1.
Introduction
ADSS
has already welcomed the publication of Lord Laming’s report
and confirms that there is much in it which is consistent with the
pre publication ADSS position and submissions to the Inquiry. The
fact that the Inquiry was established under three separate statutes:
The Children Act 1989, The National Health Service Act 1977 and The
Police Act 1996 is indicative of the range of agencies and professionals
with responsibility for ensuring the safety and well-being of children.
There are some core principles which emerge from the report and which
ADSS supports unreservedly particularly:
•
the location of child protection work within the wider work of promoting
the well-being of children
• the emphasis on accountability and responsibility
• the emphasis on national standards
• the emphasis on the local authority role to join up services
at a local level (this is very close to the position outlined in Serving
Children Well)
• the acknowledgement of the importance of listening to children
• the emphasis on the importance of good practice to protect
children
• the emphasis on the use of the assessment framework
• the focus on ensuring that staff undertaking child protection
work have the skills and competencies through training and development
opportunities
• the acknowledgement of the importance of clarity on exchanging
information
• the clear emphasis on the importance of leadership
2.
Well-being and Protection of Children
A significant
theme of the report is the recognition that Victoria could have been
protected if the basic things had been done well. A thorough assessment
is protective because it leads to the development and implementation
of a plan to meet the child’s needs. Too hasty an assignment
of a child as being “in need” or “in need of protection”
is in itself dangerous if it is based on inadequate information. This
leads to a trânche of detailed recommendations on good practice
at the front line and departments will be completing a self audit
required by the DOH to ascertain their existing level of compliance.
ADSS
is committed to the highest standards of professional practice. In
order to achieve these it is necessary to have in place across the
country, staff with the right levels of skill and training in sufficient
numbers.
The
“Safeguarding Children” report flagged up some of the
issues that are a challenge to achieving appropriate standards including
the recruitment and retention levels for front-line workers in social
care. In our evidence we argued for the need for the preventative
work to be "reconnected" to our selective work through the
targeting of Sure Start, Children's Fund, Education Standards Fund,
Early Years Development, Neighbourhood Renewal, Regeneration initiatives,
Youth Justice and Connexions. The Inspectors’ report also identified
that within local authorities very little preventative work was being
carried out because most of the resources are directed at children
on child protection registers and looked after children. Preventative
and targeted services need to be better integrated. What is more difficult
to establish is whether the resources exist within the system to implement
all of the recommendations made by Lord Laming.
3.
Resources
There
is an expectation that very many of the recommendations in the report
can be implemented within current resources because they are good
practice and that this can and should be achievable within short timeframes
as a consequence. The assumption that this rests on is that the current
resources available to local authorities for children are sufficient.
The joint
Budget Survey which ADSS conducts annually with the LGA and County
Treasurers has shown in recent years that children’s budgets
are consistently over-extended. The early indications from the current
Survey are that the situation has not improved and that the new grants
for 2003/04 will not meet these existing pressures. The outcome of
the audit instigated by the DOH will reveal the degree of fit between
the expectations of current front line practice and the reality. The
resource implications of lowering or removing thresholds would be
considerable and would need greater priority, input and commitment
from all agencies to provide the kind of good practice response envisaged
in the report.
In our
submission to the Inquiry we included a recommendation that a pilot
study should be carried out to determine the time and human resources
necessary to complete an assessment to the required standard. No such
study has yet been undertaken. ADSS has called for a thorough review
of the funding for social care along the lines of the work carried
out by Derek Wanless for the NHS. He looked at the extent of the need
in the community as a basis for determining whether the services available
were adequate to meet the needs identified. The argument for that
kind of review in relation to social care and children’s services
is more powerful following Lord Laming’s report than it has
ever been.
4.
Structural Reform
The proposals
for structural reform in Lord Laming’s report will need to be
considered further by the Green Paper team in the context of the broader
remit they have to address the whole range of risk of harmful outcomes
for children and young people including low educational attainment
and involvement in crime. The context will include the role of the
Children and Young People’s Unit, the findings of the Cross-Cutting
Review, Public Service Agreement requirements as regards preventative
strategies, the implications of the white paper on anti-social behaviour,
Identification, Referral and Tracking and the National Strategy for
Children.
ADSS
supports the principle of services for children and families being
locally organised and delivered in the context of explicit national
standards and agreed outcomes across all agencies. We are keen to
see strong local bodies leading children’s services but think
that the Children’s Strategic Partnerships have the potential
to be that body. The proposals made jointly by LGA, NHS Confederation
and ADSS in “Serving Children Well” are consistent with
this and Children’s Trusts could be one of the vehicles for
taking forward better co-ordinated approaches locally.
The infra-structure
for social care has traditionally and historically been minimal and
only now with the advent of Social Care Institute for Excellence,
National Care Standards Commission (and its successor body, the Commission
for Social Care Inspection) and General Social Care Council do we
have the infra-structure which many other professions have. These
organisations are crucial to the development of a strong and vibrant
social care for the future and need to be integrated into any newly
proposed national structures.
ADSS
supports the recommendation of the establishment of a Children’s
Commissioner for England but would envisage the role as a fully independent
one with a wide ranging remit.
ADSS
considers that Child Protection Registers should remain until there
are strong and workable proposals in place for their replacement.
Lord Laming acknowledges that a national database is a major project
with significant ramifications which would need a feasibility study.
It would need to be implemented and maintained efficiently.
We have
argued consistently for the development of multi-agency teams which
are co-located but must fit local circumstances. The Children’s
Trusts pilots may offer one type of opportunity to model such arrangements.
ADSS is in full agreement with the eight defining principles underpinning
the changes to be addressed by all statutory agencies specifically
that the “service must be:
•
child and family centred;
• responsive to local needs and opportunities;
• adequately resourced;
• capable of delivering an agreed set of measurable, national
outcomes for children;
• clear in its accountability from the top to the bottom of
the organisation;
• transparent in its work and open to scrutiny;
• clear and straightforward to understand;
• placed on a statutory footing, with the powers to deliver
the desired outcomes.”
These
principles are of equal importance for all those offering services
to children, whether in the statutory or independent sector, including
education and community child health. Faith communities and community
groups also have significant contributions to make to the well-being
of children. Within these arrangements there is a need for an appropriate
range of shared knowledge and skills and a place for specialist knowledge
and skills. Without that there will be too great a blurring of the
role, with potentially poorer outcomes for children. The police still
need to investigate and detect, social workers will carry out their
role in relation to social circumstances, medical staff will need
to diagnose and treat.
5.
Accountability
Whilst
ADSS fully supports Lord Laming’s desire to embed within local
government structures the accountability of elected members for the
delivery of effective services to children, ADSS considers that this
can be best achieved by working through the arrangements already in
place following
the implementation of the Local Government Act. The arrangements for
Cabinets, Scrutiny and Executive Members with specific portfolios
of responsibilities already focus accountability in a clearer way
than previous arrangements within Councils. Consequently, the national
and local accountability arrangements proposed within Lord Laming’s
report do not sit easily with the structures that will be in place
in most local authorities. However, ADSS supports the need for clarity
about the accountability for services to children to be specifically
highlighted within these arrangements.
ADSS
also considers that a local body equivalent to an Area Child Protection
Committee will still be needed but with greater statutory responsibilities
and clear lines of accountability to the local strategic partnership.
ADSS
recognises the need for clear accountability from top to bottom of
every organisation and for children to be identified as a priority
in national plans within every agency. Within local authorities this
will mean clarification of the roles and responsibilities of elected
members, Chief Executives and Directors of Social Services, among
others. ADSS with SOLACE has already made a submission to the Inquiry
particularly on this point and this will be examined in the light
of the recommendations in the report. There must be equal emphasis
on the accountability of chief officers in all agencies to ensure
the necessary contributions across the board to securing the safety
and well-being of children.
Accountability
and leadership are separate but complimentary skills. We welcome the
findings of the Report as regards the crucial importance of skilled
and effective leadership - crucial in securing and maintaining good
practice and, where this does not exist, in ensuring the improvement
of services. The development of effective leaders both for the present
and future is essential.
This
report is welcomed by ADSS and makes very significant recommendations
about improvements to be made at every level from central government
all the way to front line practice. Discussions about the configuration
of structures for delivering services to children which will diminish
harmful outcomes and promote the well-being of children will be taken
forward in the context of the development of proposals for inclusion
in the Green Paper on Children at Risk.
David Behan
President of ADSS
10 February 2003
