Labour’s new leader Lamont challenges First Minister on child protection

SCOTTISH Labour’s new leader Johann Lamont demanded a government inquiry into child protection as she insisted the issue was a “huge problem” following the death of a toddler murdered by his mother.

Ms Lamont called for the investigation during her First Minister’s Questions debut as Labour leader yesterday, following the “tragic case” of Declan Hainey, whose mother Kimberley, 37, was found guilty of murdering him at a flat in Bruce Road, Paisley, and of hiding his death from the authorities.

Her demand came as the Crown Office yesterday announced that a fatal accident inquiry would be held into the case, that also saw Hainey convicted of a string of neglect charges, in which she abandoned her son for excessive periods of time and failed to provide him with adequate nourishment.

The Labour leader, in a strongly-worded appeal to Mr Salmond for a government, inquiry said: “I’m asking this question as a mother; there are mothers across the country asking the same question.”

She said: “These children are hidden to the system, and I’m asking, what can you do? Can you have an independent inquiry to how the child protection system is working?

“Clearly there is a huge problem. If we can have an independent inquiry we can work together to challenge this most awful of circumstances that is happening in our communities and make Scotland a better place for vulnerable children.”

However, Mr Salmond insisted that improvements to the existing inspection regime had been made as the result of an inquiry “looking at tragic individual cases and seeing how that reflected on the system across the country”.

He claimed that there was “substantial evidence that social work departments as a result of the inspections and re-inspections are performing much better than they were before”.

But he said no politician could “guarantee” that tragedies such as the Declan Hainey or the Brendan Muir case, where the Dundee toddler was killed by his mother’s drug-addicted boyfriend in 2008, would never occur again.

Mr Salmond said: “Johann Lamont, if she is asking for a guarantee that there will never be a tragic circumstance, that no child will ever be in that circumstance, I can’t give that guarantee. No politician can.

“If she’s asking the question what has been done by this government, then the systematic improvement in inspection regimes validates what has been done by the government. And if she is asking about budget choices then the huge input of resources into early intervention indicates that this Government cares, as all this parliament cares, about all of Scotland’s children.”

However, the Labour leader challenged a previous claim by Mr Salmond, when he said that Scotland had “the most systematic and strenuous inspection system certainly anywhere in these islands and perhaps anywhere in Europe”.

Ms Lamont went on: “The reality is that it wasn’t good enough for Brandon Muir and Declan Hainey, and it isn’t good enough for scores of children whose names may never appear in the papers, but who are suffering now.”

Mr Salmond said his government had “reinforced the support to local authorities and to social work departments” to improve child protection in Scotland.

He said: “The point I made in the Brandon Muir case was that we have in place a systematic way of trying to identify children at risk.

“I also made the point that no system can be foolproof, that there are going to be individual tragedies almost regardless of what system is in place.

“We have a substantial system, we also have excellent social workers in Scotland who subscribe to the highest standards, who are a professional group of people. But however substantial we make our system, whatever the sincere efforts of our social workers, there will always be tragic cases.

“That is a certainty in society. Our job as parliamentarians is to give the maximum support to our social work departments, to make sure our systems of inspection are such as to minimise these tragic cases, minimise the number and therefore minimise the effect on society.”

Ms Lamont said budget cuts would only make the situation worse, as she asked Mr Salmond what spending choices he would make to “ensure that the most vulnerable children in our country are protected”.

She said: “We can’t simply say there is some kind of inevitability about this. The responsibility of government in this kind of case is to identify where the problems are and what we can do to address it.”

She added: “It’s not about blaming the workforce, it’s recognising for all of us that whatever systems in are in place they are not sufficient.

“Because the reality is, across Scotland we have social workers who are over-burdened, health visitors under pressure and the inevitability of children abandoned by their parents being abandoned by a system that is supposed to care.”

Meanwhile, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson highlighted economic policies which she claimed “are damaging the Scottish economy”.

But Mr Salmond said the UK government had “a direct responsibility for the employment conditions in Scotland”.

The First Minister was also accused of making “cheap remarks” after he berated the Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie with critical quotes from Twitter.

Mr Rennie was subjected to howls and catcalls from the SNP at First Minister’s Questions when Mr Salmond responded to a question about youth unemployment with repeated remarks about Mr Rennie’s social networking profile.

Mr Rennie said: “I think in the Christmas spirit that the First Minister should focus on the needs of the unemployed, rather than making cheap remarks about other politicians.”