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A decade ago, public confidence in local authorities' care for looked-after children was undermined by allegations of widespread ill-treatment in residential homes that dated back to the 1970s. Responding to the distressing evidence of systematic physical and sexual abuse, the government invited Sir William Utting, the former chief inspector of social services, to review safeguards for all children who live away from home.

His 1997 report, People Like Us, (1) made 159 recommendations and led to the Quality Protects programme for improving services for children who are looked after or in need. The government response, (2) published a year later, promised action on the issues in the report. But how far has a promising policy response translated into action on the ground? What progress has been made in seven years and what gaps, if any, still remain?

Our follow-up study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which was overseen by Sir William Utting, found many encouraging signs of progress, but also evidence that while policies and protocols are in place to better safeguard children, their implementation is still open to question. We started in June 2002 by identifying action taken in the previous five years and tracked developments up to May 2004. We consulted a range of organisations and individuals and have published two reports. Progress on Safeguards for Children Living Away from Home (3) traces what has happened on the recommendations in People Like Us, while Safeguards for Vulnerable Children (4) provides more detail on abusers, disabled children and children in prison.

For the most part, the government has taken the action promised and changed the law and developed policies to strengthen safeguards for children. The spirit of the report has been responded to as well as the detailed recommendations and there is now greater recognition of the need to provide good quality services that meet all the needs of children and seeks to improve their life chances - and help them in the transition to independence and adulthood.

The state of safeguards today

People Like Us says "safeguards are stronger than they were 10 years ago and of a higher order altogether than they were 10 years before that". We found that there has been further progress in the past seven years but there is still a long way to go. The strengthening of the duty of all agencies to safeguard and promote welfare and the requirement to share information in the new Children Bill are therefore very welcome.

And while the main groups of children living away from home - looked-after children and children in boarding schools - do seem better protected we found that children are less well safeguarded in some settings such as the prison service, some health settings and private foster care.

People Like Us said "prison is no place for children" yet, seven years on, more children are being imprisoned despite a reduction in youth crime. Attempts to halt the growth of the number of young people in prison have been undermined by increases in remands to prison as a result of breaching antisocial behaviour orders. There have been warnings that the juvenile secure estate has reached full capacity and risks serious breakdown. The welfare of children and young people cannot be safeguarded in these circumstances and we consider this the most worrying area of all.

Attempts have been made to improve the conditions of children and young people in prison - through the introduction of Prison Service Order 4950 - Regimes for Prisoners under 18. However, the real issue is the extent to which the order is being implemented.

There are several concerns in relation to health settings. A significant number of children with disabilities and psychiatric conditions are in hospital for long periods without local authorities being notified so their welfare is not safeguarded. Children in hospices have the same need for protection and to be consulted as other vulnerable children but current standards focus too much on clinical aspects and not enough on welfare matters. We were not sure if the systems were in place in child and adolescent mental health units to prevent access by unsuitable people. And there are worries about arrangements to check health staff with unsupervised access to children, particularly paediatricians in post for many years and GPs.

People Like Us stated that private fostering was an area where children were not being safeguarded properly and that an unknown number were likely to be seriously at risk. This is still the case. Action is now being taken on private foster care in the Children Bill but places too much responsibility on local authorities. More responsibility should rest with parents and private foster carers - we believe that private foster carers should be registered as recommended in People Like Us.

Other vulnerable groups include disabled children and those with emotional and behavioural difficulties, those in the armed services, and refugee and asylum-seeking children. On disabled children, People Like Us said "there is still a reluctance to accept that disabled children are abused" and that awareness of this needed to be raised. We have found that the vulnerability of disabled children is now recognised in policy documents and guidance, although this varies in different settings and there is a shortfall of practical help and guidance on what can be done to protect them. Disabled children remain very vulnerable particularly in health settings (because of the failure to notify local authorities) and in residential schools with 52-week provision.

More information is now available about disabled children but it needs to be collected at regular intervals and the problems of definition which bedevil attempts to share information between agencies need to be resolved. The criminal justice system's inability to prosecute those who have abused disabled children remains a major failing.

People who work with children

We found that efforts have been made to improve the checks on staff and others working with children through the Protection of Children Act 1999 list and establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau. But there are problems with ensuring that the right people are referred to the Protection of Children Act list and consideration should be given to broaden its scope beyond the work setting - for example to people on social services lists.

Too much reliance is being placed on police checks while not enough care is being taken with other enquiries and checks recommended in Choosing with Care.(6) Over-reliance on convictions is particularly worrying since only a minority of those who abuse children have convictions and not enough use is made of soft information, or criminal intelligence as the Bichard inquiry report calls it.(7) The Ian Huntley case clearly illustrates the range of weaknesses in this area in all of the services involved - police, social services and education.

The sexual abuse of children

People Like Us said: "Persistent sexual abusers are a scourge of childhood." They still are and one of the greatest failings is that there has been no progress at all in bringing them to justice. For example, while recorded offences of gross indecency with a child more than doubled between 1985 and 2001, convictions fell from 42 per cent to 19 per cent. This is despite the fact that there is now more awareness of child sexual abuse and that children do seem to be coming forward earlier when they have been abused.


Experts estimate that fewer than one in 50 sexual offences result in a conviction. Meanwhile, the growth in child abuse images on the internet is a major problem and adds an alarming dimension to our knowledge about the scale of sexual abuse of children.

There have been attempts to tackle sexual abuse. For example, the changes to the law to bring in new sexual offences, increases in treatment in prison and of supervision in the community through multi-agency public protection arrangements.

But there is still a major shortfall in both treatment and supervision so the opportunity to reduce reoffending is lost. This applies to all sex offenders - adult males, women and children and young people. It is particularly important to identify early, treat and supervise those young people who abuse others while there is greatest hope that they can be prevented from entering on a career of abuse.

Bringing together what we know about the scale of sexual abuse of children, the low rate of convictions, the shortage of treatment programmes and the cost of providing effective supervision in the community leads to an uncomfortable conclusion. That is - if a significant proportion of currently unconvicted abusers were to be convicted the criminal justice system and prisons would be swamped.

We argue that there should be a major rethink of policy and a national expansion of preventive schemes to provide information and advice for adults, especially those who are abusing children or fear they may and for those who suspect others may be abusing or being abused. The Stop it Now! Campaign provides a good model for this. Progress has to be made in tackling the problem of the scale of sexual abuse of children. We believe that a comprehensive strategy for the protection of children from sexual abuse needs to be developed, with more information for the public, a more preventive approach, a better understanding of why so few convictions are obtained and better use being made of the soft information or criminal intelligence.

Implementing policies

People Like Us covered a wide range of issues but we found one common theme emerged time and again - that, although policy and legislation have been developed, there remains a large gap between policy and practice. This was tragically demonstrated by the Victoria Climbie case in relation to child protection and in the Ian Huntley case in relation to checks on the suitability of people to work with children.

Children in foster care are still not receiving visits from social workers at the intervals specified in regulations, particularly those placed outside their local area. Regulations are only a safeguard if they are complied with. The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 is a major step forward but here, as elsewhere, progress has been slow and there are difficulties to be overcome before the aspirations of the act become a reality.

The Social Exclusion Unit's report Young Runaways5 proposed an action plan to tackle the problem; however, work done by the Children's Society (8) showed that only a third of local authorities had policies in place for young runaways and only seven out of a sample of 150 had implemented the 2002 government recommendations to draw up a plan.

While it has become the norm for policy developments to include consultation with children, it seems that there has been less progress in what concerns them most - involvement in decisions that affect them individually.

Policy on children abused through prostitution has progressed, with welcome changes to the law. But at the local level there still seems to be a worrying level of denial about the scale and nature of the problem. Local safeguarding children boards will need to ensure there are mechanisms in place to address this problem in their areas.

Arrangements for child witnesses in court are being improved but introduction has been slow and under-resourced, leading to uneven implementation in different parts of the country.

Our conclusion is that, while a serious attempt has been made to improve safeguards as recommended in People Like Us, there remain areas of major concern, while new threats have emerged. While there is still a need for further development of policy and legislation, the real challenge is to implement effectively and consistently those that are already in place. It is the implementation of policies that protect children, not the policies themselves. 

Marian Stuart is an independent consultant. As a former senior civil servant at the Department of Health, her posts included deputy chief inspector of social services. She was a member of Sir William Utting's review team for Safeguards for Children Living Away from Home and has worked on a range of issues relating to services for children.

Abstract:

This article reports on a study into the action taken on proposals in People Like Us to improve safeguards for children living away from home and on the current status of safeguards. It looks into what policies have been developed and whether they are being implemented effectively. It identifies groups of children that remain very vulnerable and argues that a major rethink is needed on how to tackle the sexual abuse of children.

References: 

(1) Sir William Utting, People Like Us: The Report of the Review of Safeguards for Children Living Away from Home, The Stationery Office, 1997.

(2) The Government's Response to the Children's Safeguards Review, Cm 4105, The Stationery Office, 1998.

(3) M Stuart, C Baines, Progress on Safeguards for Children Living Away from home. A Review of Action Since the People Like Us report, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2004.

(4) M Stuart, C Baines, Safeguards for Vulnerable Children. Three Studies on Abusers, Disabled Children and Children in Prison, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2004.

(5) Social Exclusion Unit, Young Runaways, Social Exclusion Unit, 2002.

(6) Department of Health, Choosing with Care - the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Selection, Development and Management of Staff in Children's Homes, The Stationery Office, 1992.

(7) House of Commons, The Bichard Inquiry Report, The Stationery Office, 2004.

(8) The Children's Society, Thrown Away, The Children's Society, 2002.

Contact Details:

Marian Stuart can be contacted about the issues in this article at: Marian.stuart@blueyonder.co.uk