Contact: John Clifton Ext: 7283

1 Summary

The following decisions are sought.

1.1 That the Executive Member receive the reports of the Performance Management Unit and the Independent Person under confidential cover for reasons outlined in Section 5.

1.2 That the Executive Member agrees that the report is made available to the Area Child Protection Committee for their consideration.

1.3 That the Executive Member requests the Director to incorporate the inquiry's recommendations into policies, guidance and training.

2 Reason(s)

2.1 The Executive Member for Social Care required the Director of Social Services to investigate the Department's response to the case of Child A whose mother was sentenced to imprisonment for cruelty and neglect on 30th May 2003.

3 Other options considered and rejected

3.1 None

4 Conflicts of Interest declared by the decision-maker or a Member or Officer consulted

4.1 None

5 Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee

5.1 None

6 Reason(s) for the matter being dealt with if urgent

6.1 Not applicable

Approved by: Date of decision:

Councillor Felicity Hindson

Contact: John Clifton Ext: 7283

1 INTRODUCTION

The Executive Member for Social Care required the Director of Social Services to investigate the Department's response to the case of Child A whose mother was sentenced to imprisonment for cruelty and neglect on 30 May 2003.

2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 The Director required two senior members of the Department's Performance Management Unit, which is an arms-length unit and not directly involved in the operational side of the department, to undertake the investigation and report to the Executive Member as soon as possible. Two members of the Unit undertook the work and an Independent Person was appointed. She quality assured the process and gave a second opinion on the issues in a separate report.

2.2 All files were examined and read; log books were examined; 6 workers were interviewed with the Independent Person present; the Independent Person interviewed a member of the extended family who had also lodged a complaint.

3 CIRCUMSTANCES

3.1 The police charged the mother of Child A with neglect and cruelty to him and she was given a custodial sentence.

3.2 There were allegations that telephone calls had been made between July 2000 and February 2003 and that the Department not had responded adequately to these.

4 OBJECTIVES OF THE INVESTIGATION

The investigation set out a detailed chronology of events. It examined all responses to recorded referrals between July 2000 and February 2003 It examined the decision making and planning, the systems and practices. It was required to identify any improvements, including those for practice, procedures, further training and management.

5 CONFIDENTIALITY

5.1 The detailed report is submitted to the Executive Member under confidential cover. This is usual procedure and occurs for the following reasons:

5.1.1 The County Council has a duty of confidentiality to Child A.

5.1.2 The child's mother has been through a judicial process, and there must be no public comment, however inadvertent, that could relate to those procedures.

5.1.3 The Department needs to plan for Child A's future. Such planning may involve court proceedings. If that happened, the court would be critical of making public issues that would rightly be matters for the court.

5.1.4 In planning for Child A's future, the Department must work with the wider family to achieve the most stable outcome. Public comments may harm this crucial process.

6 KEY FINDINGS AND INQUIRY RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1 The Inquiry Team were satisfied that the Department had acted properly. The Independent Person said that she was confident that it had been "a fair and balanced" inquiry.

6.2 All logged and recorded referrals by named people were responded. The responses included visits by social workers; discussions with the health visitor and school; one to one work with Child A by a social worker; specific work by two other agencies. There was one exception, which was telephoning a neighbour (though the status of this person was not known at the time) as the wrong number was given or received and therefore the neighbour could not be contacted.

6.3 There was no evidence of harm or neglect that could be taken to a judicial process.

6.4 While responses were made and work with Child A was undertaken, some
of those who made referrals would not necessarily know this as their referrals were anonymous and the Department could not contact them to give them feedback as is normal practice.

6.5 The inquiry found that responses were appropriate, and cited some
excellent pieces of work by the staff. For example the inquiry team and the independent person commends the social worker for offering child-centred social work sessions to child A.

6.6 However, any detailed examination of a childcare case will invariably
point to possible improvements for implementation. This case is no
exception and there are some recommendations about: a) areas of practice
and guidance; b) matters of record keeping, filing and contract
monitoring; c) the area of responding to multiple referrals; d) partnership
issues with other agencies.

a) One of the most challenging areas for social work is identifying, evidencing and working with families, where there may be emotional abuse and/or substance misuse. That is true of this case. This is at the interface between children in need and child protection and is likely to feature prominently in the Government's Green Paper, `Children at Risk'. The inquiry recommends the Department can help by developing further its policies, guidance and training in this area.

b) The files on this family go back over 30 years. It is not surprising that they were not immediately available to the social workers. The department is currently strengthening its practice in the use of chronologies, which list life event and case details about children and families over a period of time. The inquiry flags up the need for tighter contract monitoring of community services, which will be addressed through the recent appointment of a contracts manager for child care.

c) Given that the county council has known strengths in the use of family group conferences, the inquiry believes that consideration of the use of family group conferences may have helped at one stage in this case and should automatically be considered in complex cases like this.

d) As might be expected the inquiry highlighted a number of areas where partnership working could be improved. The inquiry team was of the opinion that their report should be brought to the attention of the area child protection committee.


7 CONCLUSIONS

The inquiry concluded that the department had acted properly and the independent person stated that it had been a fair and balanced internal inquiry. Some of the staff are commended for their good practice. Where the inquiry has identified areas for improvements, it has made recommendations to take this forward.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1 That the Executive Member receive the reports of the Performance Management Unit and the Independent Person under confidential cover for reasons outlined in Section 5.

2 That the Executive Member agrees that the report is made available to the Area Child Protection Committee for their consideration.

3 That the Executive Member requests the Director to incorporate the inquiry's recommendations into policies, guidance and training.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act