News

The Victoria Climbie inquiry is to consider whether the setting up of a new child protection agency would help address inconsistencies in the organisation and delivery of children's services.

Phase two of the inquiry, due to start in March, will comprise a series of five public seminars with evidence from experts in the field, focusing on a range of issues from case assessment and monitoring performance to service provision and sharing information between agencies.

The session on service provision and delivery will consider whether the establishment of a lead child protection agency would secure improvements in services or simply obstruct effective partnership working and blur professional lines of responsibility.

Another idea up for discussion is the creation of a virtual child protection agency using information technology. A later seminar will consider whether area child protection committees should continue, and, if they do, whether they should be put on a statutory footing and take on new responsibilities.

There will also be a discussion on the feasibility of a national system for producing part 8 reviews that could be made available publicly so that lessons could be learned.

According to an inquiry spokesperson, Lord Laming and his team, who will sit in on the seminars, "have become aware of wide variations in practice in the assessment of vulnerable children and their carers so another seminar will look at the effectiveness of the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families".

The team also want to consider ways of encouraging the wider community to help identify children who may be at risk, particularly those who have just arrived in the country, recently moved house or who are not living with their birth parents.

The seminars will be chaired by Neil Garnham QC, counsel to the inquiry, and will be held in Hannibal House, south London. Between 12 and 20 people will be selected from those who make submissions to phase two and will be invited to give evidence at each seminar.

Members of the public will be able to attend and suggest questions in writing in advance to be put to participants.

- Address for submissions: Room 302, Hannibal House, Elephant and Castle, London SE1 6TQ.

Baptiste's mental health led to errors

Haringey team manager Carole Baptiste admitted last week that the mental health problems she suffered from in 2000 would have been developing in 1999 in a way that "would have had an impact" on her capacity to function as a social worker.

On her second day of evidence to the Climbie inquiry, Baptiste said that there was "probably a lot of forgetfulness, absent-mindedness, not remembering things, but not being aware I was not remembering things" during the time she was responsible for supervising Victoria's allocated social worker, Lisa Arthurworrey.

Baptiste also accepted that her attitude to the way she managed children's cases had probably changed as a result of joining a "charismatic church" at the beginning of 1999.

An independent report by a consultant psychiatrist concluded it was likely that Baptiste was developing "a serious psychotic mental illness during 1999", which "would have impaired seriously her capacity to function as a social work team leader".

Asked by inquiry chairperson Lord Laming whether she felt she had "made any difference at all, beyond allocating the case, to the way in which Victoria's case was handled", Baptiste insisted she had done the best she could given the circumstances.

- A pre-trial review was held at Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court last week on the case against Baptiste, who is charged with refusing or deliberately failing to attend the Climbie inquiry in December. The full trial will take place on 20 February.

Seminar topic / Date / submission by

Discovery and inclusion / 8 March / 20 February
Identification / 15 March / 27 February
Determining requirements / 22 March / 6 March
Service provision and delivery / 12 April / 27 March
Monitoring performance / 19 April / 3 April