Edlington torture case review proposes wide-ranging children's services reforms

The review, undertaken by Lord Carlile of Berriew, was ordered by Education Secretary Michael Gove after the serious case review into the two young brothers convicted of torturing a nine-year-old and an 11-year-old in Doncaster failed to meet his expectations.

Carlile’s review highlights how Doncaster Council missed several opportunities to intervene in the case of the two brothers, who were subject to a child protection plan for physical abuse and neglect, and looked after by Doncaster council.

It meanwhile makes a number of recommendations for improving children’s services nationally.

The report calls for “triage” arrangements in all local authorities, to bring a range of agencies together to quickly assess and provide support for children at risk and questions whether Local Safeguarding Children Boards are independent enough to be given responsibility for serious case reviews.

It also recommends that early intervention and intensive support for families must be stepped up and suggests mothers and fathers of children involved in care proceedings should be required to prove their capability as parents, if the children in question have been involved in three or more criminal incidents involving the police.

“Compliance with the troubled families programme should be the subject of an annual report in Doncaster and elsewhere, with a simple scoring system devised so that comparisons can be made of the local authorities included,” the report says.

The review raises the issue of whether the youth courts in England and Wales offer “the most effective means of dealing with young offenders”, citing the “relative success of the very different children’s panel system used in Scotland”.

“I am concerned too about the limited role played by some youth offending teams and courts in the strategic approach to children in trouble, and especially children who abuse others,” it says.

“In Doncaster, the youth court seems not to regard itself as at all involved in broader issues beyond case judgment and disposal.”

In relation to schools, the report proposes that annual medical examinations should be introduced for every school child up to and including year 11. Lord Carlile also says further attention should be given to developing a “good national standard for school nurse provision”, while all schools should take responsibility for providing alternative education for excluded children as soon as possible.

This, combined with increased access to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), would help pick up developmental problems in children at an earlier age, the report says.

“CAMHS often become engaged late or too lightly in extremely difficult cases,” the report warns. “The links between children’s services generally and CAMHS should be developed to achieve the best potential effect of full assessments of conduct disorder and the use of available treatment.”

Doncaster children’s services department has meanwhile been downgraded from adequate to inadequate following its latest unannounced Ofsted inspection.

Inspectors warned that the council is failing to protect children, as it struggles to cope with a huge rise in demand for support and problems recruiting and retaining qualified social workers.

Doncaster’s director of children’s services Chris Pratt, said: “It is clear that we have not yet fully recovered the systematically broken services that we previously had, and as Ofsted says, features of that systematic failure remain today.

“The reports do acknowledge progress has been made – and Lord Carlile's reporting states Doncaster is not faced with the shambolic situation of early 2009 – but I'm acutely aware our progress hasn't yet come far enough.