Munro criticises 'tickbox' child protection regime, but recommends retention of inspections

The interim report of the Munro Review has called for a fundamental “recalibration” of the child protection system and criticised its overly-bureaucratic nature for preventing social workers from concentrating on their main functions.

“Too often in recent history, the child protection system has, in the pursuit of imposed managerial targets and regulations, forgotten that its raison d’être is the welfare and protection of the child,” Professor Munro said. “My final report in April will not seek a series of superficial quick fixes – in a system as complex as the child protection system, there are no quick fixes to be had.

"There are, however, barriers to good practice which can be removed and incentives to better practice which can be put in place. I hope that the result will be a recalibration of the whole system around the immediate needs of the individual children and families that it seeks to serve.”

Professor Munro, an academic based at the London School of Economics who was asked by the government to undertake a review of the child protection system, said that the inspection of children's services departments would continue, albeit with a changed focus.

In particular, she recommended that pre-arranged inspections of children's services departments by OFSTED should end, with all inspections being conducted unannounced in future. Professor Munro recommended changes to the Serious Case Review (SCR) system, to make it more like that used in the healthcare sector, and said that OFSTED's role in evaluating SCRs should end.

“The consensus view in feedback has been that announced inspection carries a considerable amount of bureaucratic burden with it,” the report said. “We will working with OFSTED to develop an inspection process that drives child-centred practice, focuses on the effectiveness of the help provided and assesses the quality of learning across local organisations, rather than compliance with process.”

The report also called on Local Safeguarding Children Boards to examine how the agencies involved could better work together to reduce delays in care proceedings.

“The evidence to this review is that the process for the child and the family is fraught with delay and that children and families experience this as an activity done to them rather than one in which they are active participants,” the report said. “For the children involved in these cases the length of their journey through care proceedings is unacceptably long.”

Professor Munro identified the following prerequisites for reducing delay in care proceedings:

• social workers who are well prepared, knowledgeable about a child and family,  articulate and confident in their evidence and confident in their professional judgements;
• processes in place so that children and young people have a voice throughout pre‐ proceedings and through care proceedings;
• constructive challenge and authorisation arrangements within the local authority so  that only the ‘right’ cases are brought into care proceedings;
• continuity of social workers allocated to cases in proceedings;
• effective pre court work including Family Group Conferencing and full exploration of  all potential family carers;
• effective parallel planning and panel processes that have timeliness for the child and  the child’s journey central to their purpose and function;
• pro‐active and highly efficient local authority legal service departments composed of  experienced child care lawyers, so that good quality advice is available to social workers;
• effective engagement in the Family Justice System so that learning between the courts  and the local authority takes place and informs practice on an on‐going basis; and
• appropriate scrutiny and oversight of care planning and final care plans by the local  authority, including agreed levels of support and resources available to deliver them.

Noting that the core guidance for multi-agency working, Working together to safeguard children, was now 55 times the size it was in 1974, the interim report suggested that the statutory guidance it contained should be separated from the professional advice to provide two separate manuals to make it clearer which elements were statutory guidance and which were professional advice.

Other recommendations included:

• Strengthening the role of Local Safeguarding Children Boards.
• The continuation of Children's Services Directors as the key point of professional responsibility.
• The creation of a minimum data set for child protection, made up of nationally collected data and standardised local data.
• The continuing development of a capabilities framework for social workers
• A panel composed of the relevant professions involved in child protection to advise the government and other professional groups of how child protection systems are interacting and whether problems are emerging.

Responding to the report, an OFSTED spokesman said:  “OFSTED welcomes the report and the proposals both for the children’s social work field and for the inspection of these services. We endorse the importance placed on prevention and early intervention as well as services focused on those children identified as being at risk.

“It is also encouraging to see that inspection is valued by the Review and the sector as a significant factor in driving improvement and the finding that inspection should continue to play this distinct role. We welcome the opportunity to further improve the inspection process and look forward to the extension and development of unannounced inspections that cover all children’s services.

“While we believe that OFSTED’s work in the evaluation of Serious Case Reviews has had a positive impact in improving their quality, we agree that these should now end and have been suggesting this ourselves for some time. OFSTED supports the Review’s proposals for how SCRs are likely to be approached in the future to maximise learning and improve practice.”

Baroness Shireen Ritchie, Chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board, said:  "This latest report on child protection once again highlights the need to reduce the bureaucracy pressing down on social workers. LGA research has shown that only 13 per cent of a social worker’s time is spent with a family when making a first assessment – 87 per cent is spent on paperwork and recording.

"While some paperwork is essential, children who are at risk and families which are struggling to cope will benefit much more from additional time spent with experienced social workers than they will from an increase in the number of forms filled in. Red tape and bureaucracy should be rolled back where it can, to ease the pressure on social workers and increase the quality of care offered to children.

"Eileen Munro’s report makes very welcome recommendations but cuts to council budgets make the need for getting on with these reforms even more urgent. Initiatives to increase the number of social workers and raise the status of the profession are on track but action is needed now to make sure councils can keep the social workers they have and that they can spend as much time as possible working with the children who need them.

“Protecting vulnerable children from harm is one of the most important things that councils do. But social workers on the frontline of child protection are feeling increasing pressure as more and more children need their help. An estimated 61,000 children will come into the care system in England in the next two years, pushing the systems that look after vulnerable children to breaking point and making a reduction in back office bureaucracy more urgent than ever.

“The aim must be to find the right way forward, to make services that protect children the best they’ve ever been while properly supporting the people who do this vital work.”

Professor Munro's final report is due in April. A copy of the interim report can be found at following link: MunroInterimReport