One year since Lord Laming's report into child protection services in England, the true price of improving safeguarding is emerging.
Last week a study by Loughborough University, commissioned by the Local Government Association (LGA), estimated that implementing Laming's recommendations could cost social work teams nationally an extra £116m a year.
The LGA is now calling on government to scrap one particularly costly suggestion from Laming, Recommendation 19, which proposes social workers conduct formal initial assessments for every child referred to them.
Loughborough estimates the average cost of an initial assessment to be £361.70. Employing the extra staff needed to introduce Recommendation 19 alone could cost in the region of £75m nationally.
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