ferry disaster? I don't suppose anybody thought that the PM had been at the helm of the ship that sunk, or that he could personally be held to blame for any lapses in the training of supervision of the ferry. But
the culture in South Korea expects that those in highest authority carry responsibility for anything that goes wrong.
In children's services in this country, it is getting ever harder to work out where such responsibilities lie. When Herbert Laming published his review into the death of Victoria Climbie in 2003, he talked about the need for clear lines of accountability, from top to bottom of the system. He described senior managers in positions across a range of statutory and voluntary agencies not recognising their own responsibilities. His recommendations sparked a period of fundamental change across children's services - bringing together the planning, commissioning and delivery of most services for children under the oversight of the children's trusts; creating the post of director of children's services (DCS) in local authorities to lead the authority's own services; and calling on them to take a leadership role in driving the necessary partnerships with health, the police and others. Every Child Matters also strengthened the role of the local safeguarding children boards, requiring each partner agency to take responsibility to work with their colleagues to hold each part of the system to account.
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