Children, Schools and Families Bill

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We know that part of the problem is the huge case load placed on social workers, particularly those in child protection, and the worryingly high vacancy rates, which on average exceed 15 per cent. across various authorities, but in others, particularly those in London, are as high as 40 per cent. Newly qualified social workers, with hardly any on-the-job training in often complex and sensitive child protection work, are thrown in at the deep end with really challenging cases. However, social work is not a science or a clear case of black and white; it involves experience, intuition and sensitivity—qualities that one cannot learn just from a book, but must learn on the job, preferably alongside a mentor who has years of experience to pass on. The morale of social workers has been so undermined, partly because of those high-profile tragic cases, that there is a serious problem with people going into social work. We have expressed serious reservations about the standard of training that many social workers receive; about the entry qualifications, which need to be higher, for a social work degree; about the low pass mark required to obtain that degree; and about the lack of on-the-job training for social work graduates. That is why back in 2007, in the report that the Conservative party commissioned on the role of children's social workers, we made specific recommendations about newly qualified social workers and raising the standard of training. I am pleased to say that at long last Moira Gibb's social worker task force has taken on board many of those recommendations, but they should have been taken on a long time before we reached this desperate impasse. There is a further question. Why would social workers not want to co-operate with a serious case review that was going to be published in full? Why would they not want to co-operate with an investigation, when their profession may or may not be at fault in the tragic death of a vulnerable child? However anonymous and unpublicised serious case reviews are at the moment, that did not stop the names of key players in the baby Peter case and other tragic cases being splashed all over the front pages of certain newspapers. It did not stop the identity of culprits and, indeed, of children and siblings being exposed and made available in a matter of seconds on the internet. Clearly, it should be possible to publish a full serious case review without compromising the identity of the key players involved. That is why our amendments are heavily subjected to key caveats: first, that serious case reviews should be published in full only where such publication did not compromise the welfare of surviving children or siblings, and it would have to be shown that that was the case; secondly, that those serious case reviews would be duly anonymised; and thirdly, that they would be appropriately redacted where that was necessary, say, to protect the identity and sensitivities of surviving children and families. We have researched widely how we think that the new system should be structured. After deliberations with social workers, directors of children's services, departments of social work, academics and others, we think that a practical and suitable way ahead is to base the model of publication of serious case reviews on the practice that has existed for many years in mental health homicide reviews. Mental health homicide reviews are published in full, with various names of individuals anonymised—they may refer to "Dr. A" or "Nurse B"—and they are made widely available. It is generally agreed that they are good, thorough learning tools from which a much wider constituency of professionals can learn from the mistakes that have been made and determine what changes to the system, locally or nationally, need to be made to try to avoid their happening in future. The mental health homicide review into the tragic killing of Jonathan Zito ran to 177 pages. It was a tragic, but thorough and worthwhile report. One could contrast that with the 16-page executive summary on the death of baby Peter, which was found not to be worth the paper it was written on and had to be rewritten after the whole case came to light back in November. Why cannot we use a model, if not based on, then certainly much closer to, that which already exists and has worked perfectly well for many years for mental health homicides? The practice in those cases is that following a murder involving a patient who has recently been treated by the local mental health service, there must be an immediate investigation to identify what urgent action needs to be taken within 72 hours—a succinct internal investigation that is urgently done and urgently acted on. That is followed up by a much longer—in the Zito case, 177 pages—in-depth review, which is then published, subject to the various caveats about protecting anonymity, and so on. In new clause 1, we suggest that following the death of a child in connection with local children's services, there should be an initial review within 72 hours, and then a full-blown serious case review commissioned by an author approved by a body established by the Secretary of State under an order made by statutory instrument. It would then be incumbent on the local safeguarding children board to publish the serious case review in full, excluding any information that might lead to the identification of living parties. Subsection (2) refers to the authorship of such serious case reviews, because another issue comes up when we look at how they are commissioned. At the moment, it is up to the local safeguarding children board to find an author for a serious case review and commission him or her to produce the report, which is then written and submitted to the board. We need to ensure that the professionalism, probity and independence of serious case reviews are protected if they are to be meaningful, credible and effective documents. The trouble is that after the baby Peter case, Ofsted produced a report revealing that, at that stage, no fewer than 41 per cent. of the serious case reviews that were being produced on behalf of local safeguarding children boards were unsatisfactory. The quality of the reviews was seriously called into question. I have spoken to a number of authors of serious case reviews—professionals and academics who are regularly called on to write them. There is at least anecdotal evidence that in some cases vested interests can operate in the preparation of reviews. The LSCB appoints a familiar author to produce a serious case review, in the hope that they will not condemn too heavily the local authority in the care of which a child has been killed. The author of the review wants repeat business from the local authority, and so may go light on their criticism of it. I am not saying that that practice is widespread—I certainly hope not—but there is clear potential for a conflict of interest. Given the depths to which confidence in the whole system has sunk, we need to do more to safeguard the credibility and probity of serious case reviews. That is why we suggest in our new clauses and amendments that when a serious case review is required, the LSCB should request an author from a centrally held register of professional SCR authors. The Secretary of State should appoint a body to hold that register of authors—a similar but rather beefed-up version of a system of expert witnesses who can be called upon to appear in court. That body would be responsible for ensuring that the authors on its register came up to scratch, that they had the necessary qualifications, and that they were monitored on an ongoing basis to ensure that the quality of their work was up to scratch. I do not really mind what that body is. It might be a children's charity such as Barnardo's, or it might be the Local Government Association, for example. Indeed, the various local authorities across London have already been using a pool system of serious case review authors to call upon. If we had such a system, the reports that were produced would be much more likely to be above reproach. We desperately need such a change to restore confidence in the whole system. If the reports were then put in the public domain, so that all interested parties could see the full chronology of events, the full cast of characters involved, duly anonymised, and where the lines of weakness lay and action was specifically required, we could be confident that they were objective, thorough and professional. I have some sympathy with proposals that an action plan should be included with a serious case review, requiring a subsequent audit of measures taken that were recommended in the review. That is proposed in new clause 21, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, with which I have a good deal of sympathy. It is no good just producing a serious case review, published or not, if it does not result in action. There is no formal checking mechanism at the moment, and there will not be one even if the changes that were discussed in the Government's December document about having some sort of subsequent audit are put in place.