Addressing delegates at the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services (C4EO) conference, Jacky Tiotto, head of safeguarding practice at the DfE, said Munro is keen to report on ways to improve serious case reviews before January next year.
The serious case review process could then be changed if Munro finds a more effective way of helping professionals learn lessons from child injuries and deaths.
Tiotto added that there is a renewed emphasis on safeguarding and the role of early intervention within the DfE. She said ministers and officials are discussing how universal services can take the pressure off overburdened social-care teams.
"There are questions about what we should be getting children centres to do with vulnerable children," she explained. "Should they be doing more and could they be doing more? We have to start to think about what is happening to children’s social-care services because the system is clogging up. Also, what is the role of schools?"
Another area that officials are considering as a matter of priority is performance management in children’s services, Tiotto said.
"Our new ministers across government are thinking very carefully about how stuffed the performance system has become," she explained. "We collect lots of data that doesn’t really tell us anything."
