1 David Lane - Editor Fire in the Belly Lord Laming has made one hundred and eight recommendations for action in his four hundred page report following his Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie. He is a clear thinker, and on first reading the recommendations make good sense. Some of them have been made before, and until a Government is prepared to take the necessary action, for example in establishing a Children’s Commissioner in England, they will be made again and again. It is sad that the anger surrounding child deaths, which has been described vividly in report after report, has so far boiled down to inadequate action once the civil servants and legislators have looked at the implications and costs of taking the necessary action. It is not only sad, it is a cause in itself for anger. Every action or inaction that leaves children open to further abuse when protection could be offered leaves blood on the hands of the practitioner, manager, official or politician who fails to act or obstructs good practice. Let us be quite clear that it is not just the front-line workers who failed Victoria Climbie. In Lord Laming’s report, it is the managers who are criticised most, but a check back through Hansard and departmental files should identify quite a lot of senior and eminent people who contributed by failing to provide adequate resources or by stunting the necessary legislation in the decades before. Because reports like Lord Laming’s examine the systems and the minutiae of practice, a factor that is often ignored is the motivation of the workers involved. What is it that makes them want to be social workers, in the face of poor pay, low public esteem, the heavy hand of bureaucracy and the aggro of the job itself? The rewards - if one thinks in material terms - are limited. The only real satisfaction can be in the protection of children against harm, in meeting their needs and in seeing them develop and fulfil their potential. We are not against good pay levels for social workers; they should be rewarded as professionals undertaking a difficult and complex job which requires skill and expertise. But pay on its own is insufficient. If social workers were to receive fat cat salaries but were unmotivated, the children would go unprotected. If social workers had superb training but failed to apply it for lack of heartfelt concern, the training would be no more than so much theory. If detailed instructions were provided, such as many of the recommendations in Lord Laming’s report, but if the practitioners could not be bothered to apply them or were dilatory, they would just be so much paper. If there were magnificent systems for quality assurance, with targets for everything, they would be no more than a stick to beat agencies with, if social workers had not internalised their wish to achieve quality by protecting children. In short, all the other necessary measures will fail if social workers and their managers are not properly motivated. Geoff Banner used to speak of the “fire in the belly” that was needed, the proper anger at injustice, social exclusion or hurt done to children. The problem is that too many of our systems contrive to damp that fire down or put it out. An excess of quality checks makes people play games to meet the targets, rather than focus on the child at risk. Media investigations encourage managers to keep their heads down and avoid publicity so that their agencies do not get a bad name, rather than face problems, acknowledge them and learn from them. Continual reorganisations shunt workers round so that they lose the satisfaction of long-term work in which they can see results, while service users have no continuity of oversight and cannot build meaningful relationships with those responsible for their care. We are not arguing against good pay, quality assurance or restructuring when it is necessary. We are arguing that much greater attention needs to be paid to the primary aims of the service and to motivating workers to concentrate on those aims. The rest should fall into place to support those aims. We believe that insufficient attention has been paid to the “fire in the belly”. In one of his finest passages Saint Paul spoke of the importance of love. Without it, all the other religious observances and beliefs were pointless, he said; of the three great qualities, hope, faith and love, love was the greatest. Our argument for “fire in the belly” is the same. All the systems, structures, theories and policies will continue to be useless in protecting children if we ignore what makes people want to do the job. Let us stoke up that fire. It is when people are angered to take action that they will face aggressive abusive parents, that they will persevere when blocked by bureaucracy or lack of co-operation from other professionals, that they will take risks where the needs of vulnerable children necessitate it, or that they will stick by the children despite poor pay and low public esteem. Of course, their anger has to be controlled and the work has to be done professionally, but without the anger stoking the boiler, we will continue to fail children. To read the Guardian Report and access to the full Laming Report, click here