Reflecting on the death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

No child should ever experience the months of extreme cruelty this six-year old boy was subjected to by those who are expected to care for him and keep him safe from any harm. The nation is rightly shocked by what Arthur endured, and by his murder.

We await the outcomes of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Independent Police Review, to gain a better understanding of the circumstances leading up to Arthur’s death including the role of the public services and safeguarding arrangements set up to protect Arthur and where they may have fallen short. 

It will be important that anyone chosen to lead these are independent of current government reviews or reforms, so that their recommendations can include scrutiny of these. Whilst it is premature to comment on the exact details of this tragedy, what we do know is that our child protection system in England is under immense pressure and local authorities and partner agencies are struggling to meet the growing demands for their services, in light of over a decade of progressive and pernicious cuts to budgets. 

This has left those working on the front line overstretched and under-resourced, as has already been highlighted in relation to Arthur’s death by Herbert Laming and Harry Ferguson. 

Unlike many other public servants, social workers and the police cannot maintain a waiting list if a child may be in danger. Therefore how do they respond to the increasing numbers of complex referrals? Local authority children and families services have had no choice but to develop ‘thresholds’, and ways to assess evidence, that allows them to direct stretched resources toward those most obviously evidencing the greatest need. While we do not know at this point, it should be explored whether this may have been a factor in this case.

We know from practitioner accounts that there has also been a marked increase in the complexity and difficulty of child protection work during the pandemic, particularly where some children already known to be vulnerable were not seen by any professionals other than social workers – removing important protective layers from these children’s lives. 

It is vital that any child who may be at risk is seen by an experienced social worker who has the time to spend with them, to listen to them, build trusting relationships with them and understand what life is like for them through their eyes. The pandemic continues to place additional strain on these stretched services through workplace absences, uncertainty, changing guidance and even further reduced resources.

Currently, there is a review of the children’s social care system taking place in England commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE). We implore the chair and members of the review to take stock of this tragic loss of life and revise their position on the child protection system being a ‘runaway train’ in need of a major overhaul. This can only cause more pressure on services, especially in some of the most deprived parts of the country, and increased risk for those who need them. Sadly, this is not the only child death to occur in 2020, according to the NSPCC, an average of 62 children die each year as a result of assault or undetermined intent in the UK. 

However, these tragic deaths need to be understood alongside the fact that over 28,000 children came into care last year to protect them from further harm, which also increases the pressures on overstretched social work services. 

While not every child death is preventable, it is vital that when the review publishes its findings in spring 2022 it takes a balanced view of what is required to keep our children safe from harm. We all would agree that a fit for purpose children’s social care system is one that is enabled to provide critical early help to avert child abuse tragedies as well as intervene swiftly in emergencies when children’s lives are in danger. 

CRWA caution against splitting off these two components in the children’s social care system in England. The last thing children and families need is greater fragmentation where even bigger gaps would be created in the cross-agency protective and support services, if the two were to become disconnected from one another. 

The first step must be to properly cost and fund these cross-agency support and protective services. Children in this country deserve nothing less.

The Care Review Watch Alliance (CRWA) is a loose collective of people from all corners of the care community including care experienced people, care professionals, educators and researchers, social workers, foster carers and residential care providers.