Child protection reforms risk weakening safety net, LGA warns

LGA press release - 10 March 2010

An increase in rules and targets supposed to improve child protection is instead overloading stretched social work teams and risks weakening the safety net which keeps children safe from harm, council leaders warned today, as they published academic research into the implementation of Lord Laming’s latest recommendations.

The Local Government Association, which commissioned the study from Loughborough University into Lord Laming’s report The protection of children in England: a progress report, has proposed a five point plan to ensure social work reforms result in the best possible protection of vulnerable children.

The research paper has found that the most common reason social work teams feel they are pushed beyond the number of cases they can reasonably manage is an increase in statutory work, which will include handling a rise in referrals in the wake of the baby Peter Connelly case and new regulations. This is seen to have a greater impact than staff vacancies or sickness absences.

The LGA is arguing that the single recommendation likely to have the biggest impact on social work teams be revised. Recommendation 19 (1) requires every referral from another professional to be followed up by a formal process known as an initial assessment. On average, only 13% of the time taken to complete an initial assessment is spent with the child or family but 87% is spent on paperwork and process.

The researchers also found that if recommendation 19(1) was to be fully implemented:

• the average increase in initial assessments across the country would be 91%
• around 2,000 extra social workers would be needed, at a time when the recruitment and retention of such staff is still difficult.
• the cost would be approximately £75m a year extra, contributing to an overall annual bill for implementing the recommendations of £116m.

Councils are working tirelessly to support their social work teams as part of efforts to solve issues of recruitment and retention. Social workers spoken to by the researchers frequently emphasised their desire to spend as much time as possible helping children and their families rather than dealing with bureaucracy.

The LGA has set out a five point plan to ensure social work reforms lead to the best possible child protection systems:

• GIVE SOCIAL WORKERS MORE POWER to process referrals in the way which will best help the child, using their own discretion, and scrap the requirement to always do a formal initial assessment.
• HAVE ALL PROFESSIONALS RECORD INFORMATION IN THE SAME WAY, using the Common Assessment Framework, to reduce time cross-referencing information.
• INCREASE THE PART PLAYED BY OTHER BODIES, such as the police and health services, in making decisions about a child’s needs.
• REDUCE THE 300 PAGES OF GUIDANCE FOR CHILD PROTECTION to a target of 100 pages
• PROVIDE INTERIM GOVERNMENT FUNDING OF £116M TO COUNCILS to plug the gap created by social work reforms, and to pay for recommendation 19(1) if it is not amended.

Cllr Shireen Ritchie, Chair of the LGA Children and Young People board, said:

“Every right-minded person wants to know everything possible is being done to keep children safe from harm. Money is an ugly topic to raise when the issue is the safety and wellbeing of children, but it would be irresponsible to pretend social work teams can make major changes to how they operate without there being implications for their workload and resources.

“The aim of this research is to help turn well-meaning proposals into practices which strengthen the safety net which keeps children safe from harm. There has to be recognition of what dedicated social workers all over the country are dealing with every day, the pressures placed on them and the valuable expertise they can share.

“Children who are at risk, and families which are struggling, will benefit more from additional time with experienced social workers than they will from an increase in the number of forms filled in about them. Some paperwork is essential to doing the best possible job, but it is right to try to reduce bureaucracy where it can ease the pressure on social workers and increase the quality of care offered to children.

“It is time to show more trust in our social workers to do the right thing for children. It is time for professionals like the police and health service workers to step up to the mark and show they understand the part they have to play in helping social workers reach the most vulnerable children first.

“The aim now is to find the right way forward, to make services that protect children the best they’ve ever been while properly supporting the people who do this vital work.”

ENDS

Author: LGA Media Office
Contact: LGA Media Office, Tel: 020 7664 3333

Lord Laming’s report, The protection of children in England: a progress report, was drawn up in the wake of the baby Peter Connelly case in Haringey and made a total of 58 recommendations to help improve child protection, all of which were accepted by government.

Contact for Loughborough University: Amanda Overend, 01509 228686
a.j.overend@lboro.ac.uk 

Download the full report (PDF, 63 Pages, 224KB)