'Fundamental' changes needed to child safeguarding according to review
The Child Safeguarding Practice Panel has released its report
Last updated 26th May 2022
A review into child safeguarding is recommending a dedicated child protection team should be set up in every local area, to prevent any future tragedies
The report from the Child Safeguarding Practice Panel comes after a review into the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.
The review also stated the approach to child protection in England needs to “change fundamentally”.
It was commissioned in December 2021 by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to look at what could be done to prevent things from going so "horrifyingly wrong" in future.
A dedicated team made up of police, healthcare staff and social workers should be setup in every local area, according to the review.
The Panel found that the fatal abuse suffered by Arthur and Star “are not isolated incidents”, but reflective of wider problems with information sharing and weak decision making.
Not yet fit for purpose
Arthur was murdered in June 2020 by his stepmother Emma Tustin at their home in Solihull. His father Thomas Hughes, 29, was found guilty of his son's manslaughter.
The review said a judgment seemingly became fixed early on that Mr Hughes was a "protective father", which was reasonable at the time but was never challenged when circumstances changed.
Concerns about Arthur's bruising raised by family members were not taken seriously, photographs of the bruising were not shared between agencies, his voice was not always heard and too many assessments relied on his father's perspective, it found.
Star was murdered by her mother's girlfriend at her home in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in September 2020.
Star's mother Frankie Smith, 20, was found guilty of causing or allowing the youngster's death.
An explanation that concern from a family member might have been malicious and rooted in a dislike of her mother's same-sex relationship was "too easily accepted".
The review found that Bradford children's social care service was "in turmoil" in 2020, with a high turnover of social workers and a high volume of work affecting quality and contributing to assessments that were "too superficial" and did not address repeated concerns from family members.
Concerns raised by their wider family members were "too often" disregarded and not properly investigated by police and social workers, the review said.
It recommends dedicated multi-agency teams staffed by experienced child protection professionals be set up in every local authority area to investigate allegations of serious harm to children.
And the Government should establish a national child protection board to better co-ordinate child protection policy.
A better picture of what is happening to a child
In a foreword to the report, review chairwoman Annie Hudson said the current safeguarding system is not broken, but there is too much ambiguity and inconsistency which does not serve children, their families or professionals well.
The panel interviewed just under 80 professionals in Bradford, Birmingham and Solihull; the children's family members, including Star's mother and her mother's partner; and drew on 1,500 rapid reviews of serious incidents since it was formed.
It found that child protection work is inherently complex, but the current system does not give professionals the best opportunity at cutting through this complexity "to get to the truth of what life is like for children".
It said existing multi-agency arrangements for protecting children are more fractured and fragmented than they should be, and "promising approaches" are implemented patchily across the country.
And it identified a reliance on quickly pulling together a team from overstretched agencies every time there is a child protection concern, which is "certainly inefficient and often ineffective".
Annie Hudson added:
"Arthur and Star suffered horrific and ultimately fatal abuse. But sadly, whilst their individual stories are unique, many hundreds of children are seriously harmed each year.
"At the moment, each professional who comes into contact with a child holds one piece of the jigsaw of what is happening in a child's life.
"Our proposed reforms would bring together experts from social work, police and health into one team so that they can have a better picture of what is happening to a child, listening carefully to relatives' concerns and taking necessary actions to protect children."