This second and interim report published as part of the Munro Review of child protection (see RPU 114 and RPU 117) focuses on the child’s journey – from needing help to receiving effective protection from abuse and neglect. Key recommendations include:
• Inspections Announced inspections should end as part of forthcoming revisions to the inspection framework. Instead, unannounced inspections should be given a broader remit across the contribution of all children’s services to child protection; this is in keeping with submissions made recently to the Education Select Committee by both the ADCS and NSPCC during the committee’s inquiry into the role of Ofsted.
• Serious Case Reviews External evaluation of SCRs by Ofsted should end. Instead, the quality of learning more generally should be given greater coverage within the overall inspection process. The review is exploring how the quality of learning can be strengthened; among other things, it is considering the establishment of a national training programme in the systems approach, the creation of a central pool of reviewers, the benefits of a national arbiter for case review standards and methods, and the creation of a standardised typology for presenting findings.
• Working Together to Safeguard Children The Working Together guidance, which is now 55 times longer than in 1974, should be shortened. In particular, the review is working with professional bodies to consider how statutory guidance can be separated out from professional advice, with the professions taking responsibility for the latter.
Professor Munro is due to submit her final report in April. During its next stage, the review will consider reform to the career structure of social work, building on the recommendations of the Social Work Reform Board. Other issues under consideration include:
• whether, when a child is referred to social care, any existing assessment is continued by social workers, rather than the current system which starts a new process of initial and core assessments
• the introduction of a minimum data set for child protection comprising a ‘twin core’ of nationally collected data and standardised local data to inform policy development by central government and drive learning and improvement at local level
• whether, in light of wider public service reform, there is now a need for a panel made up of relevant professions within the child protection system to advise government and the professions themselves on how different parts of the system are interacting and on any emerging problems
• and how best to help the public ‘gain a better understanding of the complexity, uncertainty and emotional challenge inherent in child protection’.
The review is also working with five local authorities – Cumbria, Gateshead, Hackney, Knowsley and Westminster – to trial flexible assessment timescales, giving social workers greater autonomy to exercise their professional judgement more effectively to improve outcomes for vulnerable children. The six-month trial will last beyond the end of the review, but the evidence from the trial will be considered by the government when responding to Professor Munro's final report
