Recently in Children Category

Retirement from politics has done little to broaden the anthropological horizons of Edwina Currie (pictured in her finery). Perhaps her mind has been on other things, dancing perhaps, so she must be strapped for time to muck up on issues such as poverty. 

Yet muck up she did, in a different sense, when she told 5 Live that she doubted anyone in Britain was going hungry in 2011.

Mind you, if listeners heeded the advice of Margaret Thatcher's former health minister and were left to choose between eating a boiled egg and starvation, malnutrition would surely follow.

But, in the real world, her poorly timed cry of disbelief came days after publication of a shocking report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies into child and working-age poverty.

The findings, summarised on the JRF website, indicated that the target for eradicating child poverty by 2020 looks unlikely to be met and, if anything, the figure is set to rise to 3.3 million compared with 2.6 million in 2010-11.

Despite enough anectodal evidence of parents, especially mothers, foregoing meals in order that their children may be fed, and of older people having to choose whether to eat or keep their homes warm, Currie insisted that these tales represented political point-scoring.

What she makes of the rise in food banks is anyone's guess, but charities have been launching them for a reason, one that seems to have eluded Currie.

It might be better that Currie has left politics because her comments about poverty (and why she was asked for them I cannot fathom) have left Egg-wina as a national yolk - and a rotten one at that.

Picture: Rex Features

Three news stories stand out for me today.

Directors at the UK's biggest companies have amassed pension pots worth on average £3.9 million. 

Twenty economists have written to the Financial Times urging chancellor George Osborne to axe the 50% tax rate on earnings above £150,000 a year. 

And a survey from the Daycare Trust and Save the Children shows that parents on the lowest incomes are having to turn down jobs or leave them because of the rocketing cost of childcare, which has left many in debt and some facing poverty.

Good news for some, then. It is at times like this that I truly feel that we are all in it together. Thanks, Dave.

Picture: Rex Features

We will have to believe the Parole Board the day its assessors say that Jason Owen, jailed for six years for allowing the death of Baby Peter Connelly (pictured), is no longer a threat to the public. 

Oh, that day is today.

The 39-year-old lodger at the Haringey home of his brother Steven Barker when Baby P died walked - or perhaps was driven at high speed - through the prison gates to return to civvy street. 

He had served half his term.

His release is on licence and subject to strict conditions.

Far from being one to implore the authorities to "bang 'em up and throw away the key", the thing that struck me is the comparative leniency of Owen's term and the severity of the jail sentence - 16 months - for a man who swung on the Union flag at the Cenotaph.

At worst, Charlie Gilmour offended the families of relatives who had given their lives in order for the son of a pop star to perform his al fresco acrobatics. At best, he made himself look an ass. But not as big an ass as the law in passing such a stiff sentence.

The point is that Gilmour was not implicated in a tragic case of neglect. Neither was Jonathan May-Bowles who was jailed recently for preparing Rupert Murdoch for an unwanted shave.

I can only conclude that our sentencing guidelines have become horribly confused.

Picture: Rex Features

David Cameron was livid when his then opposite number - and prime minister - Gordon Brown suggested that he had it in for Sure Start. 

The leader of the party of the family railed: "It's a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this."

If this past year is anything to go by, Brown was 100% correct. This blog has covered some of the recent battles to save Sure Start schemes. Now the New Statesman has revealed that 27 centres have shut since May 2010, a figure much higher than most of us had assumed but closer to the one that many of us had feared.

In addition, there is a disparity in funding between the richer areas and the poorer areas. Guess which comes off worst.

Should the coalition last four more years one can only speculate how many more Sure Start centres will be axed.

A glimmer of hope for those campaigning against the closure of Sure Start centres around the country: rather than face a costly full-length judicial review, Hammersmith and Fulham Council in London has bowed to parent power and restored the early years service at one of the centres under threat. 

It follows a judge's decision that a parent had a case worth answering after the council cut funding to Cathnor Park Children's Centre.

If the case had gone further, it could have proved embarrassing for the Tory-run council as its consultation process and equality impact assessment were scrutinised.

With several other centres in the borough facing budget cuts or closure, it is clear that there are many battles to be fought before the war is won.

But as one parent told the Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle: "It's a massive result and shows what can happen when people get together to challenge local authorities."

CareSpace, Community Care's online forum, is asking care professionals what they would pack in their social work survival kit.

Stress balls, flea spray and a magic wand (very droll) are just three of the suggestions.

But if they were practising in the US they might also need to arm themselves with a dart gun to pacify any stray alligators they happen upon during home visits.

Social work blogger Malcolm Payne reflects on a report from the South Mississippi region, where child protection workers had to remove seven neglected children from a home they shared with an alligator which was kept in an undersized aquarium.

The beast makes the rottweiler/pit bull/doberman cross that UK social workers may encounter quite the family pet.

Picture: Silver Images/Rex Features

With child protection so prominent on agencies' radar, the insouciance accorded child trafficking by some politicians strains credulity at times.

The exchanges in the House of Lords between Liberal Democrat peer Dee Doocey and the Conservatives' transport spokesman, Earl Attlee, underline this shocking oversight to the point of shame.

Baroness Doocey asked Attlee what measures were in place at the Eurostar terminus at King's Cross St Pancras to prevent children being trafficked into the UK. 

None, replied Attlee; immigration is cleared in France and Belgium by specially trained United Kingdom Border Agency officials and checks were made there. The primary function of officers at St Pancras was to look for prohibited goods and restricted items.

Necessary as it is for officers to intercept weaponry and drugs, it rather suggests that goods and contraband are more important to the authorities than children.

Never mind, Baroness Butler-Sloss, co-chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking, was also in the House to accuse Attlee of being "unduly optimistic" about the way children came into the UK.

Attlee rolled out his puny escape clause: trafficking was a hidden crime, he said. He is right, of course. If there are no patrols looking for trafficked children, the numbers will never be recorded, never known. Surely Attlee could make the connection.

Lord Laming, who chaired the Victoria Climbié and Baby P inquiries, appealed for the UK to sign up to the EU trafficking directive. "The government have been looking at that directive for some considerable time," he pointed out, emphasising the apparent apathy.

Attlee's response? "The noble Lord makes an important point." Important? How important, we wonder. "The issue is coming to fruition." Of course it is...

Attlee went on to excuse British Transport Police of responsibility, having already given the impression that the UKBA's responsibility ended with the training of officers abroad, and came up with the stunning observation that few trafficked children turned up at St Pancras while also admitting that trafficking was a hidden crime.

With the huge mass of people travelling into and out of the UK and around the capital just over a year from now during London Olympics and Paralympics it is imperative that this issue is treated more seriously than it is and some sort of permanent action plan is launched.

And that response must lie with government.

You can read the full transcript of the House of Lords proceedings here.

Update: Immigration minister Damian Green has now said that the UK is to opt in to the EU directive on human trafficking. There is no indication of when...as you would expect.

Picture: Rex Features/Tony Kyriacou

The "right" answer is no. The correct answer is yes: everybody is equal before the law (unless you can't afford to exercise your right of defence or are the head of state, but that's for another day).

However, the Supreme Court's decision that those on the sex offenders' register ought to be able challenge their place on it is further denting the reputation of the Human Rights Act 1998. 

David Cameron waded in yesterday with a promise to review the legislation and investigate replacing it with a bill of rights, although, as is customary with the PM, details were vague even if, like the Big Society, the label was good.

It was a three-way triumph for Cameron. His remarks cheered the Tory right, pandered to populist feeling about sex offenders at a time of opinion poll dissatisfaction, and probably satisfied the human rights sneerers in some sections of the media.

What Cameron has on his side is evidence to suggest that the nature of sex offending is different from that of many other crimes.

Radio 4's Today programme carried a short interview with child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas who compared paedophiles to leopards: they do not change their spots. They are characterised by furtiveness and cunning; merely pleading that they have changed and showing a police record that they have not re-offended may mean only that they have not been caught.

This proposition is supported by a 2003 Home Office study which showed that recidivism among sex offenders was five times higher than the reconviction rate.

None of which resolves the future of the Human Rights Act. Despite the claims of its detractors, its very existence serves to protect people. Indeed, only this week, Community Care has carried articles on how the act can be used to fight social care spending cuts and support service users.

The issue is that the temptation to make exceptions to the law - however much we dislike paedophilia - is a dangerous road on which to travel. If paedophiles were denied the right to appeal, who would be next?

Read social worker and solicitor Allan Norman's view: Can paedophiles change their spots?

Picture: Rex Features

As I blogged last week, Hammersmith and Fulham Council in west London is planning to cut funding to nine of its Sure Start centres and turn the remaining six over to the private sector. I trust those of you who live or work nearby will feel strongly enough to join a rally outside Hammersmith Town Hall in King Street tonight at 6pm to show your distaste for the latest in the Tory-run council's cuts.

Full details from the website HFConwatch

As David Cameron told his party's conference in 2009: "Sure Start will stay and we will improve it." Now in government, the Tories cannot be accused of removing the early years scheme from its agenda. 

The agenda marked "cuts".