Is there a thread about the Laming report into child protection and social services?

[edam]

because I know a lot of MNers have been concerned about SS getting it wrong - both failing to protect children who are suffering and removing children from innocent families. Two sides of the same coin.

The second Laming report agrees with many of the posts on those threads about SWs being forced to spend 80 per cent of their time entering data rather than actually working with families, as well as other criticisms about senior management and system failures.

I've only skim read the report in the Times, but I thought some excellent common sense points were made about the court fees in child protection cases (which rose from £150 to £4,000 last year). This was something discussed here on the earlier threads, and seems such an obvious failing given that finance seems to dictate just about everything in local authorities. Apparently Laming strayed beyond his remit to give this particular criticism and said that "if even in one case a local authority is deterred om taking action that is one case too many".
He also said (while some tragedies couldn't be prevented or predicted) "it cannot be beyond our wit to put in place ways of identifying early those children at risk of deliberate harm and the means of securing their safety". I totally agree with this, particularly the Baby P case where there were so many clear signals of potential harm.
On a side note, I see that Sharon Shoesmith has now commenced her legal action...

Yes - Shoesmith clearly has no shame.

Camilla Cavendish in The Times said Laming had rather missed the point - was hardly going to condemn his earlier ideas. Interesting as she's been writing a lot about injustice in the family courts and SS.

I was concerned about Laming being given the review for this very reason but it sounds like he's done a good job.

Regarding CC, as johnhemming says they are two sides of an equally tragic coin. Cases where hideous physical harm and neglect is being committed and the children are not taken away, and then ridiculous "emotional abuse" type cases where children are effectively stolen from their birth parents to meet adoption targets or put into our underfunded and useless care system for no strong reason.