Care Review: Critics claim Case for Change ‘misrepresents’ key legislation

In the review’s first report, chair Josh MacAlister describes the children’s social care system in England as “a 30-year-old tower of Jenga held together with Sellotape: simultaneously rigid and yet shaky”.

He adds that since the introduction of the act numerous reviews and legislative changes have each made “incremental progress” but “we are now left with a high stack of legislation, systems, structures, and services that with their sheer complicatedness make it hard to imagine something different, let alone address foundational problems”.

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"We must avoid increasingly piling bricks onto an already wobbly and fragile Jenga tower. We need a clear purpose for children’s social care and recommendations that return to and strengthen the bedrock principles of the Children Act 1989, so that children and families get the support and protection that they need and that professionals want to provide,” the Case for Change states.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) says, in its response to a public consultation on the report, that “some members interpreted the "30-year-old tower of Jenga" comment as referring to the Children Act 1989”.

“It was felt that the Children Act 1989, in particular, was misrepresented. This legislation was hard-won over decades and protects the fundamental rights of children. Referring to this document as somehow outdated is erroneous. It is regularly revised to reflect the ever-evolving needs of children and young people through guidance, new acts, new policies, and new regulations,” it adds.

BASW also questions the review’s separation of local authorities’ duty to investigate risk to a child and to provide support to a family, stating that both are statutory.

The Case for Change says: “The statutory children’s social care 'system' is only the tip of the iceberg: promoting and protecting children’s welfare and rights must be a priority that goes beyond any single agency.

“Government’s primary focus should be on supporting the resources of families and the wider community to keep children safe as close to a family environment as is possible, whilst still acting decisively and swiftly where children require protection.”

However, BASW states: “One of the reasons for the Children Act 1989 was to address the continuum between support and intervention to protect children from harm. 

“The report’s separation between statutory duty to investigate and non-statutory duty to provide support is either a misinterpretation or disingenuous.”

The Care Review Watch Alliance (CRWA), a collective of care-experienced people, social care practitioners and academics, adds in its response to the consultation: “The Case for Change mistakenly asserts that family support services provided under the Children Act 1989 are 'non-statutory'. This suggests either a fundamental misunderstanding of legislation or a purposeful omission, neither of which are acceptable.”

The alliance also accuses the review of staying “largely silent on the impact of poverty and austerity, including presenting figures in a way that purposefully underplays the impact of successive Conservative government cuts to services on the challenges faced by the children’s social care system today”.

It is calling for a new chair to be appointed amid fears over MacAllister’s independence.

BASW also highlights members’ concerns over the reviews’ autonomy from government, stating that members have “noted parallels of rhetoric between The Case for Change and [chief social worker Isabelle] Trowler's (2018) Case for Clear Blue Water. This again caused some distrust as to the review's independence”.

• CYP Now will publish a series of articles focusing on the key themes raised in sector responses to The Case for Change.​