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The social workers involved in the Baby P case are being investigated by the General Social Care Council, which registers social workers, and could lose their jobs if it considers that any of them breached their professional code of practice. That intervention is timely. But there is also a political angle to the tragedy of a child's death which should have been prevented by multiple agencies of the state and was not.
Today, it continues with a commitment by Children's Secretary Ed Balls to act swiftly to redress the failings in child protection in Haringey and ensure that the scale of what went wrong is laid bare.
The circumstances in which the child was being brought up were a dreadful reflection of the depths of ignorance and cruelty in the most dysfunctional homes. An expensive social service, equipped with performance targets, ratings charts and modern management techniques, failed to spot the scale of the abuse. A leading paediatrician did not raise the alarm after examining the child. As our feature on Haringey social services today shows, over-complex bureaucracy is one of the key factors impeding effective action when things go badly wrong.
This is all deeply political. Public money funds social services; central government sets the structures inside which local authorities work and must thus answer for systemic shortcomings. Beverley Hughes, one of Mr Balls's ministers, conveyed the impression on Newsnight that she was being unfairly taken to task for something that had nothing to do with her. That is not an adequate or reassuring response.
The Prime Minister set the wrong tone in claiming that the Opposition was “playing party politics” with this matter. Today, Mr Balls takes a different line, admitting that the Government is accountable for what happens in child protection.
He reassigned his own role from Education Secretary to that of Children's Secretary precisely because he wanted greater influence over policy that affects children in and out of school. That means he, his colleagues and his leader must take the consequences, not pass the buck.
Tessa's faux pas
TESSA Jowell, the Olympics minister, has admitted that, had the Government known a recession was approaching, it would not have bid for the Olympics. The admission was disarming but it is startling, nonetheless, that the Government, in making a decision with such large, long-term financial implications, failed to foresee the possibility of a serious downturn. Stockmarkets can go down as well as up, economies can fall as well as rise. These are facts of life, and they should underpin every long-term decision made by government. Ministers, admittedly, may have assumed that the estimated budget, £2.4 billion, could reasonably be met. But the fact that within a short period, that estimate had almost quadrupled to the present budget of £9.35 billion shows that the costs were not properly thought through - nor our ability to fund them.
But recession has at least this advantage for the Government, that it can now justifiably claim that its spending on the Games is "counter-cyclical investment". And in fact, the Games have proven to be good for London in a recession, and the saving of the construction industry at a time when housebuilding has suffered the worst of the downturn. London must be grateful for the boost to the capital's economy from the Olympics at a time when jobs are being shed almost everywhere else. As for Mrs Jowell, she has spoken frankly, if not wisely.
And celebrating...
BABYLON. The greatness of the city where the Old Testament Jews spent their exile is celebrated in a notable exhibition at the British museum that opens today. The reality of the stories of Nebuchadnezzar and the Tower of Babel are all explored here, in cuneiform tablets and some impressive artefacts like the panels of the gates of the city. In fact, there is a melancholy postscript to the story, in the wanton destruction that has been wrought on the site in present day Iraq by US troops. But at least its past glories are celebrated in London.
Reader views (1)
Haringey is certainly an area requiring enormous development.. following Victoria Climbie saga..it would have cost the council maybe 500 pounds a week to place the child in foster care for a few months while referring the mother for counselling....I dont know what kind of relationship the mother had with her estranged partner but doesnt sound ... Read Morepleasant...Haringey Council is notorious for incompetency not just in Childcare...but any kind of support you can imagine they are slow, tedious and cumbersome at times...to remove the child who was already at risk register is pretty simple..they can act in emergency without going to court first...its not them that would physically remove the child..it would be specialist CP Poilce and the child will be taken to an undisclosed address until the mother rewinds from therapy then she can have supervised access..Haringey Council already knew the child was at risk and their register proved that this risk was rather substantial and critical...it is proper that some personnel resign over these latest scandals in order to bring about public reassurance in our civic institution.
- Dr Jones, London, England, 19/11/2008 01:35
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