Question

Number

Questioner

Supplementary Question

Question to

PQ 1

Mr James McGeown

Weobley

Correct answer! 

Social Worker Assessment (meeting with parents, seeing the child, parents consent to seek school/GP data) must happen before Strategy Discussion and determining need for S47 enquiry.

If this due process abandoned, Judge Thornton ruled:

That unless there is urgency,…, it is unlawful to commence a section 47 investigation without visiting the child and speaking with the parents. Seeking background checks without parental consent would be unlawful UNLESS a legitimate s47 investigation had been formally convened.

So:

First time Herefordshire family becomes aware of a Social Services case against them is when two Social Workers turn up at their closed gate, without any paperwork, state that a Strategy Meeting was held that morning, they had gathered background information from GP, you are under S47 investigation and we are now telling you what is going to happen next to your family.

What is the likelihood of this sort of scenario in Herefordshire.

Handful, Few Dozen or Hundreds of times each year?

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee

Response by Cabinet Member Children and Young People

I have outlined in the response to the original question how the law and legislation is interpreted and applied.

The Children Act 89 legislation guides our practice as it sets out our duties and responsibilities.

•       Duty to undertake an assessment of need where we receive information a child might be a child in need “child unlikely to reach or maintain a satisfactory level of health or development without provision of children’s social care services” (s17)

•       Duty to undertake enquires where we receive information a child is or is likely to suffer significant harm (s47)

The Act describes significant harm as follows:

“Harm” is the “ill treatment or the impairment of the health or development of the child” (defined under Section 31, Children Act 1989). Without the intervention of services a child would likely not meet their expected health and or development.

“Significant” is a professional judgement – but view of parents, carers and children and young people are taken into account.

Working Together 2023 ask us to “Consider the severity, duration and frequency of any abuse, degree of threat, coercion, or cruelty, the significance of others in the child’s world, including all adults and children in contact with the child (this can include those within the immediate and wider family and those in contexts beyond the family, including online), and the cumulative impact of adverse events”

Working Together also sets out definitions, behind categories of harm to further guide practice and decisions making when a S47 enquiry is completed and decisions are made as to the need to continue child protection intervention through a child protection plan. These are:

•       Physical - hitting, kicking, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or suffocating, make up or cause symptoms of illness in children,

•       Neglect - not providing adequate food, clothing, shelter, education or health care, inadequate supervision and protection

•       Sexual - forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities - contact abuse and non-contact abuse

•       Emotional – regularly and persistently humiliating, threatening, degrading, or scapegoating a child.  It can include isolating or manipulating a child, not offering encouragement or accepting a child’s limitations

•       Child criminal exploitation – sexual exploitation, forced labour, criminal exploitation

•       Domestic abuse - controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between people who are, or who have been in a relationship; Children can be directly involved in incidents of domestic abuse or they may be harmed by seeing or hearing abuse happening

•       Influences of extremism which could lead to radicalisation

Guided by the legislation and statutory guidance it is ultimately the social work professional judgment to determine if a Strategy Discussion is required, and if so, the multi-agency partnership to determine if a S47 enquiry is required. Under the Children’s Safeguarding Partnership procedures there is a professional escalation process should any partner agency believe interventions are not at the right level and a complaint process in place for parents if they don’t agree the intervention into their family is at the right level.

You have asked a supplementary question providing a scenario in practice. This response seeks to explain how based on that scenario, decision making would take place, though I should confirm that there is no requirement to seek parental consent for a strategy discussion. This is a professionals meeting held to share information known following a referral that indicates a child may be suffering significant harm.

In the original response I set out the criteria for the types of harm this is likely to include.

One of the outcomes of a strategy discussion may be that a Section 47 enquiry should be conducted. The approach you describe - of a social worker arriving at a home address and informing a parent a Section 47 enquiry has begun as an outcome of a professional strategy discussion - will be the start of that Section 47 enquiry. During this process, parents and any subject child are given the opportunity to engage and share their views within that enquiry. This child protection enquiry will then inform the need to progress to a child protection conference if a child is deemed to be suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm.

In terms of a social worker “arriving without paperwork”, we do have an explanatory leaflet for parents, so these should be made available and I apologise to any parent who did not receive this as part of an Section 47 undertaken on their child. I have reinforced the need to give parents these leaflets within the service.

We are in the process of updating these leaflets and developing one for young people. Once completed we will also make these available via the Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership website as well as staff taking out hard copies.

I am unable to add any further detail in my response as to do so will require case specific detail that it is inappropriate to share in a public domain

Question

Number

Questioner

Supplementary Question

Question to

PQ 2

Mrs Megan McGeown

Weobley

Your answer provides some explanation but during the same period, neighbouring Worcestershire and your best practice partner, Leeds city council (FOI requests) did not have a threefold increase in S47 enquiries. Nothing Like It, Nowhere Near.

There is concern that Herefordshire Social Services have adopted the overreaching practice of using Section 47 enquires as a big stick to intimidate families.

In effect, Social Workers using S47 to knock on families doors and ask to come in and snoop for some evidence of harm.

Doing this without reasonable cause to suspect (or what, if you want to borrow from American cop shows, you might call “Probable cause”) that the child is at risk of harm in order to commence an investigation.

This is a very real concern held by many members of “Families' Alliance for Change (Herefordshire)”.

Can Herefordshire Council provide evidenced reassurance that this is not a true fact?

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee

Response by Cabinet Member Children and Young People

I can provide my own assurance that the approach to safeguarding and working with families you describe is not the approach lead by myself or our leadership. The Restorative Practice model seeks to ensure there is engagement first and at every opportunity to support and where necessary challenge parents to care for their own children well. Following the training of staff over 23/24 in the first qtr. of 24/25 we are seeing a reduced number of cases brought before the court and a reducing number of children subject to child protection plans. Both are indicators of working earlier and at a lower level with families. However, there is more to do. We need to complete our Restorative Practice training with our agency partners, who are also part of the decision on what meets the professional judgement for a child protection intervention. We have community engagement session for reviewing “Right Service Right Time” (threshold guidance) under Working Together and we need to ensure when children step down from child protection, they live in families that sustain that change to positive safe care. All three points are part of our work under phase 2 of the service improvement plan.