Provided a critical analysis of the politics of child protection in England to Staff, post doctoral and PhD students at the Oxford Children's Rights Network at Oxford University, 9 November 201

Parton, Nigel

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University of Huddersfield RepositoryParton, NigelThe politics of child protection in EnglandOriginal CitationParton, Nigel (2016) The politics of child protection in England. In: Oxford Children's Rights Network. (Unpublished) This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/31509/The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of theUniversity, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the itemson this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners.Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generallycan be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in anyformat or medium for personal research or study, educational or not­for­profitpurposes without prior permission or charge, provided:• The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy;• A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and• The content is not changed in any way.For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, pleasecontact the Repository Team at: E.mailbox@hud.ac.uk.http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/The Politics of Child Protection in EnglandNigel PartonUniversity of HuddersfieldEnglandn.parton@hud.ac.uk2Between 1973 and 1997 there were over 70 child abuse public inquiries.• The first was The Report of the Inquiry into the Care and Supervision provided in relation to Maria Colwell (Sec. of State for Social Services, 1974)• Report of the Public Inquiry into Child Abuse in Cleveland (Sec. of State for Social Services, 1988)The Children Act 1989, which came into operation on 1 October 1991Over the last 40 years debates about child abuse and child protection:• Have become increasingly emotionally charged and politicised• The focus has been on the failures of child protection systems and the incompetencies of professionals and agencies rather than seriously addressing the problem of child abuse• Child abuse scandals have become something of a proxy for various debates about a range of political issues concerned with the work of a variety of health, welfare and criminal justice professionals and managers and arguments about the nature and direction of social policy provision more generally3Child abuse scandals have been explicitly used as vehicles for bringing about major policy changes, for example:• The Every Child Matters changes in 2004 were said to be the government response to the public inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie• The cases of Baby P and Shannon Matthews in 2008 were explicitly used by the Conservative Party as clear examples of ‘the broken society’ and the need for major welfare reform well beyond child protection4From the mid 1990s – 2008 child welfare policy in England attempted to move away from a narrow forensic focus on child protection to one which prioritised a broader concern with partnership, prevention and family support.The object of concern was increasingly upon ‘safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child’.5Most evident with the launch by the New Labour government of Tony Blair in early 2004 of the: Every Child Matters: Change for Children (ECM) programme – the government response to the public inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie6The ambition was to improve the outcomes for all children and to narrow the gap in outcomes between those who did well and those who did not; the outcomes were defined in terms of:• Being healthy• Staying safe• Enjoying and achieving• Making a positive contribution• Achieving economic wellbeingTogether the 5 outcomes were seen as key to improving ‘well-being in childhood and later life’.7Since late 2008 there have been some major changes in child protection policy and practice.Two factors are key:1. The impact of a series of high profile child abuse scandals beginning with the case of ‘Baby P’ in November 2008 (and The Sun campaign to get Sharon Shoesmith, the Director of Children’s Services in Haringey, sacked) and quickly followed by the cases of Shannon Mathews, Khyra Ishaq and the ‘J’ children in the Edlington case near Doncaster. 82.  Significant changes in policy introduced by the Conservative-led Coalition Government after its election in May 2010In the context of the immediate post financial and economic crisis of 2008/9 the Coalition Government made it clear that:• Its overriding priority was the reduction of public finance debt• Reducing the role of the state• Increasing the role of the private and charitable sectors in the provision of a whole range of health and welfare benefits and services – the Open Public Services White Paper in 20119What we have seen is a whole series of changes which have had a much greater impact upon women, children and families – particularly amongst the poorest – than other sections of the population:• The criteria for the receipt of benefits has become more restrictive, punitive and selective• Significant cuts in preventative services such as Sure Start Children’s Centres • A strengthening of the importance of statutory child protection interventions1011Growth in Demand for Statutory Children’s Social Care2006/7   2007/8    2009/10    2011/12     2012/13   2013/14    2014/15      2015/16Referrals to Children’s Social Care   545,000   538,500    603,700     605,100      593,500    657,800     635,600     621,470Registered Child Protection Plans      33,300     34,000      44,300        52,100        52,700      59,800       62,200    63,310Sec 47 Enquiries started during year 73,800     76,800       89,30       124,600       127,100   142,500     160,200     172,290Children Looked After                          59,970      59,360      64,470        67,070        68,060     68,800       69,540       70,440Applications to Court for Care              6,786        6,241        8,832        10,255         11,110     10,620      11,159 12,781• In a speech in November 2012, by Michael Gove (the Secretary of State for Education) the Government explicitly stated that more children needed to be taken into care• Government also launched a major initiative to ‘speed up adoptions and give children loving homes’; the plan is to ensure that adoption becomes a mainstream option for children in care. 12During the year ending 31 March 2014 there 5,050 children from the care system adopted; an increase of 26% from 2013(and an increase of 58% from 2010). Year ending 31 March 2015 there were 5,330 children from the care system adopted (an increase of just 5% from 2014).13Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government, 2013) was reduced in length from 399 to 95 pages. Perhaps more significantly there was no longer any reference to Every Child Matters and the 5 outcomes.14The 2013 Guidance adopted a ‘child-centred and coordinated approach to safeguarding’ (para. 8) where:‘Social workers, their managers and other professionals should always consider the plan from the child’s perspective. A desire to think the best of adults and to hope they can overcome their difficulties should not trump the need to rescue children from chaotic, neglectful and abusive homes’ (p. 22, emphasis added).15Jay, A. (August 2014) Independent Inquiry into Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham 1997-2013. Rotherham: Rotherham MBC. One of the key findings was that approximately 1,400 children had been sexually exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 and that just over a third of the children had been previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. By implication the local authority had missed clear opportunities to protect these children.16In their letter to the leaders of all local authorities in England on 24 September 2014 the Minister of Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, and the Minister of Education,  Nicky Morgan, asked them to read the Jay report:‘and consider whether you have adequate measures in place to ensure you cannot be accused of similar failings’, and that:‘We cannot undo the permanent harm that these children have suffered. But we can and should take steps to ensure that this never happens again and make sure that local authorities deliver on their essential duty to protect vulnerable children’ (Pickles and Morgan, 2014, emphasis added)17The changes since 2008 can be summarised as follows:• Following the Open Public Services White Paper, the growth of private sector provision• A reduction in the range of universal and secondary prevention benefits and services• Making it clear  that is the essential duty of local authorities to protect vulnerable children• Intervention in both local authorities and families has become more coercive 18I concluded The Politics of Child Protection by providing a beginning framework for taking policy practice forward in a new direction.It begins by arguing that the nature and size of the social problem of child maltreatment is much greater than we are prepared to admit. Studies indicate that the prevalence is about ten times greater than the number of cases that are ever referred to official agencies.If this was seriously addressed child protection health, welfare and criminal justice agencies would be completely submerged.19Lorraine Radford and her colleagues concluded from their study of the prevalence of child maltreatment in 2009:There is still a substantial minority of children and young people today who are severely maltreated and are experiencing abuse at home, in school and in the community, from adults and from peers. Almost 1 in 5 11-17s (18.6%), 1 in 4 18-24s (25.3%) and 1 in 17 (5.9%) under 11s had experienced severe maltreatment during childhood. (Radford. L.  et al, 2011; Child Abuse and Neglect in the UK Today)20A broad public health approach to child maltreatment can provide the basis for a new approach but that this needs to:• Place a children’s rights perspective at its centre• Recognise there are a wide range of significant social harms to children related to structural factors related to gender, poverty and inequality and social isolation2122End of Year Numbers of children on CP Registers/CP Plans in England by category of abuseCategory of abuse                1978                1991                2001                2011                 2015       2016Physical Abuse                     7,944(67%)   10,600(23%)    7,300(24%)      4,800(11%)      4,350(8.8%)       4,200(8.3%)Neglect                                    289(2%)      6,800(15%)     12,900(43%)   18,600(44%)    22,230(44%)       23,150(46.0%)Sexual Abuse                           89(1%)        6,000(13%)       4,500(15%)      2,400(5%)        2,340(4.7%)       2,370(4.7%)Emotional Abuse                      0(0%)         2,600(6%)        4,800(16%)   11,400(27%)    16,600(33.5%)     17,770(35.3%)Grave Concern/Mixed      3,533(30%)      2,312(19%)          500(2%)      5,500(13%)       4,110(8.3%)         2,810(5.6%)Total 11,844             45,300                30,000           42,700             49,690                 50,31023Children who started to be looked after during years ending 31 March categorised as abuse or neglectAll Children                       Numbers as Abuse/Neglect                        % of Total1996 32,300                                            6,500                                     20%2000 27,600                                            8,600                                    31%2009 25,680                                          12,680                                     49%     2013 28,830                                          16,190                                     56%     2015 31,340                                           17,480                                   56%        2016 32,050                                           17,440                                   54%                                                                     24Reasons why children looked after at 31 March 2016 (Total 70,440)Abuse and Neglect                                60%Family dysfunction                                16%Family in acute stress                              9%Absent parenting                                     7%Parent’s illness or disability                    3%Child’s disability                                        3%  Socially unacceptable behaviour           2%Low income                                   under 1%25What will the impact be of:The Children and Social Work Bill?And in the longer termThe Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse 26But also how might things change in the context of, what Poly Toynbee has recently called, the era of ‘post-fact, post-truth, emoto-politics’? (The Guardian 29/11/16, p30)Where are we likely to see continuities?Where might there be changes and disruptions?Where are the possibilities for developing positive initiatives?27• N. Parton (2014a) The Politics of Child Protection: Contemporary Developments and Future Directions. Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan• N. Parton (2014b) ‘The changing politics and practice of child protection and safeguarding in England’, in S. Wagg and J. Pilcher (eds.) Thatcher’s Grandchildren? Politics and Childhood in the Twenty-First Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan• N. Parton (2014c) ‘Social Work, Child Protection and Politics: Some Critical and Constructive Reflections’, British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 2042-2056• N. Parton (2016) ‘The Contemporary Politics of Child Protection: Part Two (the BASPCAN Founder’s Lecture 2015)’, Child Abuse Review, 25(1), 9-16

The politics of child protection in England

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