Child protection - necessary, but not an excuse for unwarranted state intervention

This last week has seen the news that another child known to social services in the London Borough of Haringay has suffered horrific abuse. One should not hide the horrific nature of the abuse itself, and that it is the man who has now been convicted of the offence involved who is primarily responsible for that abuse.

Much of the media comment, however, has centred on the fact that Haringay's social services have, once again, failed to protect a child who was on their "at risk" register, and towards whom therefore the local authority's social service teams had a particular responsibility of care.

Lord Laming conducted an inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie in 2000, an inquiry which has led to a complete re-structure of local authority services - the Every Child Matters agenda. These are now structured to have a single Children's Services Department, which includes what were formerly separate Education departments and Children's social work departments (within the social services department of the authority). Local Safeguarding Committees now exist, on which are represented all those likely to have a part in the care of children - health services, education services, police, social workers. The whole intention is to achieve the sort of communication between different agencies that was not there for Victoria Climbie. Local authorities, through their Children's Services departments, now have a statutory responsibility to safeguard children in their areas from abuse.

According to the report on the Timesonline website:

Lord Laming, who conducted an inquiry in to the death of abuse victim Victoria Climbie, eight, in Haringey in 2000, said on Radio 4 it was ‘dispiriting’ that some child protection services were still not working.

There is another side to the new child protection environment. That is what happens when professional staff who work with children, and sometimes parents, face an allegation that turns out to be unfounded. Careers can be blighted, and the confidence of perfectly competent/safe staff and parents destroyed.

1. The structural changes undertaken after the Victoria Climbie inquiry (and I am not suggesting that changes were not necessary) appear to me to have an underlying flaw. The changes have brought into existence a system that applies to all children - including those who may not be on an "at risk" register - by virtue of the obligation placed on local authorities to safeguard children in their areas. But the structures are designed to respond to the situation of children who are at risk. The element of injustice towards those who face an allegation that turns out to be unfounded therefore seems to me to be in-built. This issue is becoming an increasing concern for teacher trade unions, and the associations of other professionals involved in the care of children.

2. An unfortunate effect of the present child protection environment is an erosion of trust. Certainly care has to be taken that the idea of trust is not used to avoid pursuing enquiries when there is a good reason to do so. On the other hand, what also needs to be avoided is the opposite - where suspicion becomes the presumption, not just in casework where it might be justifiable in appropriate circumstances, but in one's general attitude and policy. This element of suspicion is what can lead to unfounded allegations.

3. From the point of view of Catholic social teaching, it is parents who have the first responsibility to care for their children. The allocation of a statutory duty to safeguard all children to the local authority conflicts with this. The role of the local authority should come in to play when there is a need to support parents in fulfilling what is essentially the parents' responsibility; or in situations where the parents are unable to fulfil the responsibility at all, in which case the local authority can quite rightly step in to take on that responsibility completely by taking a child into care. Those more expert in children's social services might know more about this than I do, but my impression is that local authority social services are only really stepping in when they have a statutory duty to do so; they are not able to offer what might be called "non-statutory" support. In this context, I am rather wary of Lord Laming's observation, in the Timesonline report, that:

I believe that the state should become a responsible and effective parent to more children.

To be fair to Lord Laming, he does go on to recognise that this should not mean a swing to an opposite extreme of children being "snatched away" in ever increasing numbers, and he is referring to children identified as being at risk. But it is the relatively easy reference to the state as a parent that I find worrying. I would not like this latest incident, and Lord Laming's remarks, to give a justification to the state taking to itself greater parental responsibility for all children.

4. Running alongside this question of child protection are the questions of Sex and Relationships Education and societal/political attitudes towards marriage. I am not in principle opposed to the provision of Sex and Relationships Education in schools - in the context of Catholic social teaching, this is one aspect of the part that a school can play in collaborating with parents in the education of their children. However, when, in practice, that provision lacks any real choice of programme and resources and becomes a mechanism for imposing in schools one, single form of provision, primarily through the preferential funding and support of a small core of suppliers - then we have an imposition by the state. The state is in effect taking over a responsibility for this area of parenting. I would also want to argue that the duty to safeguard children would be very well served by the promotion and protection of marriage in wider society - and in Sex and Relationships Education in schools. This is not to say that no abuse of children occurs in families where the parents are married, or that I think a couple must stay together where there is domestic violence of one form or another. But the inherent increased stability of most married relationships should help the overall situation. But, of course, this is not on the public agenda. I have yet to see any recognition that these are issues relevant to that of child protection. The provision of contraceptive and abortion advice, and making as easy as possible access to those services, for young people under 16 seems to me a major question for child protection. If the proportion of pregnancies ending in abortion is higher for under-16's than for other age ranges, one is entitled to ask about the nature of the guidance being offered to those children, again a question for child protection.

4. Legislation might impose an obligation on local authorities to safeguard all the children in their area. But is this a bit like to trying to say that the sky is green? [Well, for us physicists, there is a phenomenon called the "green flash", but let's leave that aside!] A local authority can try its best, and take actions to help safeguard children in general and respond to individual cases - but is that the obligation to safeguard all children a realisable obligation?

5. Finally! So far as I can see, failings in child protection come down to failings in the work of those involved. And the last week's events seem to suggest that this is the case now as much as it was before the changes following Lord Lamings inquiry into the Victoria Climbie case.