Children: Ofsted Report

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Walmsley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recommendations in the report The voice of the child: learning lessons from serious case reviews, published by Ofsted this month.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, Ofsted’s report highlights the crucial importance of placing children at the centre of front-line practice in child protection. The Government expect practitioners and local safeguarding children boards to take account of Ofsted’s findings and their implications. The final report of Professor Eileen Munro’s review of child protection, A Child-centred System, which was published on 10 May, also underlines the need to refocus the system on children. The Government will respond to her report by the summer.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I thank the noble Lord for his reply. In his response, will he consider agreeing with Professor Munro that the current system is far too focused on finding out what happened rather than why and that, in future, the focus should be more on the underlying issues of how the social workers behaved? Will he also agree with me that it should be a statutory duty, and not just guidance, for social workers to see the child alone, in order to ascertain its wishes and feelings?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, the Government have welcomed the review by Professor Eileen Munro, which includes the recommendation that my noble friend refers to about looking at the whole way in which serious case reviews work and about moving to a more systems-based approach. The Government are considering their response and have set up a working group of practitioners across different disciplines—not just social work, but the police, education, health and other areas. We will be responding to that and will bear in mind the points made by my noble friend.