Baby P death 10 years on: the case's lasting impact on child protection

It is the 10th anniversary of the death of Peter Connelly. He died, aged 17 months, in Haringey, North London, on 3 August 2007 following months of neglect and what is likely to have been a short and intensive period of abuse.

Many will not know his name, but many will think they know about "Baby P", which is what he was called then and now in the media.

It was in November 2008 that the "Baby P" story hit the headlines when Peter's mother, her boyfriend and the boyfriend's brother were each found guilty of "causing or allowing" Peter's death.

Media coverage

It was The Sun newspaper that took a particular interest in Peter Connelly's story, a story which is now known to have been mistold and misdirected.

It was a story which was shaped through collusive and contaminating relationships between the tabloid press, the Metropolitan police and politicians, with these relationships exposed through the criminal trial into phone hacking at the News of the World and through the Leveson Inquiry.

It is also now known that senior Ofsted managers, civil servants and the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls became compromised and complicit under the considerable media pressure.

In reporting the terrible death of Peter, The Sun newspaper set out on a campaign of vilification aimed at the professionals who had contact with the Connelly family and their managers. Some escaped scrutiny and were kept on the margins of the story, such as the managers within the health service (although a GP and, in particular, a locum paediatrician were targeted).

The police were largely airbrushed out of the story altogether and instead provided self-protective ammunition which was then fired at the social workers and managers.

It was these social workers and managers who became the focus of The Sun's campaign for "justice" that they all be sacked - which was subsequently achieved - with the newspaper's front page accusation that they had "blood on their hands".

The vehemence of The Sun's attacks on the social workers, their managers and especially Sharon Shoesmith, Haringey's director of children's services, was such that they and their children became the subject of threat and fear and of abuse and potential assault.

As an academic with recent senior management experience in social work, I was able to fill a media space which was difficult for others, including serving directors of children's services.

It kept me in touch with how the "Baby P" story was being shaped. It was this involvement and information that led to my growing concern about the impact of the "Baby P" story as told by The Sun and others.

Fuelled demand

Instead of making life better and safer for children like Peter, the past 10 years have seen the child protection system become over-loaded and overwhelmed, while at the same time children's social workers and social services have been denigrated.

A fifth of social workers in statutory children's services are now agency workers and around a third of children's services directors have changed each year.

There have also been difficulties in recruiting paediatricians and named and designated child protection doctors.

Since 2009, Section 47 enquiries have risen 93 per cent, child protection plans and conferences by 72 per cent and 66 per cent respectively and care applications 69 per cent. Ofsted has compounded the difficulties by introducing more demanding inspection standards and more demeaning judgment categorisation - for example, rebranding the "adequate" judgment as "requires improvement" in 2013.

What may not be remembered is that the other big news story in November 2008 was the national and international financial crisis.

It was the banker-created financial crisis that provided the platform for the 2010 Conservative and Liberal Democrat government to impose politically-chosen austerity. It has led to pervasive cuts across public services, with those who have key roles in helping and protecting children across professions and agencies having their capacity reduced and confidence rocked at the time of increasing workloads.

Swingeing cuts

One of the reasons workloads have increased is that along with public services and public servants, the other target of the coalition government's austerity policies was the undermining of the economic and social wellbeing of poor children and families.

Severe and stringent reductions in social security and housing benefits - continued by David Cameron's and Theresa May's Conservative governments - have moved many poor families from deprivation to destitution, increasing the pressure on families and making parenting much harder.

This context and consequence of increased need generating greater workloads at a time of cuts has then been used by the government to characterise public services as "failing" and to move them into a commercial privatised marketplace. This is already well underway with schools, universities, health services, housing, probation, prisons, the police, and the assessment and administration of welfare benefits.

Children's services ‘market'

It is now the turn of children's social care services which are being removed by the government from local authorities, while other councils are voluntarily contracting out children's social services responsibilities. The changes in statutory regulations in 2014 now allow any organisation or company to get these contracts.

Introducing more providers raises questions about greater fragmentation and confused accountability in children's services.

Will a commercial marketplace opened up to private companies, many of whom have been in discussion with the DfE about what is being called the children's services "industry", result in a greater commitment to the welfare of families and make children safer?

The continued cap on public sector salaries, debts accrued from undergraduate tuition fees and the introduction of a new national accreditation and examination system are all barriers to encouraging new social workers into the sector.

In addition, will the introduction of fast-track training, such as Frontline, with the promise of quick promotion away from frontline practice, create a more stable and experienced practitioner workforce?

Will stretched children's services departments have time to get to know and to work with those who need assistance?

Will the pressures on managers and practitioners to be risk-averse mean that the 130 per cent increase in care proceedings since 2008 will continue to eascalate?

Finally, when the next media furore erupts, will politicians be willing to stand up against tabloid bullying?

The answers to these questions are pertinent to whether the wellbeing and safety of children will improve or deteriorate over the past 10 years.

Positive developments

Set against all of these very real risks are the positive developments of newly qualifying social workers being recognised and celebrated for their commitment, care and increasing competence and confidence, more explicit expectations about practice standards and the development of the career-spanning professional capabilities framework, and the emerging creation of multi-professional teams and services.

Some councils have also remembered and held on to the learning of the past 50 years of what makes good child protection and children's social work - a well supported and developed workforce that is child and family-focused, the importance of relationships as much as risk management, good partnership working across communities, and a platform of continuity and stability despite the current DfE clamour for change and novelty under the banner of innovation.

The big lesson, however, over the past decade since Peter Connelly's death is how powerful people, punitive politics and pernicious policies can threaten what has been the world's safest and most successful child protection system.

Ray Jones is the author of The Story of Baby P: Setting the Record Straight, and a former director of social services