SCRs need greater prevention focus, says NSPCC chief

Peter Wanless, who became chief executive of the charity in June 2013, told CYP Now that in the face of greater media scrutiny of child protection failings, SCRs are too often failing to get to the bottom of why problems arose and how to stop them happening again.

He said: “The critical thing is to get rapidly to the heart of why something has happened and what should be done to prevent it happening again. In all the complexity and media coverage we can all lose sight of the central simplicity of that question.”

Wanless, who is also one of the four members of the government’s SCR expert panel, added that there is no need for a change in guidance on how SCRs are carried out as “Working Together guidance is clear about that [learning] being at the heart of SCRs”.

Instead he said Local Safeguarding Children Board chairs and reviewers need to be more confident in deciding the type of review needed – whether that is a “major system review” or “narrower one about how services worked together”.

“There are questions to be asked about accountability and responsibility,” he said. But added: “The desire to learn can get lost in the many responsibility defined barriers of the system.”

His comments come just months after children’s minister Edward Timpson criticised the SCR into the death of four-year-old Daniel Pelka in Coventry for its failure to answer questions about why failings occurred and what needed to be done to prevent them happening again.

Wanless also outlined details of a new role the NSPCC is recruiting for that will help embed evidence-based practice throughout its work.

The organisation is currently searching for a new director of children’s services development and delivery who will have operational responsibility for its 400 social workers and ensure evidence gathered from its 40 service centres about what interventions work best are collated and shared.

Wanless explained: “This director will be our lead practitioner, ensure that the learning is extracted and made available, and stop services that are not having an impact.

“The role will have real knowledge and understanding of what it is like to run statutory services, and also be able to understand and respect knowledge gathering.”