Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael Goodall Watson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I do not doubt the sincerity of the commitments that it contains. This has to be one of the most harrowing and tragic deaths any of us can imagine. My heart goes out to everyone who knew and loved Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. Talking to friends over the past few days, the first reaction they expressed was of course sorrow, but that was quickly followed by anger as to how such an awful fate could have been allowed to happen to little Arthur A serious case review is now under way and, while it is of course essential that it leaves no stone unturned in establishing what happened and what went wrong, it must also avoid simply repeating the recommendations of previous such reviews, such as those in respect of Victoria Climbié, Baby Peter, Daniel Pelka and too many others. Their serious case reviews reached conclusions that were depressingly familiar: warning signs were not picked up; the invisibility of children; poor early interventions and support for families; social workers’ high caseloads; and poor lines of communication between the various agencies. The main issue for Government this time is surely that these failures keep occurring. How can we avoid being here again in a year or two in similarly distressing circumstances Obviously, there are many questions to be asked in relation to what did or not happen locally, but I hope that the blame game that has already started will not point fingers at social workers, because it is well established that they are overworked and often lack the necessary experience to cope with distressing cases. In respect of the Statement, I welcome that it contains a clear defence of professionals in the various agencies Too many social workers on the front line who are recently qualified are sent into situations to deal with difficult households, often with manipulative parents such as Arthur’s. Social workers need to be supported by senior management, and by that I do not mean the directors of children’s services; I am talking about line managers and senior managers who themselves will have built up experience of troublesome families and should more often accompany inexperienced social workers, to provide the support that they need so that their teams can provide what is required by children in those difficult and often chaotic families If questions need to be asked about what happened at the local level, they also need to be asked in the national context. When the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in 2016, he committed his department to the target of all vulnerable children receiving the same high quality of care and support, with the best outcome for every child at the heart of every decision made. Three years later he returned to the committee and was obliged to admit that the target was delayed until 2022 because the DfE did not have a detailed plan in place to deliver the target. I do not like the blame game but, in the case of little Arthur, if it is going to begin then let it begin at the top, with a department that is inexplicably unable even to put in place a plan to protect the most vulnerable children in society. We are three weeks away from 2022 so does the Minister know whether her department yet has that plan ready? I do not expect her to be able to answer that question today, but we all deserve an answer and I hope she will write to me when she has it Let us not ignore the elephant in the room: the funding of local authorities and, by extension, their ability adequately to fund children’s services. Both have suffered substantial cuts through the austerity policies of Governments between 2010 and 2019—decisions, as I have said many times in your Lordships’ House, rooted in political ideology not necessity. The Minister mentioned the MacAlister review of children’s social care, which has already signalled that an increase in resources will be necessary to begin to bring children’s services up to an acceptable level. I look forward to that report when it appears next year, and I hope the Government will use it as an opportunity to reassess the importance that they attach to children’s social care and wider children’s services. We hear a lot about adult social care, and rightly so, but we definitely need to hear more about children’s social care. I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to do—I hope I am quoting the Statement correctly—whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, to keep children safe Over the last few days my mind has consistently returned to an image of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes that appeared in many newspapers and on many websites. It showed a happy little boy in his Birmingham City football top, with a big smile, full of potential and with his whole life ahead of him until two evil monsters shamefully and horrifically cut his young life short. Let us try to remember that smile, not just the awful events that took it and his life away.