Munro’s 2nd report on Child Protection…
2nd February 2011
The safety of children is being compromised because social workers have to spend too much time completing paperwork and focusing on targets driven by Ofsted evaluations. That is the verdict of Professor Eileen Munro’s 2nd report on the Child Protection system.
Yesterday saw the release of Professor Munro’s 2nd report for education secretary Michael Gove, bringing some strong conclusions, including:
- Children’s services should be subject to random, unannounced inspections
- Oftsed should lose powers to evaluate the failings of key workers in abuse cases
- England’s child protection system is focused more on bureaucracy than keeping children safe
Munro said: “Too often questions are asked if rules have been met but not whether this has helped children. Everyone in the profession can think of meetings and forms that don’t actually make a child safer. While some regulation is needed, we need to reduce it to a small, manageable size.”
One of the key recommendations of the report is to begin to explore ways to strip out statutory requirements. Published guidance for the police, health authorities, and social workers is now 55 times longer than when it was introduced in 1974.
The report suggests that elements of this may be unnecessary, and allowing social workers to be more autonomous and apply their judgement more could have great additional benefits, as well as saving time on paperwork.
Professor Munro’s final report is due in April 2011…
Related Links:
- Child Protection Jobs
- Children’s Services Jobs
