Opinion – Clash over social care duties reveals divide

The old adage “when you’re in a hole stop digging” has never been more apt than in the train crash which is the government’s use of statutory instrument 445 to exempt local authorities from some children’s social care statutory duties. There is widespread outrage, with 17,000 people signing a petition to reverse the move and the use of arcane “annulment” procedures to force debate in parliament. The vote to overturn the measures may have been lost, but the issues have not gone away, and now permission for a judicial review has been granted.

Context is everything. Many people saw the move to reduce regulatory requirements designed to protect children as an attempt to re-introduce similar “flexibilities” proposed in 2017. These were strenuously opposed to the point where they were retracted and were followed soon after by the withdrawal of the clumsy Mythbuster document. So, it should not have been a surprise to anyone in government that the new proposals would throw petrol on the fire of old mistrust.