Review of child protection investigations amid surge in section 47 inquiries

A recent review of child protection investigations conducted by the head of the government’s review of children’s social care, Josh MacAlister, is due to publish a report this week criticising several aspects of the current system.

The Case for Change report is expected to highlight a culture of investigating families instead of supporting them, with social workers and local authorities being too quick to trigger section 47 investigations in to child abuse, which determines whether a local authority needs to intervene to protect a child.

The Sunday Times reported that the number of families subjected to formal section 47 inquiries which resulted in no further action has more than tripled from 43,400 in 2010 to 134,620 in 2020. This has led to a rising number of parents being separated from their children in cases where abuse is ultimately unproven.

MacAlister commented:

“We’ve got a bit of a runaway train at the moment in terms of the continual surge in section 47 investigations, initiations of child protection conferences, that don’t result in further action, that aren’t correlated with an increase in identified harm.”

In addition to suggesting that too many families are being investigated, the report is expected to assert that some children are not offered enough protection, with the review set to outline the role of the state in doing more to ensure that the wider family and neighbours play a part in supporting families where social care is involved. The Case for Change report is also likely to criticise private children’s homes for profiting while failing to provide adequate care.

The review is therefore expected to initiate a shift in emphasis for social workers, from investigating to helping families.

Following publication of the Case for Change report this week, which focuses on the identification of problems in the system, MacAlister would like to commit to finding solutions over the coming months:

“The reason I’ve said that after three months we’re publishing our Case for Change and then we’re going to look at solutions is that we can’t spend any more time describing all the issues we see. There are lots of them and they are deep and they should shake us to act, and they will, and we’ll share that with people publicly so they can react and respond. But we then need to get into the tougher work of coming up with solutions.”