Michael Gove: children at risk of abuse should be put in care more quickly

[Alison J Stevens]

 

Education secretary calls for 'assertive' approach from social workers after report into brutal Edlington attack.

• Patrick Butler, social policy editor
• The Guardian, Friday 16 November 2012 19.13 GMT

Michael Gove said children were being allowed to stay with neglectful or abusive parents for too long. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

The education secretary, Michael Gove, has said children at risk of neglect or abuse should be taken into care more quickly, to rescue them from "a life of soiled nappies and scummy baths, chaos and hunger, hopelessness and despair".

Sending a clear signal to social workers that he wanted to see a more "assertive" approach to child protection, Gove said too many children were living in "physical and moral squalor" and being allowed to stay with neglectful or abusive parents for too long.

His comments followed the publication on Friday of an inquiry report that examined the brutal attack on an 11-year-old and a nine-year-old by two brothers, aged 10 and 11, in Edlington, South Yorkshire, in 2009. The brothers, who had had a history of violent, disruptive and antisocial behaviour, had been placed in foster care by Doncaster council.

In a speech in London, Gove said more backing should be given to social workers "who rescue children from homes where they are left in their own urine and faeces for days, left to forage for scraps of food and drink, and denied warm, clean bedding and clothing".

He added: "I firmly believe more children should be taken into care more quickly and that too many children are allowed to stay too long with parents whose behaviour is unacceptable. I want social workers to be more assertive with dysfunctional parents, courts to be less indulgent of poor parents, and the care system to expand to deal with the consequences."

But Gove's comments received a cool reception from social work professionals and children's charities, who fear they will accelerate the growth in numbers of children being taken into care at a time when funding is being cut, and switch resources from preventative services designed to stop families reaching crisis point.

Bridget Robb, acting chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, said Gove's speech failed to recognise sustained investment in better services was needed to better protect children, whether this was done through intensive "early intervention" work with parents or by taking more children into care. "The latter option is not cheap, and to pretend that social workers can take on ever greater caseloads with ever diminishing resources is a miscalculation that Mr Gove surely must recognise," Robb said.

Debbie Jones, the president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, said: "Rising numbers of children requiring protection and entering the care system puts further pressure on already tight budgets and is happening at the same time as substantial structural change in partner agencies."

A serious case review into the Edlington case was published in March. But Gove said it did not "meet his expectations" and ordered a separate report into the incident by Lord Carlile of Berriew. Carlile's report, published on Friday, identified 100 incidents involving the brothers between May 2005 and April 2009 on which he said the authorities failed to take sufficient action.

The brothers had grown up in an extremely violent home in a different part of Doncaster, where they watched ultra-violent movies and pornography and were exposed to drink and drugs.

Carlile wrote: "It is simply shocking to reflect that, over 100 events after the first, the two boys were out on the streets uncontrolled to the extent that they very nearly ended the life of a boy of their own age."

He added: "With those events in mind, including their sheer volume, it hardly requires a report like this to note with regret that the Doncaster social and other relevant services failed to co-ordinate any realistic attempt to address the problems caused by, and of course faced by, [the brothers]."

The attackers were sentenced in 2010 to a minimum of five years and will be released only if the parole board believes they are no longer a danger to the public.

The Carlile report coincided with a highly critical inspection report by Ofsted which found that all areas of Doncaster's child protection services were inadequate. At the time of the inspection, 508 children were the subject of a child protection plan – the highest ever recorded in the borough – but Doncaster could not be confident that all children known to the children and young people's services were safe.

It concluded: "In too many cases, professional practice was poor, management oversight ineffective and risk to children not identified or progressed."

Commenting on the Doncaster case, Gove said: "Anyone reading both reports will appreciate that the problems Doncaster faces are not amenable to a quick fix. Nor is there any single individual – or group – who we can say are alone responsible for the problems Doncaster faces. But the situation is unacceptable, and needs radical change and improvement."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/16/michael-gove-children...