LGA warning over child protection reforms

An increase in rules and targets supposed to improve child protection is instead overloading stretched social work teams and risks weakening the safety net which keeps children safe from harm, council leaders warned today, as they published academic research into the implementation of Lord Laming’s latest recommendations.

The Local Government Association, which commissioned the study from Loughborough University into Lord Laming’s report ‘The protection of children in England: a progress report’, has proposed a five point plan to ensure social work reforms result in the best possible protection of vulnerable children.

The research paper has found that the most common reason social work teams feel they are pushed beyond the number of cases they can reasonably manage is an increase in statutory work, which will include handling a rise in referrals in the wake of the baby Peter Connelly case and new regulations. This is seen to have a greater impact than staff vacancies or sickness absences.