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A major report into social services departments in Wales by the principality's children’s commissioner Peter Clarke highlights ‘worrying inadequacies’ in safeguarding vulnerable children, writes Alex Dobson.

In what is described as the first survey of its kind, the report 'Telling Concerns', said that one of the key recommendations of the Waterhouse Inquiry into child abuse in north Wales children’s homes has not yet been implemented.

The all-Wales survey looked at arrangements for children’s advocacy and procedures for dealing with complaints and whistleblowing in each of the 22 local authorities. It examined arrangements to safeguard and promote the rights and welfare of children and young people, but found that only one third of councils have specialist children’s complaints officers.

Three years after the Waterhouse inquiry that uncovered widespread abuse of looked after children, only eight local authorities in the principality have specialist complaints officers despite this being a major recommendation of the inquiry.

"Children who are looked after are particularly vulnerable and therefore it is vital that they have an accessible means of raising complaints and concerns, and some of the more terrible things that Waterhouse uncovered give testimony to that," said Clarke

The children’s commissioner’s team found that local authorities were failing to appreciate the importance of whistleblowing policies to safeguard children, either when they were delivered in-house or commissioned. The review also found that no specific attempts were made to ensure that children from the most marginalised groups had access to such services.

In addition, most local authorities admitted that they could not meet the support needs of looked after children living a long way from home, who are often the most vulnerable.

Key recommendations of the report included a call for the Welsh assembly to establish a unit to co-ordinate the provision of advocacy services across Wales. The commissioner also calls on the assembly to shelve its own proposals to reform complaints procedures because they are not child-centred enough.

The report said that whistleblowing policies for staff in social services should be more directly linked to child protection, in line with Waterhouse’s recommendations, and that the failure to report malpractice should be made a disciplinary offence. The report found that during one year there were only nine instances of staff raising concerns about malpractice.