Hansard

From the outset, I say that we welcome the review and its recommendations. It can only be good that the issue is being debated and addressed at a national level.

However, we have to ensure that this opportunity to tackle the problems in child protection brings about real and lasting improvement in what has become a long-standing issue. It is almost 11 years since the inquiry into multi-agency child protection in Orkney. Lord Clyde's inquiry report significantly influenced subsequent child care law, most notably the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. In the past decade, a great deal has been done at a local level to improve practice, to revise procedures—including interagency procedures—and to initiate joint training. However, without a national framework, direction and advice from the centre, we ended up with different systems and procedures in place throughout Scotland. Those systems were totally dependent on resources and local priorities. That was not what Lord Clyde envisaged and it certainly was not what Scotland's most vulnerable children deserved. It is, however, the context for this latest review.

My impression is that social workers' responses to the review have ranged from lukewarm to openly hostile. Part of the reason for that seems to be that the document is reasonably good at stating what the problems are—poverty, drugs misuse and too few resources—but is then quite superficial about how to act on those problems. One example is in the conclusion to the section on resources, on page 151, which lays out clearly the current problems but then makes very vague recommendations. It is almost as if two different people wrote the findings and the recommendations. When the document starts to talk about children's services plans, it seems as though people have run out of ideas.

The references to the number of children who are not protected, or who are only partially protected, dominated the press coverage and shocked the nation when the document was launched. Given that the information came from auditing actual case notes, I hope that the review team fed details of the cases back to the relevant local authorities and to the police force as evidence for the claims and, more important, to ensure that practice was improved immediately. After all, it was children and their safety that were being audited, not just statistics or social work practice. As the minister said, many of those children are living in conditions and under threats that are not tolerable in a civilised society.

Some of the report's findings might be considered to be unsurprising given that, in recent years, there has been a significant rise in referrals from the reporter to the children's panel in respect of child care and protection. The numbers of children on the child protection register are also rising, as are the numbers of looked-after children. All that has taken place at a time of increasing staff shortages and unprecedented numbers of vacancies. We also know that there has been under-resourcing of children and families work over the past 10 years or so. The latest figures confirm that local authorities plan to spend a third more than the total that the Executive provides for children's services through grant-aided expenditure. The system is under considerable pressure.

The report acknowledges that social work plays a pivotal role in child protection. It says:

"Outcomes for children were found to be highly dependent on social work doing well."

It should be patently obvious that if the child protection process is to be improved, the issues that critically undermine the work of the social work profession are the ones that must be addressed. To protect children, it is not sufficient only to have adequate numbers of staff; qualified, experienced staff are also necessary. We must have a competent and qualified work force that is knowledgeable about the complex tasks that are involved.

The report says that good practice occurred in those cases in which the

"provision of help to parents and children was given as and when it was needed; there was a … timely response and early thought and preparation; and the source of the risk was properly addressed."

We would like such good practice to be followed in all cases, but it is obvious that that does not happen.

The social work profession also needs the Scottish Executive to promote and value its role. In spite of the fact that, for many years, there has been pressure for a national framework to raise standards, for improved interagency training, for the upgrading of the social work qualification and for measures to tackle recruitment and retention, only in recent months have such pleas to address the problems that undermine social work begun to be heard and acted on.

The report identifies another crucial resource that is not always available and which requires some investment—foster carers. It should be noted that the National Assembly for Wales has recently embarked on a review of foster care; that a national strategy for foster care services is being developed in Northern Ireland; and that the choice protects review in England has led to the Secretary of State for Health's allocation of £113 million to local authorities for the expansion and strengthening of fostering services. There have been no similar developments in Scotland so far and there is dissatisfaction and concern that even phase 2 of the on-going adoption review gives little prominence to fostering. The minister would do well to give some thought to that.

As the minister stated, the Executive is committed to a number of initiatives and to an action plan that is designed to improve performance. The Scottish National Party welcomes the additional funding that the minister has outlined today. Among the measures that have been identified are the special helpline, the children's charter, a tougher inspection regime and a three-year programme of different activities. Jim Dickie, who is the president of the Association of Directors of Social Work, criticised that three-year time limit. He argued that it had taken the Executive and previous Governments twice as long as that to invest in the service. It is a bit much for the First Minister to tell social workers that they have three years to get it right before other people are put in charge, given that his Administration has had more than three years and has not got it right yet. I presume that he will consider it fitting when he, too, is replaced.

The fact that the problems are long term and difficult to resolve means that they require a long-term response. If we are ever to improve our work in child protection and to improve the integration of services, there must be sustained investment and committed support for the mainstream infrastructure.

I move amendment S1M-3748.2, to leave out from "and supports" to end and insert:

"condemns the Scottish Executive's failure to deal effectively with this problem despite almost four years in government in Scotland, and commends a response based on effective, committed and sustained support of mainstream, front-line child protection services, in both financial and political terms."