Local Government - November 2009

Child Care

Soaring care applications – The litigation fall out

With the number of care applications for the three month period prior to September 2009 increasing by nearly 50% there has been much recent debate about the sustainability of a system coming under ever increasing strain. More applications coupled with the recent steep rise in Court fees is resulting in spiraling costs.

To those people not involved in the system it is not always obvious that care proceedings are just one small (and expensive) part of the child protection system. Often it is the final step when other avenues have been explored and proved unsuccessful. However, with more resources being driven into this Court-based and often adversarial aspect of the protection process, there is a risk that it is at the expense of those services designed to help families achieve a stable environment where children can remain safely in the family home. Experienced advice and support, informed monitoring and supervision and a broad range of therapeutic services are not only integral to an effective child protection system but are also more in demand than formal proceedings in the majority of cases. Neglect rather than the risk of sexual or physical abuse remains the primary reason for a child’s name to appear on the Child Protection Register.

For every tragedy like the Baby Peter case there are numerous examples of cases that never reach the Court room, cases where the work and dedication of social services has allowed children to live safely with their parents. Ironically it is this type of work that is arguably most threatened by the apparent shift in focus of current social work practice. As the Chief Executive of CAFCASS, Anthony Douglas CBE, recently commented, “agencies must regain confidence in their own professional judgments and assessments. The UK Child Protection system remains one of the safest in the world therefore that confidence is justified”.

As a law firm that both defends civil actions brought against social services departments and handles child protection work on behalf of local authorities, the decision making dilemmas of social work is very apparent to us. After all, this is an arena where the potential for a claim can be spotted on every corner – negligence claims for failure to remove children, Human Rights claims for removing without justification. However, it may be argued that this in itself demonstrates that a risk averse approach to social work is potentially self-defeating.

More money spent on care proceedings means less money on early intervention. More children in children’s homes or foster placements mean less money and resources available for monitoring those placements. In a world of finite resources there will always be a see-saw effect that opens up another line of attack. Of course the priority must always be the safety and welfare of those children who need protection and if removing a child from the family home is the best way of protecting them then this is what must happen. But the system cannot be perfect and it will ultimately be counter productive if child protection decisions are made out of fear of making a mistake rather than based on the professional judgment of social workers with the requisite experience and expertise to make them.

For further information about Weightmans or to discuss any of the issues in this update please contact Peter Wake, Associate at Weightmans on 0151 242 6866 or at peter.wake@weightmans.com