Munro Report

Debate between Toby Perkins and Meg Munn

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

I shall deal with that point in some detail later. However, I can say that we support the trials that are taking place. If the professionals feel that some measures can safely be dispensed with, that is acceptable as long as safeguards are established, as they have been in Hackney, to prevent slippage of cases. We do not want social workers to lose sight of the importance of some cases along with the paperwork.

The report is evidence based, and Professor Munro identifies both excitement and anxiety in the profession about the steps to be taken. Throughout its time in government Labour took advice from experts seriously, as the present Government are doing.

[Meg Munn]

In the report, Professor Munro observes that

“most bureaucracy which limits practitioners’ capacity and ability to practise effectively, is generated and maintained at a local level.”

We should consider that carefully. Headlines that blame people for bureaucracy are not helpful. We need to identify where the bureaucracy is coming from, and tackle it properly.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend speaks on the basis of tremendous experience as a result of the work that she did before entering the House—and, of course, since doing so—and she is absolutely right. Trade unions, social workers and others in the profession want us to proceed as carefully as possible. I reiterate that there is nothing that we want more than social workers who are enabled to spend the maximum amount of time with the children and families with whom they are working.

We support the pilot scheme in four authorities, and we urge the Minister to ensure that the additional quality assurance measures referred to in the report are followed so that the full implications of the changes are understood before any measures are taken to make the scheme more widespread. The proposed changes are important and offer advances, but they must not be rushed. The Ofsted report detailing children’s experiences before entering care demonstrates the importance of social workers spending time in face-to-face, one-to-one meetings with the children and families in their care, but the research also shows how varied the quality of practice is, and with that in mind, and in advance of the improved education and training—and also in the context of the difficult financial settlement facing local authorities—it must be stressed that it is vital that every care is taken.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children echoes this view. It states:

“The Government should not move too quickly to rapid deregulation. It needs to invest heavily in building the skills, confidence and experience of all professionals working with children. Controls which safeguard against poor practice must stay in place while professionalism is built. Otherwise, children’s lives could be put at risk.”

We entirely support those comments.

We have concerns about the portability of documentation if each local authority has a different common assessment framework. The whole point of having a common piece of documentation was that it would only need completing once. Perhaps it could be slimmed down and used by all partner agencies, wherever they are. If that documentation needs to be re-done every time a child moves from one authority area to another, the intention of cutting back on paperwork may be undermined.

We also have concerns about the recommendation and current direction of travel with regard to serious case reviews. The review rightly identifies the importance of learning lessons from SCRs. Alongside learning lessons, however, they must also perform the task of building public confidence in the profession and illustrate that there is no cover-up, no attempt to hide from the truth and no sense of the ranks being closed. There is a delicate balance to strike.

Local safeguarding children boards are not forced to be independent and are inevitably seen by some as internal partners, having a relationship with the practitioners providing the service. In some cases, they are chaired by the director of children’s services. The independent evaluation of the work of LSCBs on SCRs offers an important neutral balance to ensure that the correct lessons have been learned.

Professor Munro identifies LSCBs’ unhappiness at the role of Ofsted, but I wonder whether the independent assessments analysing the quality of the SCRs might check on how successfully lessons are learned. It does not seem to me that the fact of an evaluation in itself prevents a culture change towards a more learning-based approach. Whoever does independent inspections in future can be directed by the Minister in whichever way he wants, but simply to abandon any sort of independent review until a new body is in place in the next year or so is unsatisfactory.

We also feel that the decision to publish the entire overview of SCRs is having, and will have, very negative consequences. When in government, Labour increased the transparency of executive summaries of SCRs, but we feel that the balance is now leading to a less helpful situation. Professor Munro highlights on page 61 of the review the unhappiness felt by many in the profession about this move. It can hamper the attempt to make learning the principal aim of SCRs, and it inevitably restricts the enthusiasm of some practitioners to be frank about what they may have got wrong. We need to see the culture change before there is a move towards publishing the entire overview of the SCR. This also inevitably makes it highly unlikely that the better reporting of social work practice by the media that the Munro review cries out for will happen. It is also apparent that other partners are stepping back from getting involved in SCRs because of the full reporting of them. The Minister was right to say that if people are refusing to get involved in SCRs, that is wrong, and it is important that we learn those lessons. We are worried that publishing the full overview of them is having that effect, however, regardless of whether that should be done in the best interests of our children.

There is also anecdotal evidence, which we will be investigating further, that the threshold for serious case reviews is being lifted by authorities and that they are deciding that they are less likely to do them. Again, that will have a negative impact on our capacity to learn from past mistakes. It seems an odd set of priorities to remove the independent evaluator of serious case reviews at the same time as we are opening them up to wider public and media scrutiny. That suggests a “kangaroo court” approach, which is totally out of keeping with this review, and it could be a seriously retrograde step.

I mentioned that the review had identified, as had our own work with local authorities, that the role of the director of children’s services to be a purely child-centred position was under threat. That is hardly surprising, given that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is positively encouraging this sort of change to local government practice, with managers merging roles and councils becoming a little bit cheaper and quite a bit worse. That seems to be the Pickles recipe for local government. We urge this Minister to stand up for children against the right hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr Pickles) and we urge councils to protect the role of director of children’s services.