Daniel Pelka

Debate between Edward Timpson and Geoffrey Robinson

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) on securing this important, timely and serious debate. The tragic case of Daniel Pelka is a stark reminder to us that we can and must do more to ensure the safety and well-being of our children. It was helpful to meet the hon. Gentleman recently to discuss the findings of the serious case review in Coventry and its implications. I welcome the opportunity to set out the steps that are being taken to ensure that we fully understand what went wrong and why, and ensure that any individual and collective failures are identified and addressed.

National accountability for child protection rests squarely with the Department for Education, working closely with other Departments. However, all of us have a part to play in keeping our children safe. In March 2013, we published revised statutory guidance—“Working Together to Safeguard Children”. I was pleased the hon. Gentleman mentioned the scything of the original document from 700 pages to just over 70, which was quite a feat in anybody’s language. The guidance clearly states that anyone concerned about a child’s welfare should bring it to the attention of the relevant authorities.

It is also clear that the focus of our attention must be on the needs of individual children rather than on the interests of adults. The serious case review by the Coventry safeguarding children board showed that, although many professionals were concerned about Daniel, they did not speak to him or focus efficiently on either his experiences or his needs. Our statutory guidance is clear that, if someone is concerned about the safety of a child, they should refer them to the local authority children’s social care and ensure that they take into account the wishes and feelings of the child. That is abundantly clear and should happen in every case but, too often, Daniel was not at the heart of the assessment process. His needs were completely overshadowed by the perceived needs of his mother and her welfare.

I was pleased that the SCR was published swiftly and without redaction—my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has argued for that practice for a long time. It is important that reports are published in full so that the lessons are transparent and can be learned. The report highlights a number of basic practice failures, across a range of agencies, to share information, keep accurate records, use those records appropriately, and carry out robust assessments of Daniel’s needs adequately. As the hon. Gentleman has said, there were numerous opportunities to intervene and examples of concerned professionals who wanted to do the right thing, but no decisive intervention was made.

The purpose of any serious case review is not only to provide a retrospective description of what happened in the case; nor is it simply to apportion blame to individuals. An SCR should provide a sound analysis of why the incident happened and identify the issues on which agencies need to act individually and collectively to improve services for children. The SCR in Daniel’s case begins that process, but I believe that Coventry needs to deepen the analysis to address why failings occurred.

[Mr Robinson]

I intervene on the Minister to pay him a compliment. There were five or six occasions when intervention should have happened, and he has asked in his letter why it did not. There is not a word on that in the SCR, so I hope he gets some satisfactory answers.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Without that type of analysis, we cannot be confident that the lessons have been learned. We need to be able to distinguish between errors of practice and errors of judgment, and identify where there are systemic weaknesses. That is why I have asked for that further work.

As he knows, on 16 September, I wrote to Amy Weir, the independent chair of the Coventry safeguarding children board—I should emphasise her independence and the fact that the writer of the serious case review is appointed independently from the local authority—to set out my concerns about the serious case review. I was clear that, unless we get to the bottom of why things happened, we will be unable to put the right solutions in place. I have asked her to provide a time scale for carrying out a deeper analysis of that appalling case; why basic information was not recorded properly both between and within agencies; why information needed to protect Daniel was not shared between the relevant agencies; why four separate assessments by children’s social care fail to identify the risk to Daniel; and what oversight there was of those decisions. I have also requested details of the actions that have already been taken to respond to the report’s findings, including the support and training put in place for professionals involved in the case and more widely

I met Ms Weir yesterday and she was able to provide me with an update on the work that is taking place in response to the report’s recommendations. I was very clear with her, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members that I will continue to pay close attention to the evidence emerging from Coventry. The lessons identified by the deeper analysis will be made publicly available, which should give to the people of Coventry the confidence that the right actions have been taken in response to Daniel’s death and ensure that everyone with a role in safeguarding children has the opportunity to reflect on their own practice.

We will also consider whether the lessons from the analysis have national implications, something touched on by the hon. Gentleman. The Government remain focused on driving through our programme of reform of the child protection system, building on recommendations from a wide range of reports and inquiries, including the Munro review, the Education Committee report and Lord Carlile’s report into the Edlington case. I remind the hon. Gentleman, in response to the point he made towards the end of his contribution, that there has been a recent inquiry by the Select Committee into child protection, which is being reopened to consider what progress has been made, and he might want to make his views known to it. The lessons from Daniel Pelka’s tragic death, and those of Keanu Williams and Hamzah Khan, will add to that body of evidence. The Government are requiring the publication of serious case reviews for the very reason that it enables national lessons to be learned. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is helping to collate the analysis at a single point, so that social workers and other front-line practitioners can understand how they can benefit from it.

We want a child protection system where all children at risk of abuse or neglect are identified early, have timely and proportionate assessments of their individual needs, and receive the right services at the right time. That is why we are fundamentally reforming the system to put the needs of individual children at its heart. We want a system that fits the needs of children and not the other way around. We have strengthened the framework underpinning child protection by publishing the revised “Working Together to Safeguard Children” statutory guidance. It is clear that the needs of individual children, whatever their age, are paramount. That puts the needs of children back at the heart of assessment processes by removing the requirement to have separate initial and core assessments.

Good practice is out there. We have had a discussion about the merits of multi-agency safeguarding hubs. I have had the opportunity to visit some myself, and they are doing fantastic work in their co-location with different agencies. They are sitting in the same room talking to each other, rather than communicating via computer or at a greater distance. That helps to bring about joint responsibility. It is not a panacea, but it is one way of working more closely together to provide a better service.

We want social workers who are able to confidently identify, assess, decide and act on individual cases where children are at risk of abuse or neglect. We want social workers who have a commitment to self-improvement and are not afraid to challenge one another. We want managers who provide appropriate and timely support and supervision to their staff. That is why we are seeking a step change in the quality of the contribution that those entering the profession can make. The Frontline programme is providing an innovative route into the profession for top graduates, and the Step Up to Social Work programme is doing the same thing for high-calibre career changers. We are introducing reforms to support better local and national leadership, which in turn should help to create a more confident profession. The newly appointed first ever chief social worker for children and families, Isabelle Trowler, will provide leadership for the profession and help to drive improvement in front-line practice.

We want to see stronger leadership, accountability and learning in the system, and less variability in local authority safeguarding performance. From next month, Ofsted will be using a reformed inspection framework that will bring child protection services for looked-after children and care leavers, and local authority fostering and adoption services, into a single inspection. We are setting up an innovative arrangement in Doncaster to run social care services independently from the council. It is this kind of innovative approach that is needed to bring about a fundamental shift in the quality of our child protection services.

I am enormously grateful for the support and concern that the hon. Gentleman has given to this issue today. He knows as well as I the challenge we still face to prevent such tragedies. I take the deaths of Daniel Pelka, Keanu Williams and Hamzah Khan as stark reminders of the work we still have to do. As I said at the time of the publication of the serious case review, this is as important as anything the Government do.