Following the death of 17-month-old "Baby P" in Haringey, north London, Lord Laming was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to report urgently on the progress being made across the country to implement effective arrangements for safeguarding children. Much progress has been made since the green paper "Every child matters: change for children" (Cm. 5860, 2003, ISBN 9780101586023), the Children Act 2004 (ISBN 9780105431046) and "Working together to safeguard children" (2006, ISBN 9780112711872), but in March 2008 37,000 children were the subjects of care orders and 29,000 children were the subject of child protection plans. 55 children were killed by their parents or by someone known to them in 2007-08. Lord Laming proposes immediate action on six tasks: (1) the setting of explicit strategic priorities for the protection of children and young persons for each of the key frontline services; (2) establishing a powerful National Safeguarding Delivery Unit to bring coherence and drive to implement change in departments and agencies whose work is to protect children; (3) addressing the inadequacy of the training and supply of frontline social workers: without the necessary specialist knowledge and skills, social workers must not be allowed to practise in child protection; (4) health service workers must engage more, and more confidently, with child protection work; (5) resources devoted to police child protection teams and their training must be increased; (6) shortening of the time taken in court processes relating to the care of children. A total of 58 recommendations are made in the areas of: leadership and accountability; support for children; interagency working; children's workforce; improvement and challenge; organisation and finance; legal matters.
This is the official report of the independent inquiry into the events leading up to the death of Victoria Climbiâ, an eight year old child who died in hospital in February 2000 of injuries sustained after months of abuse. The report by Lord Laming finds that the death represents a gross failure of the system of public agencies involved to protect vulnerable children from deliberate harm, and this failure is primarily due to 'widespread organisational malaise'. The agencies involved were under-funded, inadequately staffed and often showed a lack of even basic good practice. However, the key issue is one of lack of leadership and accountability shown by senior level management of the agencies involved, rather than just a structural or staffing problem. The legislative framework for child protection is judged to be basically sound; the problem lies more with its implementation. The report contains 108 recommendations for fundamental changes to the way social care, healthcare and police child protection services are organised and managed at national and local level in England, in order to establish a clear line of accountability in the provision of services for vulnerable children and the support of families. These include: i) the creation of a Children and Families Board within the government, to be chaired by a minister of Cabinet rank; ii) the creation of a National Agency for Children and Families with responsibility to advise the Board on policies that affect the well-being of children and families, and the discretion to conduct serious case reviews; and iii) the creation of a Management Board and a Committee at local authority level, involving senior management representatives. Other recommendations relate to improvements in the exchange of information within and between agencies; the feasibility of a national children's database to record any contact a child has with any key protection service; service funding issues; staff training and supervision.
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