in the medical care provided or medical error that has occurred. In the fi eld of child welfare, where the
knowledge base is less developed and practitioners have relatively little scope to control the whole environment where change is sought, both assumptions are problematic. In safeguarding and child protection, therefore, poor or even tragic outcomes for children and young people may or may not be the result of professional action or omission. To assume otherwise is part of a fantasy that children’s safety can be guaranteed if professionals only do as is expected of them. Although it would be more accurate and morally fairer to say that children’s safety can’t always be guaranteed by professional behaviour, would this ever be politically acceptable? Recent output from the Department for Education (DfE) gives hope. In a public letter to Labour MP Caroline Flint on 29 March, concerning the published Edlington serious case review (SCR), education minister Michael Gove signalled radical change (see Gove’s signal for change). In Gove’s account, ‘fairness’ in safeguarding and child protection work involved judging professional decisions on how they were made
POLICY
WORKFORCE
at the time, regardless of what turns out later to be their impact. This indicates such a fundamental shift in the practice and outcomes of SCRs that political affi liations need to be put aside and the implications assimilated sector- wide. The potential changes to SCRs do not end
In Gove’s account, ‘fairness’ in child
protection work involved judging professional decisions on how they were made at the time, regardless of what turns out to be their impact
there. Not judging safeguarding practice by the outcomes raises other questions. What of practice that, on review, does turn out to have been problematic, to have been misguided albeit with good intent? What does fair look like then?
In child welfare, the statutory guidance
Gove’s signal for change
has always been clear that SCRs are not inquiries into how a child died or was seriously harmed, or into who is culpable, nor part of any disciplinary inquiry or process relating to individual practitioners. It has always been clear that the purpose is about ‘learning lessons’. However, a defi nition has been lacking and what exactly we mean by ‘lessons’ has never been clear and, instead, SCR practice has created its own norms. A trawl through executive summary reports available on the websites of local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) gives an indication of how often the identifi cation of the mistake or error by particular individuals or groups – what was not done but should have been done – is called the ‘lesson’. Here too, though, there are indications that the future may look diff erent. In his letter,