To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the rising numbers of child abuse allegations.
Answered on
22 October 2014
The Government is clear that protection from abuse and neglect is a fundamental right for all children. The Department for Education is committed to reforming the current child protection system to make sure that children at risk of abuse or neglect are identified early, have an assessment which is based on their individual needs and are able to access services which promote their welfare and protect them from harm.
The Department is improving social worker training and developing further the skills of existing social workers so they can make the right decisions for children. Since 2010, we have invested more than £400million in bursaries and training programmes to attract the very best candidates into the profession.
We have also worked closely with Ofsted to introduce a new, tougher inspection framework for children’s services. From April 2015 this framework will be extended to identify weak interagency working between local authorities, the police and other local agencies. Where child protection services are judged to be not good enough by Ofsted, we are stepping in to make sure that they improve immediately, including by establishing new delivery models to help turn these services around where necessary.