Publish confidential child crime reports in full, say social workers

Confidential inquiries into crimes against children such as the Edlington torture case should be published in full, according to the body representing thousands of social workers.

The British Association of Social Workers is supporting moves to end the secrecy that characterises such inquiries, known as serious case reviews.

The reviews can show shortcomings in the way that vulnerable children have been overseen by social services and other local agencies.

However, their use has been called into question after a High Court judge was refused access to the full document in the Edlington case. A leaked copy told of 31 occasions on which nine different agencies failed to act on the two brothers, aged 10 and 11, who were convicted of torturing and leaving two boys for dead.

Serious case reviews are held after a child known to social services dies, suffers serious injury or is involved in a violent crime. Critics say that the summaries currently published often omit serious failings in the system, which therefore do not get corrected.

Next week the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will try to amend the Children, Schools and Families Bill so that serious case reviews are published in full. At present they are circulated only among the heads of the relevant local authorities, and they cannot be discussed in public.

The support of the association for greater transparency is significant because it is social workers who often end up being blamed in such cases.

Hilton Dawson, a former Labour MP, who became chief executive of the association last year, said that the lessons of such tragedies could be learnt only if all professionals involved, as well as the public, were able to understand what had led to them.

“It’s vital that these reviews are transparent and can be seen in full, subject only to the need to preserve individual anonymity,” Mr Dawson said. “These reviews are vital learning tools and it is imperative that they are made widely available.”

Under the proposed amendment the names of all individuals involved would be redacted.

However, the Government is resisting change on the ground that it would be impossible to publish a full and meaningful report that did not help to identify those involved, including neighbours, teachers and others who had given evidence in private. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, believes that even redacted reports would identify those involved.

After a review of child protection carried out by Lord Laming following the Baby P tragedy, the Government agreed to ensure that executive summaries of serious case reviews gave an accurate picture of the case.

Lord Laming argued, however, that reviews depended on confidentiality, and that their findings would be compromised if they were published. Other groups who support such a stance include the Association of Chief Police Officers, the NSPCC and the Children’s Society.

A spokesperson for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “Full SCRs should remain confidential in order to protect vulnerable children and ensure the full co-operation of witnesses. It is not possible to publish redacted full reports without compromising these two imperatives.”

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, insisted that it would be possible to publish reviews while protecting the innocent. He said: “We desperately need to improve child protection in this country and professionals are now saying that, unless we publish all relevant details from serious case reviews, we won’t learn the lessons of the Edlington and Baby P cases.”

He added: “I respect Lord Laming’s comments on this issue, but we believe that the existing child protection system needs more radical reform than he has so far contemplated.”