News

The green paper on children at risk represents a major opportunity to agree a new deal for children’s services at local level. Widespread good practice is easily undermined by "service silos", fragmentation and a lack of leadership and co-ordination between local authorities, the health and police services and the voluntary and community sectors.

The case of Victoria Climbié illustrates where this can lead. Lord Laming’s key recommendation was for a "clear line of accountability…without doubt or ambiguity about who is responsible at every level for the well-being of vulnerable children".

For children and families there is often a bewildering range of organisations or services available, including GPs, health visitors, school nurses, Sure Start, Connexions, youth offending teams, drug action teams, child and adolescent mental health services, specialist child protection services, as well as their school.

The Local Government Association and NHS Confederation, along with the Association of Directors of Social Services, Association of Chief Education Officers and the Confederation of Education Service Managers, have developed Serving Children Well. This is a model that seeks to ensure effective co-ordination of the agencies involved in delivering children’s services and advocates that local councils, providing accountable community leadership, should be at the heart of services.

Building on this approach, we have developed a paper framed as a set of proposals for the green paper. Key proposals include a statutory duty for agencies to "safeguard and promote the well-being of children" and a supporting duty to form partnerships to this end; local authorities to be identified as the statutory "accountable bodies" for the partnerships established under the new duty; and a lead member and senior officer for children accountable for child protection to be appointed by each local authority and partner agency.

We believe that councillors have a crucial role to play. They are responsible for setting the strategic direction for the local authority and determining priorities on behalf of local people. They also serve as community representatives and advocates, holding services to account and scrutinising their performance.

We believe the changes we are proposing would reduce the risk of cases like that of Victoria Climbié.

Alison King is chairperson of the LGA social affairs and health executive and Gillian Morgan is chief executive of the NHS Confederation.