The Sara Sharif case: what is the point of taxpayers funding these failing organisations?

I agree with this, I can't believe they're not checked on.

This story is heartbreaking nothing was learned from the BabyP case at all. Social Services whilst there must be some successful cases like everything we only hear the bad. It’s so hard to restore confidence when in this day and age so many children and other vulnerable are suffering. I have no answers but fully agree OP.

Why is my tax funding these useless departments?

My tax. Lol.
Setting aside the sainted taxpayer's arrival, I imagine the answer is a very simple, your (or indeed, anybody's) tax doesn't fund these departments, to anywhere the level they would actually need funding to get the job done properly, that's the point.

Social services should absolutely be held to account. a local child safeguarding practice review found that a Surrey County Council social worker's report submitted to the family court failed to reference significant safeguarding concerns about Urfan Sharif. She should never have even been there.

as for the HS department even IF and it’s a big IF they were let in AND identified immediate risk of harm I doubt they would have been listened to - the school certainly wasn’t when they raised concerns!

Thats great if you are able to flex time and work late.
For many their day is pinned you must finish on time to get to nursery or afterschool.

My big question is why was he given custody of her in the first place.

Maria Colwell (1973), Victoria Climbié (2000), Peter Connelly (2007), Daniel Pełka (2012) and all those who didn't elicit official enquiries, institutional hand-wringing and regurgitated clichés about lessons being learned...

Which crucially was left out of the report to family court.

[[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v14z7r1yro?app-referrer=deep-link www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v14z7r1yro?app-referrer=deep-link and https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2020/december/a-woman-has-been-sentenced-after-7-year-old-emily-jones-was-killed-in-bolton/ www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2020/december/a-woman-has-been-sentenced-after-7-year-old-emily-jones-was-killed-in-bolton/]]]]

(very distressing stories, involve the deaths of very young girls)

are interesting as a comparison.

No blame is ascribed to other services in either as far as I can see, and both are far less widely reported than Sara Sharif and the Southport murders, although I realise the latter one coincides with the start of lockdown which partly account for that.

It's not only about the costs, it's also that it's incredibly damaging to the child to be removed from their family, and the care system is inadequate and has poor outcomes.

Has anyone explained why the father was given full custody despite having been physically abusive to both his ex wife and Sara?

I assume the mother was unfit in some way, but what if she wasn’t?

why is a child ever given to a parent who has been known to physically abuse them?

A friend's daughter, excellent social worker material I would have thought, went into social work. After a few years, she retrained as a teacher, disillusioned by funding issues and high case load. I imagine the churn rate is quite high in social work, as it is in teaching.

There are always new social workers coming through university but not enough of them and if I'm honest, not enough high quality. Social work education should be fully funded and highly competitive, just like nursing should. It baffles me that governments withdraw funding for these essential training courses.

The parents are to blame, first and last. But there could’ve been so much more done to stop terrible people like Sara’s father & stepmother from having custody of her in the first place.

Ultimately, it all comes down to funding. All our public services are under-funded, short of staff (especially experienced ones) and working with old technology that isn’t fit for purpose and isn’t joined up across all the services. I know it’s easy to criticise social workers, the police etc, but I don’t think we can till we’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

things like this will continue to happen while ever we believe politicians that tell us we can get decent services (health care, education, SEND provision ect) on the cheap. So nobody has to.pay more in tax to fund state provision that they say they care about. All that's needed is more "efficiency" in these services.

if people really care, they need to accept that to get decent provision for vulnerable people, we have to pay for it. Which means we pay more tax.

so it's a choice. Accept the status quo, or pay people for doing the jobs we care about and employ them in enough numbers that ensure they are not overwhelmed.

If there are safeguarding concerns, why aren't the children being monitored anyway?

I’m in this system also and have been for many years and have come across very few social workers who don’t care or are totally useless. What doesn’t help is we are in a society 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation of people who cannot parent to a good enough standard. Due to this and the amount of placements required, children are spread over the country as there aren’t enough placements in the area. These have to be visited regularly, which may mean a social worker is out of the office for 2 days due to the distance travelled. Then we have the lack of funding for prevention services so no work is done at a lower level. Caseloads are high and reliance on agency staff is also high, these can and do leave at the drop of a hat.
That’s before we even begin to consider the current climate of certain cultures being untouchable. Lets not forget, it was the evil father and step mother who killed the child, not the social workers

It's good to hear from the inside that things have improved. I worry every time there is a crisis like this one because it will deter people from joining your profession. The funding issue comes back down to willingness or otherwise to pay tax. Even in times of plenty, child protection wouldn't be top of the list.

It’s the neighbours hearing her scream, and doing nothing.

I could never stand by.

I’ve just heard some talking head saying there should be monitoring for HS kids WHERE THERE ARE SAFEGUARDING CONCERNS. I was yelling at the radio. Surely if there is any group of kids mandatorily monitored as a routine it’s those that are HS. 99% of those kids will be probably fine, but if I was an HS parent I’d be happy with this level of scrutiny.

Fear of bring seen as racist is also seen as a major factor in the rape gangs. I still worry about an incident 15 years ago when my DD was in Y5. I was a parent helper when her class went swimming. One day the teacher asked me to supervise the girls' changing room. In a school with lots of Pakistani Muslim boys and a few Pakistani Muslim girls, one girl wore a hijab. When she got dressed and undressed, she stood out because, unlike the other girls, she was very aware of her body, stretching and turning in a way that looked sexualised. I wondered what might be happening at home but said nothing at school because I didn't want to be seen as racist and my evidence was slight. Now, I would say something because the one little thing we do might be the thing that saves a child.

The father was awarded custody despite the authorities, social services and teachers knowing that she was in danger . There had been many reports of abuse within the family. The case was shown on a documentary and it was absolutely heartbreaking what that little girl went through.
Heads need to roll but I wont hold my breath 😡

I think the issue is that we aren't funding them enough. And yes the blame is with the parents.

They're short staffed because the caseload grows and people don't want to pay. Those who vote for cuts to public services, this is the result.

I've worked in the system since 2003. I assure you things are really very different. The main issues we have are under funding, staff shortages and inexperienced workforce. That's a systemic issue that could be addressed by central government providing funding for training and running costs of departments but nobody wants to.