Hansard

I start by welcoming the various and wide-ranging announcements that the minister has made today.

Child protection issues almost always come to public attention through press and media reports of high-profile cases, which all too commonly involve details of tragic events and exceptional cruelty and abuse. By definition, something serious has gone wrong with child protection in such cases.

In spite of the appalling nature of those cases, we are always perhaps tempted to take refuge in the idea that the media is giving us a view that is unrepresentative of the whole picture. However, as ministers and others have acknowledged, when we turn to the report, we see that the findings make it clear that, at the day-to-day, less sensational level, many children and families are subject to real difficulties, risk and harm and are not being caught by the system or, if they are caught, are not being supported as well as we would wish.

A lack of confidence in the system comes out of the report. Although, as others have said, the report makes it clear that dedicated individuals and organisations are doing much excellent work, youngsters throughout the country are still being exposed to risk and actual harm because the system of support and protection that is currently in place is not responding quickly or accurately enough to meet the needs of vulnerable children.

I am glad that ministers have acknowledged the seriousness of the issue, have not tried to cover it up, have not seemed complacent and have initiated a wide-ranging reform programme, about which we have been told before and again today. Ministers have taken and are taking measures to improve local oversight and the proper inspection of the system.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the proposal for a statement of children's rights in the children's charter. We certainly appreciate the Executive's support for the establishment of a commissioner for children and young people, which will contribute to the child protection overview. Shortly, we will move to stage 3 of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Bill, which will make a big step in the right direction. Similarly, everyone realises the value of additional support for helplines, which will enable ChildLine to expand its operations in Scotland. As Bill Aitken said, we welcome the initiative to make people aware of the dangers of matters such as internet pornography and grooming.

When we examine the report's findings and recommendations, we find several strands in which improvements must be made to ensure that youngsters are drawn into the support system in the first place and to avoid children being lost through flaws and inadequacies in a fragile and sometimes ill co-ordinated safety net. The report recommends that improved access and communication be high on the agenda. That means access to information, support and advocacy for children and support and better access and communication between professions and caring agencies. The interagency exchange of information between health, social work and education services is considered crucial to drawing vulnerable youngsters into the system.

The report also emphasises the review of the child protection committees, which the Executive is pursuing. We come back to the idea of statutory provision for child protection committees. There is a real emphasis on the need to reduce delays in the system, which have allowed casework to be slow and unresponsive and have perhaps even allowed cases to fall into abeyance for lack of action.

Recommendation 12 is important. It identifies a need for improvement in the assessment of needs, in particular for high-risk groups such as children who are born to alcohol-abusing or drug-abusing parents, and a need for the provision of an action plan for those youngsters. If a child is in an at-risk group, they should be dealt with comprehensively with an individual plan.

Similarly, recommendation 15 is important. It advocates a single integrated assessment, planning and review framework for children in need, which would be available to all partner agencies and would allow for the transfer of information if children or families move from one area to another. It would include clear plans and an indication of progress for each child. There would be milestones, so that it could be seen what point a child had reached in the system. If the child did not reach the milestones, attention would be focused on the need to do something.

In reading the companion volume to the report, I was convinced by research that stresses the importance of community intervention and planning, and the idea of creating safer living environments for children in socially deprived areas, for example through the provision of low-cost babysitting schemes, better monitored play areas, crèches and out-of-school care facilities. Such measures address the view that tackling individual cases is not the only way in which to protect children. If we have the right systems in place in society, children will be protected by the way things are done.

Apart from specific child protection issues, other Executive programmes, such as sure start and early intervention, can contribute to our success in tackling the problems that are associated not only with learning difficulties, for example, but with children who are at risk.

I want to return to an issue that I mentioned in the debate on children's services in December, namely the need to recognise the pivotal role of social workers. We must recognise the responsibilities, dilemmas and difficult judgments that social workers face. I repeat the wish that I expressed then, which is that individuals on the ground should not be too readily picked on as whipping boys when things go wrong in desperately complex and difficult situations, where moral and practical dilemmas are legion, and where hindsight makes it easy for us on the outside to see that different decisions or actions might have been taken at particular points in the process.

In an early speech in the Parliament, on education, I made the point that ministers, legislators and local authority departments are facilitators in such matters, and that the systems that are set up must be coherent and well resourced. However, above all—as the review shows—success depends on the people on the ground doing well. We cannot be successful if we do not have well-trained, well-motivated, well-resourced, and well-respected practitioners dealing properly with the real people and the real cases on the ground. To that end, while I strongly commend everything that the Executive is doing and seeks to do, I urge ministers to continue their hard work to address the problems with the supply and retention of well-motivated child care social workers.