ADCS defends social workers over safeguarding assessments

A survey of head teachers found nearly one in five (18 per cent) said social work assessments of children referred by schools to local authorities as a result of safeguarding concerns were not being completed within recommended timescales.

Under the government's Keeping Children Safe in Education guidelines, once a school safeguarding lead has made a referral to children's services, a decision on whether to carry out an assessment of the child's circumstances should be made within one working day, with the assessment being completed within 45 working days of the referral being made. 

The survey of 1,104 head teachers by The Key, a leadership and management support service for schools, found many respondents blamed the delay in assessments on the fact that many local authority child protection teams are “overworked, understaffed and stressed”.

But Alan Wood, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), said child protection services were performing well in the face of rising demand and reduced budgets.

He said: “In these testing circumstances it would not be surprising if there were a deterioration in the performance but we do not believe this is borne out by the evidence,” Wood said, referring to the 82 per cent of leaders who did not say there was a problem.

He added: “The completion of statutory assessments is a dynamic process which requires everyone to take an active role and that includes ensuring the designated teacher for child protection raises any concerns about timeliness directly with senior social work staff.”

Nearly three-quarters of head teachers surveyed said they had made referrals to social services during their career, with more than half admitting they were worried about the threat of female genital mutilation in their school.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said schools do their best to ensure all pupils get the help and support they need.

She said: “Schools are increasingly being expected to act as social workers as well as teach children and this puts a huge burden on them. They need help and support from social services and health services to help with the problems faced by vulnerable children, but this is increasingly hard to find because the cuts to local authority funding have led to many of the support services being cut.”

Fergal Roche, chief executive of The Key, said: “Our members in over a third of the country’s schools continuously come to us for guidance on safeguarding issues.

“It is clear that this is a pressing concern for school leaders and more needs to be done to help schools as they provide this much-needed support for some of our most vulnerable children.”

At the National Children and Adult Services Conference last November, Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw announced the regulator would improve guidance for schools on safeguarding.