Child Protection
Good morning. The first item of business this morning is a debate on motion S2M-593, in the name of Peter Peacock, on reforming child protection in Scotland, and three amendments to the motion.
I cannot imagine a more important job that we as a society do—and few things that are more difficult and complex—than keeping our children and young people safe from harm. That is as true for us in government as it is for those who deal daily with the problems of children and families. It is also true for parents, our communities and all of us in the chamber as we strive for a Scotland that provides the best possible protection for all our children.
We rightly have high expectations of all the professionals—health professionals, teachers, the police and social workers—who work with children and families often in extremely difficult and complicated circumstances and relationships. Day after day, those professionals go about that challenging work with great dedication and personal commitment, often receiving very little credit for their good work. We must ensure that those workers at the front line have the support and management that they deserve to do their jobs.
However, we cannot look to the professionals alone to deliver our ambitions for children and young people. Tragically, people who live among us abuse and neglect children, often but not always within their own home and sometimes but not always with malice aforethought. Sometimes family members, neighbours and others bring their concerns to the attention of support services, but not always. Sometimes, even when support is provided, situations will blow up that no one could reasonably have been expected to predict and harm is done.
This area of work is complex and often requires complex interagency solutions. We all share responsibility. Government ministers, councillors, health boards, chief executives and chief constables, individual policemen, social workers, teachers and the community at large have a part to play in being vigilant about the safety and well-being of children and young people. The fact that the Minister for Health and Community Care will close the debate for the Executive reflects our cross-portfolio and Cabinet-level commitment to improvement in this area.
It is very much everyone's job to make sure that our kids are all right. However, there are times when the services that our most vulnerable children should be able to rely on for protection have failed to provide that protection. For example, the recent report on the tragic death of Caleb Ness, with its shocking conclusion that it could have been avoided, reveals severe failings. The report is a terrible indictment of failures at all levels and across all the agencies involved. That said, I am pleased that the City of Edinburgh Council has, without question, accepted the failings that arose and is urgently addressing actions to prevent any similar failings in the future.
The Caleb Ness case serves as a dreadful reminder of the possible outcome of such failures for children who fall through the net. Although we will accept the Tory amendment, which refers to that case, it would be wrong to say that the case has been the only one to have shocked us recently. Sadly, it is not isolated or unique. The deaths of Victoria Climbié and Kennedy McFarlane are further tragic examples of the failure to protect vulnerable children. We have also been shocked by the so-called "Miss X" case in the Borders, the Carla Nicole Bone case and the Danielle Reid case. Reports of some of those cases have yet to be concluded and I cannot and will not prejudge them. However, such reports have too often in the past revealed failings that we could have avoided if we had had better interagency arrangements, better quality assurance systems, better training and better support and management systems for our front-line staff.
There is absolutely no question but that services need to improve urgently. Last year, following the findings of the national audit and review of child protection, as reported in "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright", the First Minister and Cathy Jamieson announced a five-point action plan to reform the child protection system. The First Minister rightly gave services three years to get things right. One year on, I want to set out for Parliament the position we have reached in delivering that plan.
We said that we would give extra money to helplines, recruit a multidisciplinary team to help to deliver reform, produce a children's charter, introduce multidisciplinary inspection for child protection and commit to a three-year child protection reform programme. The Executive has provided leadership and resources to drive forward action on all those fronts.
The goal of the reform programme is to improve the protection of children at risk of neglect or abuse and to reduce the number of children who need protection. Lessons have been learned from past cases and are being acted on. There is better communication, structured and sustainable interagency co-operation and raised awareness of child protection among all professionals. Furthermore, it has been made plain that clear leadership and support must be the norm in all agencies.
The reform programme provides the direction and drive for services to get things right over three years. Making a difference for children requires all those involved to put the interests of the child first and professional barriers and departmental interests very much second. We meant what we said when we committed to the programme and we will see the process through, no matter what action we are required to take.
I am glad to say that the reform programme is making progress. The Executive is providing leadership and is developing and delivering the programme with assistance from a steering committee that comprises representatives from the public and voluntary sectors. We have established a multidisciplinary team of six people who have been seconded from the education, police, health and social work sectors. Their work is now beginning to feed through and to inform the process.
The charter for children and young people will be published soon and we have commissioned Save the Children to consult children, parents and practitioners in order to produce proposals for it. The charter will clearly set out what every child has the right to expect and will be based on what children and young people say they need when they encounter problems.
The multidisciplinary team has been in place since July and has conducted a large consultation exercise with practitioners, including managers, the voluntary sector, other representative organisations, children and families. The consultation will inform the production of national standards for child protection. Those standards will set out where we need to be, help us to judge where we are currently and allow us to plan improvements and the important design of a new and rigorous inspection process.
We are actively developing proposals for introducing a multi-agency inspection system, which will ensure that we impact on quality, build on current best practice and focus on outcomes for the child. In that respect, we need to learn a considerable amount from the good practice that already exists in our schools system and bring that more rigorously into our social work system, particularly the area of child protection.
The fact that the social work services inspectorate has to operate across agencies, departments, local authorities and health authorities might, if anything, give rise to more challenges and difficulties than is the case with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education. That is why our amendment mentions the need to review and strengthen the SWSI's powers. Will legislation be needed to do that?
I have had discussions on that matter with officials and Euan Robson, who is leading on much of this work for me. We are considering all the provisions that will be required, including whether there is a need for legislative provision. I think that we can make significant improvements without such a legislative base, but that remains to be seen. Further legislation might be required in due course to ensure that we underpin the systems that we want with the statutory powers and force that they need.
New guidance is being developed on the role and remit of child protection committees. We have given extra resources to ChildLine. Moreover, the implementation of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003 will involve the compilation of a list of persons who are disqualified from working with children. That will provide another important tool for protecting children.
Those measures are not being introduced in isolation. We recognise that effective management and working practices are crucial in protecting children and ensuring that all children's needs are met. Two years ago, the action team report "For Scotland's children" set a clear agenda for the better co-ordination of services and support for all children and young people. I want to re-emphasise that vision to ensure that all those who come into contact with children and young people in our schools, in health centres, through voluntary and youth groups and in our communities understand our shared obligations to every child.
I am chairing a new Cabinet delivery group for children and young people, the membership of which includes the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and relevant portfolio ministers. The group will drive forward the agenda for change across key priorities, including the improvement of service planning and delivery, joint assessment and information sharing, the development of the children's work force, and joint inspection and quality assurance. Those priorities apply across all service areas, including health, social work and education, as well as across the statutory and voluntary sector agencies.
We need people to deliver all those measures. However, of late, there has been much comment that vacancies in social work have contributed to service failure. We need more social workers, but we should be clear that successive reports have identified as the key issue staff failures to follow agreed systems and practices. Staff throughout agencies, not just those in social work departments, are involved. That said, we recognise the need to bring more people into social work to develop greater capacity and we are tackling that issue head on.
Will the minister categorically agree that standards and regulations can be delivered only if the staffing complement is reached? The problem is the understaffing in social work and the other contributing services.
I do not seek to duck the fact that we need more social workers and I will set out the steps that we are taking to try to achieve that. However, we have found that, notwithstanding the number of social workers, systems have failed because people have not spoken to one another or shared information effectively. In addition to the recruitment of more social work staff, that issue is at the heart of how we can make improvements.
The issue is not only about the quantity of social workers, but about their quality. Figures on the social work services inspectorate's website show that the specific grant for training in 1999-2000 was £3.7 million, but that this year it is £2.2 million. To assist social workers in what is an increasingly difficult profession, surely we should spend more money on training them.
As I will explain, we are doing that. Scotland now has more social workers than ever before—the number of students who qualified this year increased by 25 per cent—but the problem is that demand is increasing faster than supply. We have introduced a range of measures to address that problem and to improve the reputation, self-confidence and status of social work as part of the way of bringing more people into the profession.
Those measures include a recruitment campaign; a new honours degree, which will be supported by financial incentives of up to £9,000 for social workers who enter key areas such as child protection; the extension of our fast-track scheme for social work trainees; the establishment of a national work force group under the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People's chairmanship to develop a long-term strategy for the sector; the launch of the Scottish institute for excellence in social work education to improve standards; and—to touch on Christine Grahame's point—the provision of an additional £9 million in the next three years to local authorities and their partners for training opportunities and a further £2 million for a leadership programme.
Substantial progress is being made on social work shortages, but we will continue to review what is being done to ensure that the number of well-trained social workers is sufficient to meet current and projected needs.
Does the minister agree that the merger of social work and health care budgets would help to lessen social workers' load and to increase communication between agencies?
As I said, we are trying to take action on all fronts, including the supply of additional resources to the sectors involved. We are also increasing investment in specific initiatives. The changing children's services fund will double from £33 million this year to £65 million in 2005-06 and sure start provision will more than double from £23 million this year to £50 million in 2005-06. Those initiatives will contribute to sustained reform.
We are most of the way through the first year of the reform programme and a strong start has been made, but we have only two years left to get it absolutely right. Last week, the Cabinet took stock of progress and agreed that we must take further action to signal clearly the necessity for us all to continue to make progress on the agenda. We agreed additional key actions to do just that.
First, the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Health and Community Care and I have written to leaders in local authorities, health authorities and the police to ask them to provide a statement of assurance that they have reviewed current child protection operations, singly and collectively. We have also asked them to say whether they are satisfied with the performance of services—and, if not, whether they have put in place plans to address identified weaknesses—and to ensure that robust quality assurance procedures are in place as a basis for allowing intervention and improvement as cases develop. That action recognises that change and improvement on the ground requires the clear, consistent and continued attention of the top leaders in all agencies.
Secondly, we will accelerate the development or the introduction of multi-agency inspection. We will pilot new approaches in the next two years rather than wait until the end of the three-year programme. The children's charter and national standards will provide the context for that development, in which the focus of inspection will be on outcomes for the child.
Thirdly, I will ask the Scottish Social Services Council to ensure that regular training in child protection for all social workers is part of its registration process. We will also consider how we can ensure that on-going training on child protection is embedded for other professionals. We have agreed that, in the new year, there should be another high-level summit of key professionals to bring together the leaders and managers of child protection services in the statutory and voluntary sectors, representative bodies and council leaders. The summit will aim to reaffirm those groups' commitment to progress and to championing change in child protection and it will review progress and agree future actions that we need to make collectively.
Our task is challenging, but its importance for the health and welfare of our most vulnerable children and young people should not be underestimated. Continued commitment, challenge, review and reform is required from people at all levels, in all agencies and in all parts of government. We will not hesitate to take the steps that we think are necessary to act on the agenda. We are making progress, but there is much more to do to keep children and young people safe from harm and neglect. When I opened the debate, I said that few things that society, Government, local government, agencies and the staff of those agencies do are more important than protecting our children from harm. I am totally committed to that task.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that keeping Scotland's children and young people safe from harm and neglect must be a priority for all; agrees the importance of having a sustainable programme of reform of child protection services; notes the progress on the three-year child protection reform programme and future plans, and supports the Scottish Executive's decision to require local authorities, NHS boards and the police to review their practices in respect of child protection, take action where there are weaknesses, ensure that there are robust quality assurance processes in place and continue with initiatives to ensure that there are sufficient and well-trained social workers to meet current and projected needs.
This most serious of debates is cast at a time and in a climate in which we reflect on the publication of the Caleb Ness inquiry report and the progress of the child protection review that was set up following the death of Kennedy McFarlane. A number of statistics will be quoted in the debate, but we must remember that behind those statistics are individual children with a name who often live in sad, uncertain and cruel worlds.
Government cannot solve every problem of every child, but it can ensure that our support and intervention systems proactively try to prevent vulnerable children's hurt, despair and fear. My concern is that, for various reasons—many of which are noted in the published reviews—Scotland's disjointed way of working has not served children well. The system concentrates on crisis intervention rather than on preventing the crisis in the first place. The Scottish National Party's amendment focuses on the need to increase the pace and range of recruitment.
I welcome and acknowledge the Executive's initiatives for social work recruitment. However, as recently as yesterday, the City of Edinburgh Council announced that, in the wake of the Caleb Ness report, it will spend £220,000 on clerical staff to support social workers. Our amendment acknowledges that the issue is wider than simply recruiting social workers and notes that the issues of child care and protection workers and the wider support system must be addressed. For example, the Caleb Ness inquiry report did not point to a shortage of social workers as the key problem in that case; it pointed to the lack of sharing of information, among many other factors.
It is of serious concern that the report "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright" found that effective service delivery is often a result of extraordinary efforts by individuals, sometimes despite—not because of—system structures. Professionals in the field are working hard to bring Scotland's children safety, security and a chance to develop, but it is surely politicians' responsibility to ensure that those professionals have the support that they need to continue their work and to develop new and innovative ways of working. If those professionals can deliver services as a result of their extraordinary efforts and despite the inertia of the system in which they work, imagine how much better they could work to deliver proper support and assistance within a system that helped rather than hindered. With such a system, the service would be more efficient and effective and there would be far less chance of tragedies that resulted from insufficiencies in service provision.
Holistic and constant examination of the delivery of children's services throughout the country is required. I welcome the recommendation that reviews should be on-going after the end of the present three-year period. I also welcome the child protection initiatives that were announced in February and I look forward to the publication of the children's charter. I acknowledge the increase in the budget line for social work training in the minister's portfolio, but I notice that that will be capped after two years. We need a constant increase, not least because the age profile of social workers means that a large number of them will retire in the coming decade. I suggest that there is a strong argument for increasing the training budget.
I believe that every politician in Scotland has a responsibility to advance the services that are provided to children. One of the marks of decency in a society is how its children are protected and encouraged. I want us to go further than the motion suggests in respect of the requirement to review practices. I believe that every public body should be examining how it interacts with children for the purposes of safety and well-being.
Interestingly, the Caleb Ness inquiry threw up the problem of drug abuse. There has been a huge increase in the number of children who are referred to children's panels because their parents have drug-abuse problems. The figures from the Edinburgh children's panel show that the increase in referrals is not because of a greater incidence of criminal activity by young people. The big increase in referrals comes from children who need protection and the biggest reason for that is neglect from parents. That must be addressed. The scale of the increase in the number of children concerned is quite staggering. A 13 per cent increase over one year is a call to us all, and certainly to those who provide the relevant services.
It is vital that we have a sufficiency of well-trained social workers to meet projected needs. The Government's "For Scotland's children" report outlined the problem around the number of qualified social workers. It noted that a large number of social workers were leaving local authority work to take up employment in the voluntary sector, where working conditions are perhaps deemed to be better. The retention of social workers in local authority employment needs to be addressed.
There is no shortage of people wanting to become social workers or to work in child protection, but they often have trouble finding places. If we increased the provision of child care and child protection workers, particularly those working with less vulnerable children, we would release the more experienced social workers to deal with the young people who are at most risk. However, I do not think that the responsibility for ensuring that there is a sufficiency of social workers falls entirely on the heads of local authorities, health boards and the police, as the motion appears to suggest. That is why the SNP's amendment calls on the Parliament to ensure that the Executive "acknowledges its own role".
The Government cannot be responsible for the demand for child protection that is caused by negligent parents. However, it has not only key control over the supply of social workers' training and budgets, but a key influence over the demand for social workers. Feedback from the front line over recent weeks shows that, although there is an increasing number of social workers—I acknowledge the minister's figures on that—the Executive's initiatives on social work, of which we are told there have been 50 since the Executive came to power, have themselves created more demand. That is probably why, despite the increase in recruitment, there has been an increase in the number of vacancies of more than 30 per cent in recent years. The Executive can provide a supply of social workers, but it can also create excessive demands. Those demands and the initiatives taken to meet them may be right, but the problem is continuing.
The SNP amendment calls on the Executive
"to review the role and powers of the Social Work Services Inspectorate".
That comes back to the core issue of responsibility. A blame culture, where people have their backs against the wall and where the system is used to protect individuals and to ensure that people are covered in case there is a problem, is not the climate in which to run services for vulnerable children. It is not blame that is needed; it is responsibility. They are not the same thing. What we want, what the public want and what children need is a system of responsibility—for someone to take responsibility. That was behind the publication "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". I am happy to make a judgment on that following the review of the social work services inspectorate, which, I understand from the minister's comments, is probably being conducted as we speak. We need to know that we have sufficient legislative powers to ensure that every relevant authority is taking responsibility for protecting children in a meaningful, practical, cross-agency way.
On public responsibility, I am sure that we have all been contacted by Children 1st on its proposal to set up some kind of helpline for the public. I would prefer to see more details, but I would be interested if the minister, in summing up, could respond to that suggestion for a helpline to give easy access to the public to report concerns.
The need for the public to come forward and report things at the time that they happen is an important part of the child protection process, but does the member agree that we have to encourage people to stick to what they said when reporting something? In the past, people have often known that something was not right and have wanted to report it, but they have not wanted to get too involved and have hoped that somebody else would take on the matter once they had reported it. We live in a climate where facts must be established in a court or at a hearing, so does the member agree that it is important for people to understand that?
I acknowledge that point and agree that we need to examine the matter more closely. The issue comes back to responsibility. The public have to take responsibility not just for initial referrals but for the situation thereafter. We might also consider the French example—the green, or numéro vert, phone line. I would be interested to hear the minister's response on that point.
We know that there is a Scotland-wide problem with the provision of social workers. The statistics that the Executive published last week show that there has been a 33 per cent increase in the number of vacancies in children's social care. More posts lie vacant than was the case previously, although there may be more social workers in the system. Almost one in eight children's social care posts in Edinburgh is unfilled and there are 265 vacancies in Glasgow.
In Highland Council, in the area for which the Minister for Education and Young People is a list MSP, there has been a 106 per cent increase in the number of vacancies over two years. In Shetland, the number of vacancies has doubled; in Orkney, it has increased by 200 per cent. Over the same period, there has been an increase in the number of children on child protection registers. Despite the fact that 13 per cent more children are registered as being at risk, there are far more vacancies in social care services.
Although the Government is moving in the right direction, the tide might be moving faster than the Executive's response. There are shortages in relation to the services that are needed to protect those children. Statistics on children at risk are getting worse. We are aware of the problem of the number of at-risk children who do not have case workers, which was highlighted by The Herald. That situation is inexcusable and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
A nation can be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. I would like to think—and the public expect—that there is the political will in all parts of the chamber to ensure that the child protection review and agenda are driven forward with energy and determination. Our responsibility in the SNP is to fulfil our role of providing well-intentioned, constructive criticism and of scrutinising the Government and holding it to account. However, that also means that we can offer strength and support to the minister if he pursues the vital child protection agenda vigorously. Scotland's children are too important to be pushed aside and to be neglected by individuals or by the system. Let us all renew our determination to serve Scotland's children.
I move amendment S2M-593.3, to leave out from "continue" to end and insert:
"; acknowledges its own role in increasing the scale, pace and range of staff recruitment in social work and child care and protection to ensure there are sufficient, well-paid staff to meet current and projected needs, and agrees to review the role and powers of the Social Work Services Inspectorate in this area."
I welcome today's debate and the initiatives that the minister has presented, in particular the multi-agency inspection proposals, as well as training and other initiatives. Looking at the 35 recommendations of the report of the inquiry into the death of Caleb Ness, I think that it is a sad fact that most of those recommendations could apply to all councils in Scotland. I hope that every council will read the recommendations and consider how it could adopt the best practice that they outline.
The motion states:
"That the Parliament agrees that keeping Scotland's children and young people safe from harm and neglect must be a priority for all".
We now need to challenge the culture that it is best to keep children with their families at all times. In recent months and years, we have seen that, sadly, a number of cases of child deaths have been at the hands of those who were responsible for them. Indeed, they have sometimes been at the hands of the child's natural parents. Councillor Brian Meek of the City of Edinburgh Council recently wrote:
"as long as those who have to deal with these difficult cases continue to believe that parents or relatives are always to be preferred to all other avenues of care, the killings will go on."
We should listen to that point.
We must stress the need for greatly improved co-operation and communication between agencies, as well as a system that encourages greater responsibility and accountability within the child protection system. I am pleased that the Executive has accepted the amendment in my name in the constructive manner in which it was lodged.
If the shortage of well-trained, experienced social workers impacted only on child protection services, there would perhaps not be so much to concern us today. I sat on the Health and Community Care Committee when it passed the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Bill and the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill, and one of the major issues that arose on those occasions was that there are simply not enough social workers to carry out current work loads, let alone meet the enormous demands of home care, free personal care and respite for the elderly. The Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 will be successfully implemented only with a huge increase in the number of social workers and mental health officers. As Fiona Hyslop indicated, they do not exist in sufficient numbers to meet the current demands on the service, let alone the additional demands for which the Parliament is legislating.
The Health and Community Care Committee agreed that there should be a single budget for community care between the national health service and social work. All members of the committee and all those who gave evidence, bar one, supported that measure. If there is one budget and management system, there is no passing of the buck. In the fullness of time, we may want to revisit that issue.
Shortages of social workers exist right across the service—in care of the elderly, mental health services, drug and alcohol services and child protection services. I am now a member of the Communities Committee, and in the early stages of scrutiny of the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill it is becoming evident that there are shortages of social workers in that area, too.
During the passage of the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Bill, we were told repeatedly that social work services had been taken from the elderly to fulfil the requirements of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Now the requirement to implement the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 takes social work away from children's services, services for the elderly and drug services. For two years, the Osprey centre in Inverness, which helps people with drug and alcohol problems, has had no social worker to support those people's families.
My amendment also emphasises the need for better communication between social workers and other professionals. I cannot forget the evidence of cultural incompatibility between the NHS and social work that I heard while I was a member of the Health and Community Care Committee. We also received written evidence that referred to attitude preciousness. I am pleased that the minister has addressed those points today.
An increase in the number of social work vacancies by a third in a year naturally places a tremendous strain on those who are working to provide the existing service. The report on the Caleb Ness case identifies errors and makes recommendations that sound all too familiar. It states:
"this was an avoidable … death … neither parent should have had unsupervised care of Caleb."
The report identifies fault at almost every level in every agency involved. It states that
"many of our recommendations are not new"
and refers to
"the lack of proactive senior social work involvement"
and the
"tendency among professionals in … agencies to make assumptions about the knowledge, training and actions of others."
The report also states:
"there was a complete failure by Criminal Justice workers and management to recognise that they did have some responsibility for child protection."
As the minister acknowledged, there is evidence to suggest that this was not an isolated case. Many of the comments that I have cited must be made in similar vein in relation to care of the elderly and of mentally ill patients. Despite the legislation that the Parliament has passed, we need assurances that mechanisms are in place across the spectrum of social work to resource, train, support, monitor and audit fully the performance of social workers.
Because of social workers' front-line role, blame is generally directed at them. That is probably inevitable. Most of the tragic child deaths that have occurred and that are associated with alleged mistakes in child protection have involved bad interagency working, poor communication and assumptions being made about what other agencies were aware of. When passing legislation that places greater demands on social workers, the Parliament must ensure that social work departments are resourced and fully able to deliver what we expect of them.
In the case of Danielle Reid in Inverness—the child who ended up at the bottom of the Caledonian canal—despite anonymous phone calls about the behaviour of Danielle's mother a year before the child died, no social worker saw her and there was no home visit. Naturally, the blame fell on social work because, as I understand it, no other agencies were called in to help. For that reason, I welcome the emphasis that has been placed today on interagency working.
There is much evidence to highlight failure in the system of child protection. I hope that the measures that have been announced today will help to protect Scotland's vulnerable children. We can be sure that there will be no improvement unless the old cultures of demarcation are broken down. I welcome what the minister said on that issue.
There will be no improvement until the needs of the child become the leading driver of the service, with greater co-operation among professionals. I welcome what the minister said about breaking down professional barriers and making the child the priority. There will also be no improvement until we can recruit, retain, value and support social work teams in councils throughout Scotland.
Finally, will the minister tell the Parliament how he will monitor and audit the initiatives that he has outlined today and that the Parliament has welcomed, to ensure that in three years' time we do not have to debate the issues that we are identifying today?
I move amendment S2M-593.1, to insert at end:
"; acknowledges the findings of Susan O'Brien QC's inquiry into the death of Caleb Ness, and as a result calls for greatly improved co-operation and communication between agencies along with new arrangements that encourage greater responsibility and accountability within the child protection system."
I, too, welcome this morning's debate.
Every child has the right to be safe and it is the responsibility of us all to ensure that that happens. That is why I welcome the debate but qualify my welcome with the same sadness that I am sure all members feel about the need for it to take place at all.
Much effort has been made to ensure that child protection procedures and joined-up working between agencies are effective. I welcome the minister's comments today on interagency working. However, we have all had to accept that the system continues to fail our children. Although we welcome reforms, especially those proposals that will develop a multidisciplinary approach and a children's charter, and the provision of additional resources to ChildLine and Parentline, we are concerned that the recruitment and retention campaign to fill vacancies in the social services is inadequate. We are also concerned that social workers, who work in an extremely stressful environment in which they are under-resourced and undervalued, should yet again be under fire from the media and others.
For that reason, the Scottish Socialist Party amendment focuses on the continuing shortage of social workers, especially in child and family teams. We question the ability of the initiatives that the Executive has launched to recruit and retain social workers. Those initiatives are welcome, but they do not go far enough towards rectifying decades of inactivity and ensuring that there is proper work force planning in social work services.
There needs to be a massive inflow of funds to local authorities to allow them to train the committed and experienced unqualified staff who are already in place. The answer to a recent question from Colin Fox about the proportion of staff in residential care units who hold a diploma in social work or equivalent qualification gave the figure of approximately 20 per cent. That is a disgraceful situation, given the vulnerability of young people in such units. If that is the importance that we give to the care of looked-after children, it is not surprising that the people at the sharp end—those who work within the system—are disillusioned and frustrated.
A determined attempt to attract new people into social work, an increase in salaries to retain social workers in the demanding jobs that they do and a cessation of the blame culture that is expressed at times by members in the chamber and that puts people off entering the profession are essential. More understanding and explanation of the complexity of the tasks that social workers undertake and less populist worker bashing would also be helpful.
Local agreements or differences in salary scales from one local authority to another can only exacerbate the problem. To gain a professional service that can be relied on to protect the most vulnerable young people in our communities, we require a national strategy and agreements.
In a recent debate, I spoke in support of the children's hearings system in Scotland. I believe that that system should be valued and preserved. However, we must all be aware of the concerns raised by members of children's panels about the shortage of social workers and the often frustrating situation in which panel members find themselves when legally binding supervision orders to protect children and young people are not carried out. If we are to restore confidence in the system, our social work services must be adequately resourced and workers must be appropriately trained.
The circumstances surrounding the death of Caleb Ness were associated with drug abuse and that cannot be ignored. Sadly there are many young people and children suffering the effects of drug and alcohol abuse in their lives. Many grandparents are struggling to bring up their grandchildren without appropriate support and many are unable to sleep at night for fear of the risks that their grandchildren might be facing. If we are to address drug and alcohol abuse, we must invest in appropriate services. Members will no doubt be aware that I promote a national strategy for putting in place drug rehabilitation facilities throughout Scotland that are appropriately funded through the national health service. That is crucial if we are to prevent such tragedies in future.
Last week, I visited a family support group in Stranraer and met a group of grandparents who are looking after their grandchildren. The members of that group have been brought together because of drug abuse in their families. They support one another and, among other activities, they run a helpline for others whose lives have been torn apart by drug abuse. I was impressed with the commitment and dedication of the volunteers and workers but was distressed to discover that anxiety about funding for rent and utilities for their premises was a constant distraction. They were concerned that they might not be able to keep going. I am aware that the Executive is currently undertaking a review of drug treatment. However, I make a plea that such groups receive support immediately.
I ask members to acknowledge the extremely valuable work that social workers carry out every day, which makes significant contributions to the lives of children and their families. I ask members to support the Scottish Socialist Party amendment in my name.
I move amendment S2M-593.2, to insert at end:
"; notes the continuing shortage of social workers, particularly in the child and family teams and that the current initiatives will not produce sufficient new workers to fill these vacancies and replace those due to retire; recognises that the current situation of local authorities competing with each other to attract staff is counter-productive; notes that there is a need to invest significantly to retain and attract future staff; regrets the continuing scapegoating of social workers when things go wrong which only serves to undermine the confidence of staff and contributes to the difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, and recognises the extremely valuable work that social workers carry out every day making significant contributions to the lives of children and their families."
I am pleased to open for the Liberal Democrats. The issue is very serious and emotive and, as health spokesman, I am pleased that there is broad recognition that a multi-agency approach is vital.
There are approximately 1 million children in Scotland, including almost a third of a million 16 to 21-year olds. Unfortunately many of them are among the most vulnerable members of our society, with one in five children entitled to free school meals and an estimated one in 10 living with domestic violence.
The report "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright" noted that
"many adults and children have little confidence in the child protection system and are considerably reluctant to report concerns about abuse or neglect"
and that 40 per cent of the children questioned when the report was being drawn up did not feel protected or had not had their needs met. That is an unacceptably high figure. The tragic death of Caleb Ness has brought the issue into sharp focus and I hope that we can all work together to improve the current situation.
A multi-agency approach to the issue is necessary and I welcome the Executive's robust approach as outlined in its motion. It is absolutely correct that the Executive should be seeking assurances from local authority and health board chief executives and chief constables in each child protection committee area. Similarly, where there is a multi-agency approach to child protection, there must be a multi-agency approach to the inspection of those services, and I welcome the fact that the Executive is developing proposals to do just that. It is expected that that will lead to a clear and independent assessment of the standard of protection that is being implemented.
However, there are two issues that must be considered if the approach is to be successful and, more important, if the Scottish people are to have confidence in the system. First, it must be made clear who is responsible for child protection services. A joined-up approach involving various agencies is all very well—and it is good—but the buck has to stop with someone. I ask for that to be clarified.
Secondly, and on the same theme, where the new, independent and, I hope, rigorous inspection process identifies problems in the service, a system must be put in place that will ensure that the Executive has the power to make sure that the problems highlighted are dealt with quickly and effectively. The system must ensure that someone from one of the various agencies is ultimately responsible for carrying out those improvements and that no one is allowed to pass the buck. I agree that it is everyone's job, but we must make sure that it is also someone's job.
I agreed whole-heartedly with the moves to develop a multidisciplinary approach but there can be little argument that social work departments have a key role. It is good to hear that there is a record number of social workers in Scotland. However, we are aware that social work departments throughout the country face recruitment and retention problems. I understand that there are more than 400 vacancies and an increasing number of early retirement requests. I welcome many of the innovative schemes that the Executive has implemented to tackle the issue. I am told that outside Marks and Spencer in Aberdeen last Saturday there was a huge inflatable advertising board encouraging people to train as social workers. Financial packages worth up to £9,000 per student are being offered to encourage new graduates to work in areas where there is a shortage, such as children and families teams.
That is fine and good, but I am concerned about the practice of local authorities outbidding one another in a race to recruit social workers from other areas. There have been reports of incentives of up to £5,000 for new recruits and even for existing staff who will agree to stay in the job for at least three years. That practice could be self-defeating. Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul? I appreciate that there are severe demands on social work departments but, with a national shortage in the profession, if that continues, social workers will end up working not where they are most needed but where the council has the deepest pockets. That should not be allowed to happen and I urge the Executive to monitor the situation closely and ensure value for money for the public purse by making sure that financial incentives are targeted at the areas where the need is greatest.
Mike Rumbles seems to be saying that we need to have a national strategy on social worker shortages so that we do not have to rob Peter to pay Paul. He then talks about prioritising the resourcing of areas where there is the highest demand. An area of high demand in one year might not be the same in the next year. Does Mike Rumbles accept that we need to have a national strategy on pay and conditions?
I am happy to accept that. I raise the issue because I am concerned that we might be robbing Peter to pay Paul in the short term.
The Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003 should go a long way to addressing many of the concerns about the suitability of many people who work with our children. The establishment of a list of those people who are deemed to be unsuitable to work with children is a welcome step forward, but rigorous steps must be put in place to ensure that organisations adhere to their duty to refer people to the list and that those that do not are dealt with severely. There can be no leeway in that and people will have to realise that the Executive takes that act very seriously.
Today's debate is a reminder of our responsibilities, but I would like to think that no reminder is needed. It is a chance to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that the various stakeholder agencies, including local authorities, health boards and the police, work together to improve child protection services. It must be made absolutely clear who has ultimate responsibility for child protection.
I am pleased to speak in this important debate—although the fact that we are holding it against the background of the recently published Caleb Ness report is probably weighing on all of us.
I want first to pick up on a couple of points that Mary Scanlon made. She suggested that we should seek to end the practice of children being kept in their own families at all costs. I point out to her and to others that both the Children Act 1989 and the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 say that, whenever possible, children should be brought up in their natural families. However, the overarching principle is that any action should be in the best interests of the children. Although there is a presumption that children should be brought up in their own families, the 1989 and 1995 acts make it clear that the interests of the child are paramount.
Mary Scanlon also suggested that we are on a social work merry-go-round. She suggested that, over the past 10 or so years, because of developments in community care, social workers have first been attracted to community care, then taken from community care to bolster the measures on child care in the 1995 act, and then taken from child care to work on mental health. That is not an image of social work that I recognise. Most social workers, once they have decided which part of social work they wish to specialise in, stay in that specialism. If someone specialises in child care—as I did—they remain in child care irrespective of any legislative changes.
Sir Stewart Sutherland wrote the report on long-term care for the elderly. He said that councils had taken resources from care of the elderly and diverted them into social work. That was part of the evidence.
Mary Scanlon talks about resources, but that does not necessarily mean social workers—valuable though they are to local authorities. Somehow or other, she misunderstands what Sir Stewart said in that context. The picture that she paints of social work is not the one that I see.
When I trained in social work in the early 1980s, the two names that struck fear into social workers when we talked about child protection were Maria Caldwell and Jasmine Beckford from the 1970s. Reading the Caleb Ness report, I was struck by the fact that the names Maria Caldwell or Jasmine Beckford could almost have been substituted for that of Caleb Ness. Thirty years on, the issue remains the same—communication or, rather, the lack of communication between agencies entrusted to deal with child protection. Every time a report is published, the organisation affected by the report improves its communications to prevent the same thing happening again but, meanwhile, someone somewhere else forgets those lessons and communication breaks down. It is not just one agency that is entrusted with child protection—it is not even just one or two agencies—we are all responsible, as others have said.
We have to ensure that the systems work properly. A key part of that is the case conference mechanism. The sharing of information has leaped ahead remarkably over the past 10 to 15 years. The old idea that agencies should keep information exclusively to themselves in the interests of client confidentiality has gone. However, different people still hold different pieces of the jigsaw and—even in participation and case conferences—the whole picture does not emerge. That is clearly what happened in the Caleb Ness case. The authority that was responsible for Caleb Ness's mother's older children had salient information, but that information was not asked for. The authority was not asked its opinion even though it was denying the mother unsupervised access. People in the criminal justice system were not asked for their opinion, and the police were not given complete information about the father. We have to learn from those mistakes and be sure that they do not happen again.
Will the member take an intervention?
Sorry, I am in my last minute.
There is a difficulty with current structures: we have 32 local authorities, eight police forces and 15 health boards. Getting those organisations to work together in a coherent fashion is quite difficult in some cases. In my area, it is easier because the police, local authority and health board areas have coterminous boundaries. However, that is the case very rarely in Scotland. We should not underestimate the structural difficulties.
Some have suggested that we need a much more robust social work inspection regime. I agree, but we should not underestimate the challenges that that would pose for child protection. Because of the multidisciplinary nature of social work, having an inspection regime that covers all the different areas will be incredibly difficult. We should not kid ourselves that simply having a more robust inspection regime will somehow make all the agencies work together more effectively in future.
Although this debate is about child protection, I preface my contribution by saying, as Mary Scanlon said, that all my words could apply equally to vulnerable adults—whether they have learning, mental, emotional or physical difficulties, or are just elderly. I have looked at the Caleb Ness report and parts of it could have applied equally to the Miss X case. I will not dwell on that point but the connection is clear. The report talks about
"Failure to take account of the background information readily available".
Ditto, the Miss X Case.
"Social workers allowed themselves to be easily reassured".
Ditto, the Miss X case.
"The whole Child Protection Case Conference process was flawed."
Case conferences for Miss X were also flawed.
Scott Barrie's contribution was extremely interesting and I defer to his professional experience. However, there is no doubt that, even when all the professionals are together, information is not shared. To some extent, a bit of professional protectionism is going on.
The report also found
"several significant problems … in the recording and sharing of accurate documentation relating to a baby known to be at risk."
Ditto, the Miss X case.
"The social worker and health visitor … were supposed to visit"
but did not do so
"often enough in the circumstances".
Ditto, the Miss X case. She was not visited for nearly four months despite the fact that a member of the household had a guardian appointed who could have entered the household at any time.
The report continues:
"We identified the lack of proactive senior social work involvement in the assessment of risk, in the re-assessment of risk, in decision making"
and so on. Ditto, the Miss X case.
Tragically, as there are with children, there are many cases in Scotland involving adults. We cannot attribute everything to the systems; it also has to do with the personnel involved.
Following the Miss X case, three reports were commissioned by Scottish Borders Council. Only after that did the case go to the social work services inspectorate. That was when I first became interested in the role of the inspectorate. I was pleased to hear what the minister said about taking a multi-agency approach. The inspectorate should be given real teeth. From my experience of the prisons inspectorate for Scotland, I know that, even when there are rigorous and robust reports from the chief inspector of prisons, sometimes things do not change. If we are to have an inspectorate, we want something that can actually change things for people on the ground, including the professionals who are working in the system.
I understand, from an answer from Euan Robson, the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, that the social work services inspectorate report should have been published in August. It has not yet been published, although I understand that it is with the deputy minister. Perhaps someone will advise me. Does the minister want to intervene?
The Deputy Minister for Education and Young People (Euan Robson) indicated disagreement.
I thought that the minister wanted to intervene. Ah well.
I will move on to whistleblowing. It is terribly serious when people—whether they are members of the public or, in particular, professionals—want to say something but cannot. During the Miss X case, I received a dossier from 10 social workers scattered across the Borders. Since then, other members of the social work department have contacted me on different issues. I do not necessarily want to receive that information but those people felt that they could not—[Interruption.] I will not take a sneer from Mr Robson, because I did not seek out those people. In many cases, I do not have their contact numbers—they got in touch with me. They will not use the whistleblowing system within Scottish Borders Council, because they do not feel secure. That is a real issue.
Social workers in Scottish Borders Council were issued with a letter that said that, if they got in touch with the press, they would be in breach of their contract. That is fair enough, given that that is in their contract. However, there was also an allusion to the fact that, if they got in touch with me, they would be breaching their contract, because I might go to the press. I am an MSP who represents their area and their interests. As constituents, they have every right to approach their MSP. It is no wonder that those professionals feel that they are being bullied and that they cannot go to other people because, if they do, they will be disciplined for showing weaknesses in the system. That is a serious issue. I have taken up with Scottish Borders Council the nature of the letter that was sent out.
Multi-agency working is essential. Housing associations, which are agencies that the minister did not mention, are crucial. A housing association or a housing department will often know that something might be going on in a household. I would add housing associations to the list.
I wish that I had before me a document that someone showed me recently. I think that it had just been produced by the City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Borders Council and West Lothian Council or Midlothian Council. I will track it down for the minister. I discussed it with someone who had been a senior social worker. The system that it contained has already been shelved because, although it was supposed to be about interagency working, it was not about that; it was simply about social work departments and systems and how they should work.
There is a huge cultural barrier to overcome. The word demarcation may be used. There is a preciousness among professionals about their systems interlocking, which affects not only the sharing of information but the sharing of funding. That is a huge hurdle for the Executive to overcome; it is an even bigger hurdle for the individuals concerned.
I, too, commend the many grass-roots social workers who are dealing with extremely difficult situations and making very difficult decisions on the front line, day in, day out. Like the vulnerable, they deserve the right systems, funding and leadership. That will ensure that they do not take the blame for things that are not their fault.
I would like to address one idea and one concern. The idea is the case for a national child protection helpline. The concern relates to the report "Dealing with offending by young people" and its follow-up report, which was published this month. I will discuss how that report links into today's debate.
Children 1st is lobbying all members on the case for a national child protection helpline. It believes that the establishment of a single, central number would address a number of problems and concerns that have been identified by the public, professionals, children's charities and politicians. People are often unsure about to whom they should report concerns, or are worried about the consequences of reporting their concerns. Children 1st knows that that is a problem from calls that have been made to ParentLine Scotland, which it runs, and from the work that it does with children and families.
The findings of the Scottish Executive's report of the child protection audit and review demonstrate the same concern. One contributor to the report said:
"if you see somebody breaking into a house you know to go to the police, if you're concerned about a child you don't really know what to do."
The outcome of recent reports into child deaths reinforces the need for such a helpline. The findings of the North East of Scotland Child Protection Committee inquiry into the death of Carla Nicole Bone highlighted the need for more information and improved public accessibility for reporting concerns about children.
A single, national telephone number for people to report concerns or—this is important—to discuss what kind of action, if any, they should take, would offer a clear point of contact for anyone who was worried about a child. Although the number would be national, the helpline would have to be linked to local services as children can only be protected locally.
Our collective goal should be not just to enable people to report concerns, but to motivate everyone actively to promote child protection so that there are fewer and fewer concerns to report. A national helpline would be an extremely valuable resource in helping to prevent, and to end, child cruelty and neglect.
I turn to the Audit Scotland report "Dealing with offending by young people". As children are offended against, they move from oppressed misery to acting out. That is followed by challenging behaviour and, finally, offending behaviour. That is the net result of a system that does not adequately protect our children.
I have been studying Audit Scotland's report and it seems that many of our young offenders have previously been failed, in one way or another, by our child protection services. Seven councils are not providing the required levels of supervision—50 per cent of all the children in Scotland who are on supervision are seen less than once a month. For many years—this year, the year before, at the end of the 1990s, at the beginning of the 1990s, at the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1980s, when I was working in the children's panel system, which is almost 25 years ago—chairs of children's panels have been complaining that the provision of social work services is insufficient to cope with the panels' disposals. There is not even a national standard for the supervision of children, who, it can be argued, are vulnerable and most in need of help, even though there is a standard for adults on probation, who must be seen weekly for the first month, every fortnight for the next two months and then at least monthly.
On national standards, does the member accept that the 1990 national standard for criminal justice, which specified to the court what could be expected from a probation order, was a huge improvement? If a supervision requirement has been recommended, social workers and the children's panel should be very clear about what level of contact is required, particularly in the early stages of supervision. We all know that that period is the most crucial.
I am happy to accept Scott Barrie's recommendations.
Although care plans are required by statute, more than a third of children on supervision do not have proper care plans—that is the figure for this month. The system is in a state of near breakdown. As has been mentioned already, we cannot even fill vacant posts for qualified social workers in children's services. Nearly 15 per cent of those posts were not filled in October 2002. In other words, we need another 247 social workers who are qualified to help children. I do not know how long it would take to train that number, but I guess that a year's output from our colleges would be required.
Audit Scotland's report also points out that only one authority in Scotland meets the police target of referring 80 per cent of all concerns to the children's reporter within 14 days. I do not understand why the police cannot be capable of referring concerns immediately and why the target is not referral within 48 hours; I certainly think that it should be. I contend that any concerns about a young child cannot possibly be a matter for internal debate by the police—they should be referred immediately to the children's reporter, who, after all, is an expert in such matters, to decide how the problem should be dealt with.
When "Dealing with offending by young people" was written, only eight of our 32 councils had care plans for more than 80 per cent of the children on supervision. Is it not an indictment of our children's fieldwork services that, in two thirds of our councils, more than 10 per cent of the posts for qualified children's social workers are vacant and that, in nearly a quarter of councils, more than 20 per cent of such posts are unfilled?
Audit Scotland's report was limited because its scope was limited to dealing with offending by young people, but a huge majority of those young people have been offended against, not only by members of their own families, by poverty and by the circumstances of their birth, but by a system that is failing them.
I welcome not only the rhetoric of the Executive's motion, but the clear evidence that action is going to be taken; I also welcome Audit Scotland's report.
There have been some strong speeches in this morning's debate. I think that we are all in agreement that the protection of children should be of paramount importance. I mention my interest as chairman of the Edinburgh support group of the charity Hope and Homes for Children and the fact that I helped to pilot the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 on to the statute book.
If eternal vigilance is the price that is to be paid for freedom, it is also the price that has to be paid for the protection of children. It is right that the debate has concentrated heavily on the supreme tragedy that befell Caleb Ness. The social workers whom I have known have been dedicated, selfless and highly professional people who were engaged in difficult work but, like the rest of us, social workers are not infallible. Their job is extremely important and necessarily involves a high degree of training. They are often overworked and understaffed. Therefore, it is vital that staffing is brought up to strength and that continuing efforts are made over a prolonged period of time to make that goal a reality.
That leads me to the essential question as to what went wrong in the case of Caleb Ness. It seems to me that there needs to be a re-examination of the culture that appears to exist within social work departments, which is that it is best to keep children with their families at all times. Frankly, I believe that a more important premise must be that the protection of the child should always be the overriding priority.
Given the publicity that any decision to remove a child from a home attracts if that move is then found to be unnecessary, does the member agree that the pressure on social workers not to remove children from homes is understandable?
Absolutely. The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 went through after the case in Orkney that was given such prominence. Such decisions are not easy. The member makes an important point, but I believe that the overriding premise should always be the protection of the child.
Sadly, most of the tragedies involving children in which there have been alleged mistakes by social work departments have involved poor interagency working and communication, which have resulted in a lack of accountability or willingness to take responsibility. That point was highlighted by Fiona Hyslop. We must ensure that that changes.
The recommendations of Susan O'Brien QC, who conducted the independent inquiry, are of great significance and need to be acted upon. Some of the points that she raised have surfaced before, following other child-murder cases of a desperately distressing nature, but that serves to reinforce their importance.
In particular, the minister must take up and implement three of Susan O'Brien's recommendations. First, she recommended that the child protection guidelines be amended so that health care professionals should notify the social work department if they anticipate that there may be risk to the child after birth, even if that means breaking the duty of confidentiality. That recommendation needs to be looked into. Secondly, it was her contention that children and families services and criminal justice social work services should review their joint working practices as a matter of urgency. Thirdly, she recommended that all agencies should make it a priority to collaborate in putting in place effective risk-assessment processes to underpin decision making.
Those matters are so important that the protection of children should receive all-party support. I am glad that the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, Euan Robson, said:
"The Executive is delivering a three year programme of sustained activity to improve child protection and ensure that the protection of Scotland's children continues to be a top priority, as pledged in our new Partnership Agreement."
That message has been reinforced by today's statement from Mr Peacock that the services need to be improved. I welcome the letter that he sent to the Education Committee, in which the review of services, multidisciplinary inspections, and child protection training for social workers are mentioned.
Much has been done under successive Governments but there is no cause whatsoever for either complacency or inactivity. A great deal more remains to be done. It would be fair to say that, if the different agencies and their employees had the knowledge that we now have, they would have been able to prevent the tragedy that befell Caleb Ness—
Will the member give way?
Let me finish this point. Susan O'Brien made the critical comment that the death was avoidable, as Mary Scanlon pointed out in her speech.
The member is in his last minute, so Scott Barrie must be very quick.
The member has made the point about what might have been done had people known then what we know now. However, one of the big features of the Caleb Ness report is that it highlights that the information existed but was not readily available to people involved in the case conference. In particular, the fact that two siblings of Caleb Ness were in the care of another local authority but that that local authority was not asked to the case conference seems to me a pretty salient point in the whole process.
I think that what Scott Barrie has said is correct, but my point is that the information that we now know was not known across the board. There was insufficient interagency working. We must learn from that.
We owe it to the memory of Caleb to do everything within our power to make certain that such an eventuality does not happen again. We would fail in our duty if we did not assist in putting in place the necessary safeguards. Our country expects nothing less.
As has been said many times this morning, there can be no doubt about the importance of partnership working among those who deal with children—particularly vulnerable children—and young adults. The Executive is to be congratulated on working to ensure that all agencies are moving towards co-ordinated strategies for ensuring child protection. The fact that ministers from two different areas of the Executive are participating in this morning's debate shows the Executive's commitment to partnership working.
We have heard much this morning about local authority provision but I want to focus on the provision of health care for Scotland's children, which is an area in which much work has to be done. The Executive's 2001 publication "For Scotland's children" painted a bleak picture. It showed that services were often fragmented and that support was poorly targeted and often came too late to make significant improvement. It also highlighted how those who used services for the most vulnerable children were stigmatised. However, I am pleased to say that we have moved on from that.
At the risk of seeming a bit parochial, I want to consider the work that has been done by NHS Greater Glasgow on these issues. I am not always vocal in my support of the health board, but I believe in giving praise where it is due. Members will be aware of the recent document "Making It Work For Scotland's Children: Child Health Support Group Overview Report 2003", which praised NHS Greater Glasgow. The report said:
"Despite the complexity of working with a network of six local authority partners, NHS Greater Glasgow demonstrates strong leadership and a commitment to integrated planning, particularly in Glasgow. This is reflected in examples of innovative and integrated services with a strong focus on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups."
Improving support for parents is a key component of protecting vulnerable children in Scotland. One good example of how NHS Greater Glasgow is providing support for families with pre-school children and beyond can be seen in the network of family centres throughout Glasgow and Lanarkshire. Last year, I accompanied the then Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care on a visit to the Cambuslang family centre in my constituency. The centre is an excellent example of partnership working between the health service and the local authority, which in this case is South Lanarkshire Council.
Cambuslang family centre is essentially a drop-in centre, where parents and other family members can go to seek advice and support on problems that they may be experiencing with their children. As well as providing support groups and counselling facilities, the centre offers guidance and help with good parenting techniques. Complementary therapies are also on offer to provide an holistic approach to children and their families. Access to other agencies, such as Scottish Women's Aid, is also available. The centre is an excellent facility that aims to provide a service that is both proactive and reactive to ensure that our children are well-supported and safe in our community.
The appointment by February of a children's commissioner will be a crucial step towards improving child protection. The proposed introduction of a multi-agency inspection system is another positive move. However, as we have heard this morning, recent cases have highlighted how much remains to be done, especially on joint working. Scott Barrie mentioned earlier how difficult it is for the 32 local authorities and 15 health boards to work together in areas such as my own where boundaries are not coterminous, as they are in Fife. There are definitely problems that must be overcome, but I am glad that we are moving towards better interagency working.
In the national health service, it is imperative that staff are aware of the need to ensure that children who present with symptoms that may be a result of abuse are not allowed to slip through the net. Obviously, there is a need to maintain patient confidentiality but I am aware that there are clear General Medical Council guidelines on when it is in order to do that. Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that we sometimes have to rule out neglect rather than rule it in. As one who worked in the accident and emergency department at Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow, I am only too well aware that children often attend hospital with perfectly innocent bumps and bruises and that it is not always easy to distinguish between the accidental and the deliberate.
Does Janis Hughes accept that one difficulty is that, too often, other agencies pass on lots of information to social work departments but then leave the decision on what to do about the situation to those departments, rather than try to make a judgment in the first place, as she was right to suggest? On child protection, we sometimes say too readily that everything should be passed on and that somebody, somewhere should make the decision, as long as it is not us.
That is an important point. We must accept that decisions in such cases should never rest with one person and should always be taken jointly, whether on an interagency basis or through joint working among agencies.
Interagency working and information sharing will allow health care professionals the opportunity to make more informed decisions. The Caleb Ness inquiry report said that that was a significant problem in the case. Although there was evidence of joint working between health visitors and social workers, it did not lead to a conclusion that any of us would have expected from joint agency working.
The issue is emotive and I am sure that all parties share the common goal of providing the best protection for our children. I congratulate the Executive on the work that it has done but remind it that much more remains to be done. I support the motion.
I do not think that we will hear in the debate any arguments against the principle of child protection, which lies behind the motion and the amendments. I am thankful that most people consider hurting children to be one of the most unacceptable crimes. That is why the political parties are prepared to work together to tackle the problems that lead to children's going unprotected and being hurt physically or psychologically.
We all want to tackle the problems and to make child protection more effective. I hope that the Executive accepts that any criticisms or points from Opposition parties are made constructively and in an effort ultimately to make life better and safer for all children in Scotland.
Child protection covers every aspect of life in which children are involved. I will refer to two aspects—child protection in local government social service delivery and child protection in schools, which has not been mentioned. In local government, the phrase "recruitment and retention problems" means that we have a shortage of social workers and social care workers and that overworked and stressed workers fill our departments. Ultimately, that means that young people and children do not receive the care and help that they need.
We must prevent children from falling through the net, to which the minister referred in his opening speech. He said that the First Minister, Jack McConnell, has given the Executive three years to get the child protection programme right. We all support that. However, I take members back two years to 20 March 2001, when the then Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs—Jack McConnell—announced a review of child protection procedures and said:
"It is vital that we do more than just talk about joined up working. We must ensure that everyone—local government, agencies and departments work better together locally to give the best service possible to our young people. No child should ever fall through the protection net just because professionals fail to work closely together."
That was said two years ago, and the First Minister has now given us three years to get the system right. That makes five years in which things could have been done better and children could have been better protected. I do not think that the Labour members who are laughing should do so; we are talking about children.
Will the member give way?
No, thank you. The member should sit down.
The reality of the situation is shown by social workers in North Ayrshire, who broke ranks, spoke out and raised concerns. As they are professionals, they raised concerns not for themselves or their jobs, but for the people for whom they knew that they were failing to deliver services.
That is the reality that lies behind the phrase "recruitment and retention problems". The reality kicks in when it means that trained and committed social workers are walking away from jobs because they do not feel valued or that their employers respect the challenging role that they undertake day in, day out. The reality day in, day out in North Ayrshire is that social workers feel that they are failing children. In residential care settings in North Ayrshire, it is not unusual for so few staff to be on duty that violence is increasing against staff and the people whom they are supposed to look after.
Will the member give way?
No, thank you.
Occasionally in North Ayrshire, children in residential care settings sleep on couches and social workers must leave children who are at risk in the family home because they cannot find a place in which to put them. That is the reality that the Executive must address.
The other aspect of local government involvement in child protection is the belief of some councils that they are being asked to assume more responsibilities and burdens without Executive funding to do so. I will return to that before I finish my speech, but I will move on to child protection in schools.
Will Campbell Martin give way?
No, thanks. I want to talk about the important issue of child protection in schools, because it has not been mentioned.
When we hand over our children to be educated in schools every day, we trust schools to protect them and ask the education system to do that. Unfortunately, he is not in the chamber at the moment, but I ask the minister who will sum up—I respect the fact that he is the Minister for Health and Community Care and that he will have to take advice on my question—whether it is right for a child to have to share a classroom with another pupil who has twice assaulted that child in the classroom when the teacher was present. Is it right that two female pupils whom that pupil, who has also assaulted other pupils, has inappropriately touched in the class must share a classroom with that pupil? Is it right that the same pupil's behaviour has resulted in the whole class having to leave the classroom and be taken to the school library while the teacher and other adults restrained and calmed that pupil? That is happening in schools in Scotland. What level of protection is the education service providing the parents of those children?
I close with a quotation from North Ayrshire Council's chief executive about the additional social service provision burdens that have been placed on councils. In a letter to me, the chief executive said:
"the price of failure to meet the targets and the challenges set by the Executive will be the demise of generic Social Work Departments controlled by local councils."
I sincerely hope that the minister will address that in his summing up.
I apologise for arriving slightly late for the debate.
Many of us speak in the debate with sadness about the recent events in Edinburgh in relation to the tragic death of Caleb Ness and the publication of the report into that, which also resulted in the sad loss of Les McEwan as the head of the social work department in Edinburgh. He gave 36 years of his life to his work and probably saved many children in his time, and I pay tribute to his high standards during his period of service to the people of Edinburgh.
As we listen to the speeches from members of all parties—some speeches have been very good—it is, sadly, clear that the Caleb Ness report could just as easily have been written about any number of children on any number of occasions. It is sad that the points that have been made are not new and have not been grasped, tackled and dealt with properly in the past. That means that we must worry that such matters will not be grasped, tackled and dealt with properly in the future. However, the report reminds us of the importance of getting child protection right and of the role that all of us play in achieving that.
Last February, the First Minister said:
"Radical improvements are essential. But the bottom line is that if the system goes on failing to protect children, then we will not protect the system."
I concur. I welcome the Executive's commitment to reform child protection services, because we must do all that we can to protect the more than 2,000 children who are in our care on protection registers. We must deal not only with cases that result in children being killed, but with the impact on children who survive to a future of prostitution, self-harm, mental health problems or offending behaviour. Many other consequences result from the treatment of such children by their parents and by others and from the fact that they are at risk.
The report called "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright" audited the various agencies' practices and made it clear that good communication between agencies is crucial to good child protection. We have heard today that that communication does not always happen. In the Caleb Ness case, the information existed but people did not share it properly.
Professionals sometimes think that it is more important to hold on to information or that they will be in breach of confidentiality in some way if they pass it on. If a child is at risk, to hell with confidentiality and professional barriers—that should be the bottom line. The fact that a child is at risk should take precedence over parents' rights, over professional rights and over everything. We must get that message across to professionals so that they know that they have that protection behind them.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have quite a lot to say and I would like to get on with it.
It is clear from the audit that 40 per cent of children do not feel protected. They are the Caleb Nesses of the future and it is up to us to put in place structures to protect them. I welcome what the Executive is committed to do in its three-year programme and what the minister says about multi-agency inspections and national standards. We are moving in a good direction, but there is much more still to do.
We are working against the background of increasing numbers of children being brought up in abuse and neglect and of problems with retention of social workers. I hear what my colleagues say about record numbers of social workers. We should acknowledge the good work that the Scottish Executive has done on that, but we have a major problem if we are losing experienced social workers because of stress and because no one is saying to them that, although we focus on the Caleb Nesses of this world, we also focus on the thousands of other pieces of work that they have done during the year and that they have got right.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
We must ensure that we value the work that goes on in our child protection agencies as well as focusing on them when things do not go right.
The report into the death of Caleb Ness concluded that
"this was an avoidable child death"
and that failures were found at every level in every agency that was involved. I acknowledge the work that the City of Edinburgh Council and its partner agencies are doing to respond effectively to the 35 recommendations that were made in the independent report. Council leader Donald Anderson said in a recent letter to MSPs:
"It is no longer enough to say that we have procedures in place and that staff are expected to follow these. In the aftermath of this inquiry report, we have to ensure that there is in place a system of checks and balances designed to mitigate risk."
Other councils should note that. There but for the grace of God goes every council in the country. It just happens to have been Edinburgh, which has twice the national average number of children on the risk register.
The City of Edinburgh Council and NHS Lothian are taking forward a comprehensive review of child protection procedures and practice. They are reviewing all the cases that are on their books and investing in extra clerical and managerial staff. They are also considering case conference procedures. In the Caleb Ness report, it struck me how ineffective the case conference had been. The report makes sobering reading; the process was flawed, and there was no indication that the conference took into account the two older children who were already in care, the criminal records of both parents, the father's brain injury or the child's health. Those seem to be fundamental errors and I am glad that the council and the Executive are looking again at the role of case conferences.
At the end of the day, Caleb Ness was murdered not by Lothian police, NHS Lothian or the City of Edinburgh Council but by his father. However, if we step back and allow children to remain at risk, we are all culpable.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I refer to a comment that a member made earlier. I do not have the report that was referred to by Ms Grahame. Scottish Borders Council has received the findings of fact on which the analysis and recommendations will be based. As is the usual practice, Scottish Borders Council can confirm or question the findings of fact—which has in fact now happened. The full report, with its recommendations, will be sent to Scottish Borders Council next week for comments. Only thereafter will ministers receive the chief social work inspector's report, which is of course entirely independent of councils and ministers.
Thank you. That is not, of course, a point of order, but I am sure that members will understand why the minister wanted to give that explanation.
We move to the next speaker—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Do you recognise that a point of order should refer to the standing orders of the Parliament, and that under the standing orders the minister can make an intervention at any time during a debate? Perhaps that would have been the most appropriate time to make such a contribution.
In general, it is probably in the interests of the conduct of debate that the chair should rule on points of order, rather than that members should jump up to rule on them. I intend to move on.
I welcome the debate on this extremely important subject and the motion's recognition of the requirement for
"local authorities, NHS boards and the police to review their practices in respect of child protection".
In particular, I welcome the amendment that calls for
"greatly improved co-operation and communication between agencies".
If we are to move on and learn from the tragedy of the Caleb Ness case and other distressing cases, it is essential that the willingness of the agencies involved to co-operate and take responsibility to address the fault lines is not suffocated and stifled in a blame culture.
Child protection is a huge issue and it seems to me to be much more complex than it was 30 years ago, when I began my teaching career in what was then termed a deprivation area. At that time, it was not uncommon for a child to turn up at school after an absence with a note of apology that explained that the absence was due to the child having no shoes. Despite the poverty, I had no doubt that parents—many of whom were single—had as their top priority the welfare of their children.
Over the years, the balance has shifted markedly. Today, children all too often feature at number 4 or 5 in the list of parental priorities—lower than parents' social lives and dependencies. Worse, in recent months I have been appalled at the conditions in which some children live, which are reminiscent of Victorian times. As a result of drug or alcohol dependency, some parents are incapable of looking after themselves, let alone their children. Such parents can be capable of getting their act together sufficiently and are articulate enough to pass the formal interview at which their ability to continue looking after their children is assessed. The shortage of social workers means that the on-going assessment and checks that should back up the interview with follow-up visits do not take place. The chaos—and often the squalor—of the child's home life is not detected and not addressed. In such circumstances, there is a clear need for interagency co-operation. The merging of social work and health would greatly aid that and lead to a better service.
I want to highlight the potential threat that the internet poses to child safety. There is a disaster waiting to happen: it is just a matter of time before a serious incident of child abuse results from contact made through the net. In the United Kingdom, an estimated 4.8 million children go online, of whom more than 1 million are under 14. Some 65 per cent of 16 to 17-year-olds in the UK have used the web and are frequent users of e-mail. Of those young people, 62 per cent use the internet at home. In most cases, children's knowledge of the internet far outstrips that of their parents, who are, by and large, unaware of the potential danger from the online activity of paedophiles.
In June 2000, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, in the United States, published a survey into the victimisation of children over the net. The study involved 1,500 children aged between 10 and 17 who regularly used the net. The findings revealed that, of the children surveyed,
"one in five received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet in the last year."
The survey concluded:
"Sadly the internet is not always the safe, educational and recreational environment we would have hoped for our young people."
At Westminster, legislation has been passed to tackle paedophile grooming activity online. There is a new criminal offence relating to meeting a child with intent to commit a sexual offence and a new criminal order to protect children from an adult making contact with them for a harmful or unlawful sexual purpose whether by e-mail, an internet chat room or at the school gate.
I have asked the Scottish Executive several times to ensure that we have the same protection in Scotland as exists south of the border, where clause 17 of the Sexual Offenders Bill, which does not apply to Scotland, provides that for offences of grooming of children, offenders can be jailed for up to 10 years. Each time, the Executive's response has been ambiguous; it has referred to the offence being covered by lewd, indecent and libidinous practices, but has stated that it is considering whether the law in this area needs to be strengthened.
Today, in this important debate, I ask the Scottish Executive again to ensure that we have the same protection in Scotland that the grooming offence and clause 17 of the Sexual Offenders Bill provide in England. I am baffled by why the Executive should hesitate to ensure that we have that belt-and-braces protection. In the meantime, I commend the "Webwise" leaflet produced by Hamilton crime prevention panel and the Chatdanger campaign supported by Carol Vorderman for ensuring that awareness is raised and for suggesting commonsense measures to protect children using the internet.
In the early hours of 17 May 2000, Kennedy McFarlane, then aged three years and one month, was admitted to Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary in a state of collapse. She died a few hours later in intensive care. Staff at Kennedy's playschool had registered their concerns about her well-being in the February. A range of injuries, including injuries to her eyes, her face and her urinary tract and signs of drug ingestion, was subsequently reported to health visitors, to GPs, to social workers and to the local hospital. The agencies involved agreed to hold a child protection case conference in May 2000. However, before the conference was held, Kennedy's mother's partner, Thomas Duncan, violently murdered her, a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence.
Astonishingly, prior to Kennedy's death, no one had asked about Mr Duncan, despite the fact that the abuse coincided with his move into the family home. Dumfries and Galloway's child protection committee commissioned an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kennedy McFarlane's death. That inquiry was conducted by Dr Helen Hammond, whose report, which was published in September 2000, found that although Kennedy's violent death could not have been predicted, it could have been prevented.
Three years ago, Dr Hammond identified a lack of effective communication between health and social services officials, which resulted in failure to trigger a formal child protection investigation. One of the many sad facts of the case is that prior to Kennedy's murder, Dumfries and Galloway Council's social services department and health board were considered to work well together. In 1999, when he was Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, I accompanied Iain Gray to a meeting with senior officials from social services and the health board and we were told that being co-located was helping joint working. The meeting was held in the context of Dumfries and Galloway being a good example of joint working between health and social services. Sadly, it was later proved that locating senior managers in the same building did not mean that vital and effective communication was taking place.
Dr Hammond's report concentrated on the local issues surrounding this particular tragedy. In February 2001, the various agencies published their responses, which included specific departmental and interdepartmental action plans to address her concerns.
Dr Hammond's report also noted some matters of national concern and made suggestions for consideration by the Scottish Executive. Among the matters of concern was the effect that isolation from a major teaching centre could have on agencies in a rural area. Dr Hammond also noted the effect of unrealistic work loads on key professionals and suggested the establishment of a national centre for child protection. I am pleased that we have heard from the minister that the Executive has followed through the national review and audit and that progress is being made; that is much to be welcomed. I say to Mr Martin, however, that we are in the second year of the reform of children's services and not the first.
We need to recognise that there are significant challenges in achieving the improvements that we desire. The children's social work statistics for the year ending March 2003 show a 13 per cent increase in the number of children on local child protection registers compared with the previous year, and a 12 per cent increase in referrals for child protection inquiries. Those increases might represent an increase in awareness, which is all to the good as long as the cases are followed up. However, staff vacancies over the same period increased by one third and that adds considerable stress to the system. In Dumfries and Galloway, we have a lower than average number of social workers per head of population and, oddly enough, a lower percentage of vacancies—a contradiction that I have flagged up to the responsible director on the council. From my case load, I am acutely aware of the local shortage of social workers and the pressures that that puts on those who are in post.
Mike Rumbles described how competition between local authority areas when bidding for staff makes matters worse. The British Association of Social Workers has expressed its concerns that the welcome measures that are being taken by the Executive to try to increase the numbers of social workers might not fully bear fruit for four years.
Had Kennedy McFarlane's murder been prevented, she would now be six years and eight months old and in her second year of primary school. The investigations that were caused by her tragedy have continued now for a longer period than her short life. Some 18 months after her death, 11-week-old Caleb Ness was murdered by his father. That was a year after Dr Hammond's report. Five-year-old Danielle Reid's body was found this year in the Caledonian canal. I am pleased that ministers have accelerated the development of their responses to the review and audit in response to those further tragedies. I welcome the increased pace of reform.
On 11 October this year, The Scotsman newspaper noted that, according to the national criminal intelligence service, babies under one year old are at greater risk of being murdered than any other group. Children are most often at risk from the very people who would be expected to afford them the maximum protection—the people who brought them into the world and their partners. Those children look to the child protection agencies and to us, the legislators, to defend them. We owe it to the memory of Kennedy McFarlane, Caleb Ness, Danielle Reid and the others who have died in similar dreadful circumstances to prevent the fate that befell them befalling other chldren.
I will give some of my impressions of social work as a result of living with a child and family social worker for many years—I should say that I married her.
Social workers are underpaid by comparison with other similarly qualified professionals, although that is not their most serious concern. Pay alone would not cure the shortage problems; one has only to look at the shortages of general practitioners and dentists to realise that. More important, social workers are undervalued by society in general and they end up being the whipping boy for society's failures. As has been pointed out, it is not social workers who commit child murder, which is the subject of all the cases that we have discussed. As a result of staff feeling undervalued, there is often low morale and an increasingly high turnover of staff in social work departments.
Most important, social workers are overworked and they have huge case loads. Many cases do not get dealt with because they are not the most important ones; there is time to deal with only the most urgent cases. In that context, there are 35 recommendations in the Caleb Ness report, eight of which would lead to increased work for social workers. That increases the problem.
Social workers are overburdened with paperwork and reports and much of the paperwork and procedures have been created as a result of legislation that was introduced following previous tragedies. We must ask ourselves whether the balance between procedure and action is correct. As has been mentioned, more people are now trying to cover their backs because they know that they will be blamed if something goes wrong. That is particularly problematic with regard to the assessment of risk, which, by definition, is not directly quantifiable and is often a matter of subjective judgment.
The other impression that I have formed is that, over a period of perhaps 20 years, problems and pressures have worsened. Things are deteriorating rather than improving.
In his opening speech, the minister acknowledged the importance of numbers and discussed breakdowns of communication between the various services. Of course, the two matters are interrelated. If a person is overworked, communication is yet another task that they must prioritise along with other things. If they must communicate about case A or do something about case B, they cannot do both things at once and often something will fall down the crack. Bearing in mind the need for information sharing, which was discussed earlier, the problem that could arise from too much information being passed around should be considered—I think that Scott Barrie mentioned that problem. The amount of information that is passed around in itself increases work loads. The more information that a person has, the more chance there is that they might miss out the one vital piece of information that could lead to something important being done.
I want to consider one conclusion of the Caleb Ness report, on which Mary Scanlon and Scott Barrie commented. There was an unspoken assumption that the parents had the right to care for their baby. That assumption dominated events to the extent that Caleb's right to a safe and secure upbringing was never the focus of decision making. I understand that matter on the surface, but am unclear about what it means in practice. As Scott Barrie said, parents have such a right, unless legal steps are taken to change it in accordance with legislation. If it is decided that a child's rights mean that the child's parents should not exercise their rights, either temporarily or permanently, at least two points arise. First, the procedural and legal hurdles that are involved in removing the child are often immense and time-consuming and put even more pressure on social workers. Secondly, in most areas, there is a severe lack of alternative carers to whom children can be given if it has been decided to remove them from their parents.
Does the member agree that one difficulty in removing children relates to the much more difficult procedures that were introduced by the legislation that Lord James Douglas-Hamilton piloted through Westminster? That legislation introduced into child protection cases a court procedure before the children's hearings system was reached. Such a procedure had not been there previously.
I agree. One problem is that far more preparation and a much higher level of justification are needed to hold the action in front of a sheriff, as opposed to in front of a children's panel reporter, and that makes the process more difficult and timeconsuming.
I make a plea for a consistent approach from the Executive in dealing with the problem. I have with me two contrasting press releases. One, which is very hard, is from 18 February 2003, at the time of the child protection conference. It is headed
"Final warning for failing child protectors"
and that
"If the child protection system continues to fail",
immediate action should be taken. It talks about the need to "tackle poor performance locally".
On 29 June 2003, there was a much softer press release—from the minister, I think—that talked about "developing a Children's Charter", "building on proposals", and the need to "encourage better joined-up working" and "provide greater assurance". It quotes the Minister for Education and Young People, who said:
"there can be no quick fix."
That is a more consensual and favourable approach towards solving the problem. Social workers would be more encouraged if there was consistency of rhetoric from the Government.
I rise to support the motion in the name of Peter Peacock and to congratulate our Labour-Liberal coalition on its determination to grapple with the issues.
When we consider policy, we must consider resources. I am pleased to note from ministers' reports that the provision of resources and the political drivers are being put in place by the coalition. I am particularly pleased that there is a Cabinet delivery group for children and young people—I welcome that. I am also pleased that funding is being increased annually, from £19 million to £35 million in 2004-05, rising to £50 million in 2005-06. For looked-after children, an allocation of £30 million over three years has been set aside. Seeing such resources being put in place gives us confidence that resources are being made available to match the policy that the Executive is keen to develop. I am also pleased that the children's commissioner will be in post by February next year, which is encouraging.
However, like all members, I am deeply saddened and extremely concerned when, in spite of our best efforts, inquiries and every ounce of determination by the professionals, there is yet more evidence of the system failing our children. We see such evidence from time to time and we have heard a roll-call of such cases this morning.
In measuring what our policies are achieving in Scotland, it is always valuable to get a perspective on how we are regarded elsewhere in the world and to learn lessons from abroad where possible. Earlier this year, I spoke to one of my friends in London. She is a highly regarded child care and family specialist lawyer and she told me that Scotland has a great deal to be proud of. She travels the world and speaks at conferences throughout the world, so she is in a good position to make a judgment. She was born and bred in Sicily, but has worked for the best part of her life in London and she is regarded as a specialist. This year, she came from London to learn more from leading child care specialists in Scotland, which says something about the system in Scotland.
I commend to colleagues a report on a seminar that was held in 2002 on international perspectives on child protection. There are many lessons to consider from that report, which enables us to measure this country's performance against the performance and policies of other countries. Naturally, as a result of countries' different histories and cultures, it is not always possible to transpose what might work in one country to another country, but one key lesson from the report is that, whatever the policy framework, the system must be supportive and flexible in relation to the anxieties that are faced by workers at the sharp end. The report also states that no international system is free from flaws.
A key point that emerges from the international perspective is that a judgment that is made that a system is not working can often result more from the dearth of support services than from the workings of the system itself. Shortages and work overloads in Scotland were mentioned in the report in respect of health visitors, reporters and forensic psychiatric places. The lack of staff is said to have diluted some services, while the channelling of money into special projects has starved some mainstream services.
The report, which highlights many comparative studies involving countries such as France, Belgium, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, is valuable because it provides detailed and worthwhile analysis of all the systems, policies and practices. It reflects a real determination on the part of our professionals to improve the care and protection of our children.
I want to say one more thing that people should take on board. We must, above all, do our utmost to support our professionals. Only last night, I was with a psychologist friend who told me that a social worker whom she knew disliked being introduced as a social worker. We must encourage social workers and other professionals to feel valued and to have a feeling of self-worth. All members have a duty to do so.
I apologise to two members whom I have been unable to call. We must proceed to closing speeches. As ever on Thursday mornings, time is tight.
The debate has been unique because there has been real consensus. As a result, I appeal to the Executive to examine the wording of all the amendments. I find myself in the unique position of supporting the Conservative amendment. I do not support it as a result of what has been said in the debate, and I do not agree that there should be complete integration of the NHS and social work budgets, but that subject does not appear in the Conservative amendment. That amendment calls for greater co-operation and collaboration, which are obviously worthy of support.
Similarly, the SNP amendment attempts to emphasise the Executive's role in staff training, retention and recruitment. I make no apology for the SSP amendment, which concentrates on one specific aspect of the overall problem—the recruitment, treatment and training of our social work staff.
Many members have referred to the number of people employed in social work. The Scottish Executive statistical bulletin that is available today makes the situation plain. It indicates that social care staff numbers were similar in 2002 to what they were in 2001, but that the level of vacancies increased by about a third. That suggests a 4 per cent increase in posts, mainly in fieldwork—that most essential element of social work. There is no room for complacency about the recruitment and retention of staff.
Mr Peacock will have received a letter last month from Mr Roberts, on behalf of a Glasgow children's panel. That letter warns about the shortage of social work staff and the inability of the children's panel service to work properly because of that staffing crisis. The letter states that provision
"in the last year has worsened rather than improved".
The letter also states that the failures
"totally undermine the hearings system and make it meaningless. If children are not seen by social workers, then they are falling through the net. The situation is worse than having no system at all, because it brings the system into disrepute."
That letter was given to the minister on 20 October. The problem is that it follows on from a letter to the previous minister, Cathy Jamieson, last November. The previous letter from the children's panel states:
"Many children were not allocated a social worker, meaning that ‘social work plans are not followed or, even worse, there is no plan.'"
Many children go a full year without being allocated a social worker. We must recognise that there is a real crisis in the recruitment and retention of social work staff, particularly in child care.
I was drawn to the evidence given by John Stevenson, the branch secretary of the Unison City of Edinburgh branch, to the Caleb Ness inquiry. He gave evidence on behalf of the social workers, who are often the butt of the gutter press stories—they are often represented as the ones who are to blame for the problems.
We could do with showing some consistency, because many politicians in the chamber often have a go at social workers. Thankfully, members have not done so today, but let us hope that there is consistency in future and that we continue to show respect for the professionalism and compassion of those who work in social work. By the way, why would people want to work in social work? They get a raw deal in terms of wages, they are overworked and they are publicly criticised. Social workers deserve to be given extra credit.
I will finish with a set of examples that Mr Stevenson gave in his evidence. He talked about some of the real-life cases that his members deal with. Those cases include
"The baby with a fractured skull they rescued from a house on one of the twice-daily visits they were doing because they had sought, but had been refused, a place of safety order."
The social workers had sought a place of safety order but they were refused it so they took a chance, removed the child and discovered that the baby should have been removed as it had a fractured skull. If they had not removed the child and subsequently it had died, who would have been to blame?
Another example that he gave was
"The 3-year-old they took to hospital outwith procedures (and possibly the law) because they suspected injuries and found healing fractured ribs and limbs—if they had been wrong they would have faced disciplinary or even legal action—but because their hunch was right, all that was forgotten."
That is the case of a child who was removed on the basis of a professional hunch. Social workers do not get the credit that they deserve for the hundreds of children that they save, day in, day out, from that type of abuse.
That is why I hope that there will be support for all the amendments in today's debate. If the Executive will not support them, I hope that it will clarify why it is not prepared to do that.
I am happy to support the motion and I agree that there is a lot to support in the amendments. I do not know how the divisions will work out.
I will act as a sweeper and emphasise some of the points that need more emphasis. The Executive and the Parliament are committed to having a children's commissioner. The person who fills that post will have an important part to play in improving the situation. He or she will not deal with individual cases, but will use the cases to develop policies and try to make improvements. That is an important step forward.
We have not dealt very well with runaways. Before the Parliament started, I pointed out the lack of facilities to encourage runaways to come back and the lack of provision to ensure that if they did not want to go straight home they could go to some sort of hostel where they would be looked after and eased back into the community. I still think that there is inadequate provision of that sort of service.
We could use the current emphasis on tackling antisocial behaviour to provide more resources to help families. Research shows that many of the problems that teenagers experience start earlier than the teens because there is a problem within the family. We must invest more in family support and use some of the antisocial behaviour budget to address that. That would also benefit the children who are the subject of the debate.
We all talk about interagency working, joined-up government and all that, but it is very difficult to make that happen, because it is a remarkably difficult task to make people co-operate. There is a danger that we will be a bit like the gentleman who was Saddam Hussein's press officer, who kept on saying how marvellously his troops were fighting when in fact they had all gone home. I am not suggesting that the social workers have all gone home. They do a very good job, as do health workers, the police and so on. However, getting those people to co-operate is difficult. We must monitor that carefully to ensure that it happens. We must address the situation in reality, not only in our rhetoric.
To support social workers we need not only to recruit more of them, but to recruit more care workers, support workers and so on. That will help to deliver the whole team that creates a climate in which children are well looked after.
As other members have said, we must value social workers more. We must stand up against the bad aspects of the media that vilify social workers. In modern British—I fear even Scottish—society, the media set the agenda more than people like us do. We must have a bit of backbone on subjects such as this. Perhaps we could persuade some of the television companies to have soap operas in which a social worker is a Dixon of Dock Green-type hero who supports the local community.
We must fund adequately and consistently the organisations that deal with the sort of problems that we are discussing today. I do not know if I should confess it, but during some of the duller speeches I was concluding a letter to the minister pointing out that an organisation that provides one-to-one support for young people who are having difficulty at school, in their family, or whatever is about to close through lack of funding. There must be consistent funding of good organisations.
A specific point that has been drawn to my attention and which I took up with a minister very recently—I have not yet had a reply—is that, as I understand it, whereas men who hit their partners can get into trouble with the police, that is not the case in relation to large teenage youths who hit their mothers. We must protect families. We must help parents who need support to deal with their children; we should not sit around and blame them. We must also support teachers so that there can be more adequate discipline in schools, because that helps children who are being bullied to get on with their classes and learn better. The teaching profession needs more support from us.
The debate has been encouraging. I hope that lessons can be drawn by the Executive from the many good points that have been made.
The debate has been excellent. It has covered the relevant factors and there have been many good contributions. However, it is one thing to speak in this Parliament and give commitments in words, but it is another thing to deliver. I pick up on Mary Scanlon's comment that we do not want to be here again in two or three years' time, debating the same issues in the same tragic circumstances in which we have discussed them today. I am sure that that is the minister's intention. I welcome his motion and the fact that he is prepared to accept Mary Scanlon's comments.
However, I have a minor criticism to make of the wording of the Executive motion, which talks of a "sustainable programme of reform". What we need is a sustainable programme that achieves the aim. Reform comes not as a sustainable element, but as a necessity in providing an adequate, reliable and trusted service. In the same, unbiased way, I make a slight criticism of the Conservative amendment, which seeks "to encourage greater responsibility", when the phrase should be "to ensure greater responsibility". That must be the aim of the Parliament today.
The tragic death of Caleb Ness has been referred to throughout the debate, principally because of the excellent way in which Susan O'Brien went about her task. I pay tribute to my Tory councillor colleagues on the City of Edinburgh Council who insisted that that should be an independent review rather than an internal inquiry. That was important. The report highlights shortcomings in how such cases are dealt with by almost all the agencies that have responsibilities for the overall welfare of children whose parents have failed or are failing them.
Mary Scanlon made the point that this reflects the situation not only in the City of Edinburgh Council, but in every local authority in the country. The good reasons why that is the case have been explained today, and are actually covered in the amendments from the SNP and the Scottish socialists: reference the low availability of people and resources to social work departments. Every local authority should be well aware of the contents of the report and should take heed of it. My colleague, Margaret Mitchell, made the point that the report's identification of shortcomings is not intended to be part of some blame culture; rather, it is intended to highlight lessons to be learned for the future.
I believe that, first and foremost, the fundamental responsibility for children lies with their parents. When the parents fail, all the agencies, health authorities, schools, the police and the judiciary have responsibility for the care of the children. That responsibility goes even further, as the minister suggested, to neighbours and others who also have a role to play. We must take those aspects on board in trying to promote the objectives that are set out in the O'Brien report. Nevertheless, under the widely acclaimed Children (Scotland) Act 1995, the duties are placed on the local authorities. We have to put the main responsibility on someone, and I believe that, at the present time, social work services have to accept that responsibility.
There are several key elements of the O'Brien report that have to be addressed. Scott Barrie took exception to a comment about the presumption that natural parents are best placed to look after their offspring. However, that is what Susan O'Brien said in her report. I suggest that there is an underused facility that should be considered when social work services are looking for the on-going care of children. I am talking about grandparents, to whom Rosemary Byrne referred earlier. A problem that is often faced by grandparents is the fact that no financial support is given to many of them by local authorities throughout the country. That is a situation that ministers should address. A flexible arrangement exists that gives local authorities an element of choice, but it is not used to any great extent.
I feel that my views and those of other members reflect each other; therefore, I will not continue further.
This has been an important debate in which there has been much consensus, as members have remarked. There have been many good speeches, and I apologise for not being able to refer to them all.
We must remember the hard work that social workers carry out. Theirs is a thankless task in many instances, as was ably illustrated by Alasdair Morgan. We must give social work staff the resources and support to enable them do the job properly. As Tommy Sheridan said, on a day-to-day basis children are protected, their lives are saved and the quality of their lives is enhanced. We should remember that. But—and it is a big but—we must also make it clear that, when practices are not as good as they should be, action will be taken to address them. Above all other considerations, the interests and welfare of the child must be paramount.
In his opening statement, Peter Peacock talked about child social work being a complex area of work—which is correct—and said that it is everybody's job to protect children. He also acknowledged the fact that the case of Caleb Ness revealed severe failings on the part of several people, not just the social workers who were involved, that it was not an isolated case and that the key issue was better communication. I welcome the programme of reform, which seeks to address a number of issues by improving communication, providing clearer leadership and putting the interests of the child first.
The move towards a multi-agency inspection system is also to be welcomed. The key issue in the case of Caleb Ness was the fact that agreed procedures were not followed. I do not think that resources were the issue; the issue was communication. Lessons must be learned from that.
Fiona Hyslop talked about there being too much crisis management. Her point was well made. In addition to focusing on the children who are on the child protection register, we must focus on the children who are not on the register and who may not even explicitly be at risk but who—without the work that is going on with their families and if early intervention does not take place—may end up in that situation.
I remember from my experience, not as a social worker but as someone who was involved in the home care side of things, that, all too often, because of the limitation of resources, resources were allocated only to cases in which there was an imminent risk to the child. Many other children faced an element of risk—that is what I thought, and others agreed—but it was not of a high enough level to attract the limited resources. I suggest that, if enough work goes on with such families at an early stage, a lot of later crisis intervention can be avoided. We need to address that, and it brings us back to the issue of resources. Let us not focus on meeting the resource needs only of children who are on the child protection register and those who are at risk, although we must do that; let us look beyond that to ensure that the resources exist for work with all the children and families who are identified as requiring support.
The important issue of drug abuse has been highlighted by several members. We cannot address this issue in isolation; we must ensure that the surrounding services are also resourced and that there are adequate drug rehabilitation services to ensure that people get the support that they require.
Too many issues were raised to go into in the time that I have, but I will summarise the main ones.
Vacancy levels and resources are key. There must be better communication between social work staff. As the Minister for Health and Community Care is present, I stress that the removal of criminal justice workers from the social work team would be a mistake. We need to keep those workers together to ensure that there is good communication.
Similarly, there must be better communication between agencies. We need to consider whistle-blowing and the proposal that Children 1st made in that regard. We need to ensure that systems are robust. I do not know if they can be made failsafe, but they should be made as good as they can be.
We need to ensure that we all understand that children's welfare is the responsibility of every one of us and that the interests of the child are paramount.
This has been an excellent debate. The central message, as was the message of the audit and review, is that protecting children is everyone's business. The most vulnerable children have a right, like all other children, to be safe and secure. If our society is to protect children and prevent child abuse, we must work together across agencies and professional boundaries.
We have set up a reform programme, as described by Peter Peacock and others. A key part of that will be a multi-agency inspection process with measurable standards, which was welcomed by Mike Rumbles and others.
Recently, Peter Peacock, Cathy Jamieson and I have written to chief executives of local authorities, leaders of NHS boards and chief constables requiring statements of assurance that they have reviewed how their services act individually and jointly to protect children, that they are either satisfied or have identified areas for action and that they have robust quality assurance mechanisms in place.
Health has a vital role to play in this area and I will deal with that as well as respond to points that have been made.
Fiona Hyslop and Robin Harper talked about the helpline proposal from Children 1st. We already support helplines—ChildLine and ParentLine in particular—and have made additional resources available to them. However, we are considering the Children 1st proposal and will respond in due course.
While welcoming the reform programme, Mary Scanlon asked how it would be monitored and reviewed. Key to that will be the inspection of services and we will announce proposals for that in the new year, based on the national standards that will focus on outcomes for children.
Margaret Mitchell asked about new offences and sentences in England with respect to internet-related activity. I am advised that we already have stringent legal recourse in Scotland in many of those areas but I will ask officials to examine the comparisons that were made and to write to Mrs Mitchell.
Health has a vital role to play and the Caleb Ness inquiry report highlighted several areas for improvement. Those areas are consistent with the findings of the national audit and review of child protection and other inquiries into child deaths. In particular, action is required to address accountability and leadership, communication and information sharing and staff training.
We will continue to value and support staff, as Mary Scanlon said we should, but we will do so within a proper culture of accountability. The Caleb Ness inquiry found a lack of clear responsibility for child protection at various levels within the NHS. We will require chief executives of NHS boards to ensure that there are unambiguous lines of accountability and responsibility for child protection in their organisations. As part of that process, we will ask chief executives to contribute to the current review of the role and remit of child protection committees and to consider how best to include senior health representation in relation to multi-agency work so that regular reports can be made to NHS boards.
Communication is critical, both inside individual agencies and across professional and organisational boundaries, as Scott Barrie emphasised. Effective information sharing among the relevant professionals is crucial to protecting children. Although confidentiality is important, agencies must not hide behind it inappropriately, as the focus must always be on the welfare of the child.
Guidance to health professionals in relation to protecting children is unequivocal. For example, the General Medical Council has already advised doctors that information must be disclosed to an appropriate agency or person where the health professional believes a patient to be a victim of neglect, or physical or sexual abuse. Because we know that this remains an area of concern for many staff, the Scottish Executive is about to issue a short good-practice guide on sharing information about children at risk. It is designed to help staff approach this complex area with greater clarity and confidence.
Sharing information can also be assisted by appropriate information technology systems. The children's services stream of the e-care programme, part of our modernising government programme, is running pilot projects that include the development of an integrated children's services record and the identification of core data for a shared assessment framework. The protection of children at risk is a key driver.
If the assurances that the minister seeks from various authorities are not provided by the time that the minister holds next spring's conference, would he be prepared to examine the powers that the social work services inspectorate has?
Secondly, on the issue of having someone on health boards who is responsible for child protection services, my understanding is that they should already have been appointed.
We are already examining the inspectorate's powers. There is a requirement on those agencies to take action. If they have not taken action, we will ensure that they do.
On the second point, some of these actions ought to have been taken already and, while much progress has been made, far more needs to be done. I will say more about what we are going to do in the very near future to ensure that that happens.
Training is a key area. The Caleb Ness inquiry reinforced the importance of effective training in child protection for staff at all levels in organisations, including those who are not directly involved in caring for children. We will take up those issues with chief executives and chairs of NHS boards to ensure that NHS staff participate effectively in child protection training so that they have a clear understanding of when and how to share information and what to do with it and are fully aware of their individual and corporate responsibilities for protecting children.
Janis Hughes praised the work of NHS Greater Glasgow. I join her in that and point out that we have recently provided pump-priming funding for a managed clinical network for child protection in the west of Scotland. That arrangement will improve access to specialist health child protection services for children at risk and will support staff training and the development of standards and quality assurance processes
In the next few weeks, we will be issuing guidance on child health surveillance, which is the programme of checks that tends to be undertaken by health visitors. The guidance will recommend that child health surveillance activity should be refocused to ensure that health visitors provide more intensive support to those families most in need.
At the next meeting of NHS board chairs later this month, child protection will be the major theme. I will be requiring NHS chairs to ensure that the boards give proper consideration to their responsibilities for child protection work and take account of the findings of recent inquiries. It will also be the main agenda item at the next meeting of NHS board chief executives next week.
Fiona Hyslop and Rosemary Byrne raised concerns about parents with drug-use problems. That is a growing social phenomenon that we should all be concerned about. Obviously, some action has been taken in relation to support services being strengthened. The new surveillance that I referred to will be relevant in that regard. We are actively reviewing the findings of the recently published report "Hidden Harm", which deals with the needs of children whose parents abuse drugs, to see what further action needs to be taken, including by the child protection reform team. That is an important piece of work.
Robin Harper said that there was no standard in respect of seeing children on supervision. I assure him that we will issue guidance on that in the near future and that we have already given a commitment to that effect.
Campbell Martin said that social workers are walking away from their jobs. I could say a lot about recruitment, but not in the time I have left. The fact is that there are more social workers now than at any time, notwithstanding the difficulties of the profession. We know that the job can be stressful and, today, we are launching an initiative to support frontline staff.
The national audit and review of child protection showed that we must take action. We have shown the progress that we have already made in the reform programme and I have also outlined the important steps being taken within the NHS to ensure that the findings of the recent report into the tragic death of Caleb Ness are taken on board and acted on.
We look forward to receiving the support of members in delivering a tough programme of reform that will truly improve children's lives.