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Safeguarding Children

My Lords, I start by thanking both noble Baronesses for their support in dealing with this extremely tragic case and the constructive all-party tone, which I heard in another place as well. It is very much in the interests of children and young people that we can discuss the issues frankly and openly and bring them under close scrutiny in this House and the other place. I very much welcome the tone and support from the noble Baronesses. I hope to be able to deal with a number of questions in the time that I have. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, rightly asked about social workers. She asked what the Government are doing to promote the uptake of social work positions, given the worrying numbers of vacancies. The Government are investing £73 million in social care workforce development, and our children's workforce review, which was announced in the Children's Plan and which we are currently working on, will address the important issues, such as recruitment, retention, the training of social workers and the support that they need, especially when they are new in the profession. Since 1997, there has been a 29 per cent increase in the number of social workers in children's services. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that this is a key area of concern for us all. We have a new, rigorous process of inspection through the joint area reviews, which now take place every three years, and the annual area performance assessment, to which the noble Baroness referred, which took place in Haringey in 2007. That was carried out when a serious case review for Baby P was just beginning, so it was not possible for it to take that into account, but when serious case reviews are undertaken, it is expected that learning from them is fed into the system immediately. Although there are sometimes delays in serious case reviews because of pending court action, we do not see it as acceptable to wait, because that knowledge is important and must be applied. In fact, it is the role of safeguarding advisers in government offices to work with local authorities and ensure that they put the early findings of serious case reviews into practice. Joint area reviews take account of serious case reviews as a matter of standard practice. The review taking place in Haringey will take account of this serious case review and will look at whether it is adequate. That will be addressed when they report to the Secretary of State on 1 December. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, made an important point about the remarks of her right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith who has talked about the importance of stability and, I think, about the importance of early intervention, which we all agree are key aspects of the Every Child Matters agenda and safeguarding children globally. I very much welcome her drawing attention to those comments. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about the review being undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, which is looking at the implementation of the Every Child Matters agenda. We absolutely want his report to tell us whether we doing well enough, whether we are going far enough and what changes need to be made now in the light of this tragic case. Publication of the comprehensive serious case review report is not a matter of rule. The Information Commissioner ruled on that recently and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has looked at that. In order to ensure that Opposition spokespeople in another place have the information that they need to think about and to scrutinise the way in which the joint area review is being undertaken, he has offered to allow them to see that report at the earliest possible stage. I hope noble Lords opposite will understand that we are doing everything we can to make sure that the information is available for people to make their judgments. The selection of staff for the joint inspectorate to speak to is absolutely unacceptable. My right honourable friend in the other place has made it clear that he would not expect this to be the case. We have been clear that we need action now. The tragic case of Baby P has led to convictions. The serious case review was reviewed by Ministers in the department. As soon as we received it, we sent in the joint inspectors. We will have their report and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will take action, along with the children’s Minister, urgently and promptly.