Suffer the children

Or so say the findings of a review completed last month, by consultants Marian Stuart and Catherine Baines, overseen by Sir William Utting and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

But while the review finds that legislation, policies and guidance on safeguards have been strengthened in the past seven years – including some provisions in the current Children Bill – it also highlights a continuing gap between policy and practice.

The report warns that policies are not being consistently implemented in all parts of the country and that practitioners in some sectors still do not have enough understanding of what needs to be done to safeguard children.

Very few local authorities have developed a multi-agency approach to rehousing high-risk offenders. What happens in one local authority area that houses out-of-area children at risk is not the same as in another, even though the same guidance from central government is available to policy-makers.

Developing a multi-agency approach cannot be a responsibility of the offender management regime alone.

Unless councils work together on a thorough and consistent strategy to address the rehousing needs of abused children and high-risk offenders, attempts at improving service provision and community safety will slip into an irreversible recline.

Shaun Parrin, policy officer housing needs department Birmingham council