

Information sharing is key to effective interagency working. The report therefore recommends that all staff in every service (including legal advisers) should understand the circumstances in which they can lawfully share information.

Agencies are also encouraged to test their local information sharing arrangements to ensure they are intact. Further, it is recommended that every Children's Trust should assure themselves that partners are consistently applying the joint DCSF and Department for Communities and Local Govern- ment guidance on information sharing.

Children's workforce

At the outset of this chapter Lord Laming shares what will be unsurprising to most; that professionals in the services that work with CYP and families often feel undervalued, unsupported and at risk. He states that morale among social workers in Children's Services is particularly low.

When preparing the report Lord Laming's team visited various local authorities. They found that in some local authorities, more than half of the social workers were newly qualified with less than one year's experience.

Not hiding from the realities of the system, the opening sections of this chapter are littered with other rather depressing facts. In order to address some of these concerns, the key recommendations made are that: the DCSF with support from the SWTF should develop a strategy to raise the profile of social work and to defeat the negative perceptions of the media and public; the SWTF should address recruitment and retention difficulties; the SWTF should work with the Children's Workforce Development Council and other partners to implement clear profession routes for children's social workers; and that DCSF with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills should introduce a fully-funded, practice-focused children's social work postgraduate qualification for experienced children's social workers.

There are many other recommendations which seek to address surrounding issues of supervision, training, qualification issues (for domestic and overseas social workers), retention and the Code of Practice for Social Workers. Other recommendations seek to improve the identified difficulties of the roles of health visitors and paediatricians working with CYP.

Chapter 6 deals primarily with inspection. Recommendations concern the inspectorates: Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, HMI Constabulary and HMI Probation. Particular recommendations also extend to the DCSF in relation to the way Serious Case Reviews are conducted.

The penultimate chapter on 'Organisation and finance' deals with issues for LSCBs and Children's Trusts. There are recommendations that the DCSF sufficiently resource children's services to ensure early intervention and preventative services that can respond to all CYP and families who are vulnerable or 'in need', and that there be a national annual report which reviews safeguarding spend against assessment needs of children across the partners in each Children's Trust.

Finally, the chapter entitled 'Legal' makes recommendations that the Ministry of Justice should lead on establishing a system-wide target that lays responsibility on all participants in the care proceedings system to reduce delays. A further and welcome recommendation by the wider profession is that the MoJ should appoint an independent person to review the impact of court fees. Lord Laming states that in the absence of incontrovertible evidence that the fees had not acted as a deterrent, they should be abolished from 2010/11.

Working together revisions

Throughout the report, some key recommendations are made for revisions to the Working Together guidance. It should:

• set out clear expectations at all points where concerns about a child's safety are received, ensuring that intake/duty teams have sufficient training and expertise to take referrals;
• be the case that there is immediate access to on-site support from an experienced social worker at these referral points;
• ensure that all referrals made to Children's Services from other professionals lead to an initial assessment being undertaken and that should include direct involvement with the CYP and family;
• ensure direct engagement with, and feedback to, the referring professional; and
• be clear that all core group meetings, reviews and casework decisions are to include all professionals involved.