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Ofsted is damning on council failures
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent19.11.08
VULNERABLE children are being left to die like Baby P because councils are failing to stop abuse, inspectors warned today.
Ofsted said councils , police and social workers had not learned from the most serious cases of violence against children.
In a damning indictment of child protection across England, Ofsted boss Christine Gilbert warned: "Too many vulnerable children are still being let down by the system and we are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse."
Ms Gilbert's verdict in her annual report to Parliament comes as a team of inspectors led by Ofsted urgently investigates how Baby P died in Haringey despite being seen 78 times by doctors, health and social workers.
The case occurred in the same borough where in 2000 eight-year-old Victoria Climbié died in similar circumstances.
Ofsted found that many problems identified by the Climbié inquiry had still not been put right. The report found:
● Some staff - particularly in schools - were not equipped to recognise signs of abuse and neglect.
●Vulnerable children often experienced "frequent changes of social worker", undermining the care and protection they received.
● There were long delays in "almost all" official reviews of child deaths and injuries, rendering them almost useless for helping councils improve.
● A third of these serious case reviews were "inadequate" when published.
● Local Safeguarding Children's Boards, set up after the Climbié Inquiry, have failed to give enough priority to the most vulnerable children.
● The boards have also not secured vital cooperation from all local agencies to stop children falling between the cracks in the system.
Ms Gilbert added: "There is still much to do to ensure that all children are properly safeguarded."
Children's Secretary Ed Balls has ordered inspectors to conduct an urgent review of children's services in Haringey. Their report is due in two weeks.
But Ofsted was criticised last week when it emerged that inspectors praised Haringey's child protection work in a report two months after Baby P died.
A separate inquiry into the child protection system across England is being led by Lord Laming, who conducted the original Climbié investigation.
Reader views (4)
Looking from a distance at what has happened to this poor child I think the blame lies on the way society has acted over the years.The unmarried mother culture is surely one of the main causes,some women have child after child not because they love them but because it gives them an excuse.I just can't imagine how a child can get used to having different men going in and out of the house,surely a true father figure is as important as a mother.Also the fact of people living all their lives on the dole,Baby P lived in Haringey so what reason was there for the people living in the house to be on the dole?surely most people go to London to live because up until now there's always been plenty of work there.I'm sure that if the men living in the house had had to do a good days work they would've been too tired to even think about torturing the poor child.Even in the Shannon Matthew case none of them worked,the worse thing for grown up! people to do is sit about all day doing nothing
- Linda, italy
The words 'horse', 'stable door' and 'bolted' come to mind. What hypocrites watch them clamour to save their own shameful skins.
- Sharon, London
Oh well another round of meetings. Let's vote for another public enquiry. That will take a year or more and by then perhaps another child will die in another borough taking the flack away from this motley crew;.
- Bj, London
Well well, she could hardly say otherwise given the circumstances and the public outrage, but it was an OFSTED report by her colleagues, particularly Juliet Winstanley, that gave Haringey a glowing 3 star rating EVEN AFTER the death of Baby P. Perhaps she could also admit that Ofsted are failing vulnerable children too?
- David Smith, Wellingborough, England
