Tragedies bring drive to change care amid cuts

THE dramatic rise in casework for frontline child care staff in the wake of the Baby P and Victoria Climbie tragedies comes at a time when Children’s Services departments are already under the pressure of making financial savings.

In Yorkshire thousands more children are currently classed as vulnerable and subject to protection plans than there were two years ago – and the two biggest percentage increases were in Leeds and North Yorkshire.

In Leeds the Children’s Services department was already under considerable pressure after two Ofsted reports, one in July 2009 and a second in January 2010 branded standards “inadequate”.

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The watchdog carried out inspections following a serious case review published into the death of two-year-old Casey Mullen. It found better communication between agencies in the city could have prevented the death of the toddler, who was raped and murdered by her uncle.

Since then, and despite facing cuts of nearly £200m, the council has invested in more than 60 frontline staff, plans to bring in another 30 and has launched a number of intiatives to improve the partnership between care agencies.

Another Ofsted report, published last month, revealed the majority of children’s services were now “good or better”.

Steve Walker, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, said: “Clearly Leeds was having some difficult issues, a lot of work has gone into adressing that.

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“We now have clear, robust arrangements for safeguarding children and the council has invested in children’s services, with funding for an additional 40 social workers and 26 advanced practitioners.

“We have also devleoped our work with partner agencies, this is not just a job for social workers, it needs all agencies to be working together - the health service, charitiy and voluntary groups, schools, health visitors.

“It is important that all of these agencies co-ordinate their efforts, mainly so no vulnerable child is overlooked but also so we do not duplicate work.”

Mr Walker said that a number of factors could be behind the rise in cases and he believes the department is coping, with the number of cases being managed by each member of staff actually going down from an avereage of 25 in 2009 to 20 currently.

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“Clearly there is always an impact after cases like Victoria Climbie and Baby P, whenever you have a major national case there is a spike in the figures.”

Although the recession had put many families under stress, he was confident that was not the reason behind the increase.

In North Yorkshire the number of cases have almost doubled at a time when the Children’s Services department is understood to be having to make savings of more than £20m.

The authority said one of the reasons for the increase has been agencies, in the wake of Baby P, tending to register cases rather than risk there being no safety net for vulnerable children, while another is the fact that children are being kept on the register for longer.

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The authority has restructured the children’s social care service, investing in county-wide rapid response teams which will come into operation in March, based on a successful family intervention service providing intensive support to families seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

The county council has also increased the number of assessment and safeguarding social workers by 33 per cent – 21 posts – and is in the process of recruiting another 10.5, made up of family support and social workers and homelessness prevention workers.

Comment: Page 14.