Vox Pop: Should local safeguarding children boards be scrapped?

NO - ROSIE CARTER, project director, Safechild

LSCBs cannot be scrapped in a knee-jerk reaction to reduce red tape. The welfare of children and young people is of immense critical importance and effective safeguarding has to be a shared multi-agency responsibility that is governed and scrutinised at a strategic level. If they were to be scrapped we would need to find a robust replacement, which is properly planned and implemented. It would be preferable for local authorities to get a grip on what really matters and invest in some of the real issues that are of concern: the enormous pressure of caseloads on frontline staff, the recruitment and retention of workers, and comprehensive child protection training for all staff.

YES - DAVID HODGE, deputy leader, Surrey County Council

Our priority is looking after children and young people, not doing paperwork. The excessive amount of guidance involved with LSCBs does little to help us focus on ensuring all children remain as safe as possible, so the logical conclusion is to remove this bureaucratic burden. In the current financial climate, we need to be extra vigilant in ensuring money is not spent on bureaucracy. LSCBs could be scrapped in their current form and their functions conducted in a different way. However, it is clear that those functions which play a key role in ensuring children and young people are as safe as possible will continue to be necessary.

NO - LUCY THORPE, acting head of policy, NSPCC

If we've learnt anything at all from child abuse deaths and serious cases over the last 30 to 40 years, it is how crucial it is for agencies to work together to protect children.

Every government, including the present one, has rightly stressed the importance of such multi-agency co-operation. LSCBs are the key statutory mechanism for improving how relevant organisations work together to protect and to promote the welfare of children in their area. While they are still evolving, there is clear evidence to show they are making a significant contribution to improving the effective co-ordination of local child protection arrangements and the sharing of best practice.

NO - EMILY MUNRO, assistant director, Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University

I believe they should stay but their remit could be streamlined. Poor inter-agency collaboration has been a major factor in numerous child protection tragedies. Simply eradicating a whole host of partnerships has the potential to undermine the advances made in recent years to view safeguarding children as a shared responsibility. But the remit of boards is currently wide. They have a range of functions and it would be beneficial to narrow their responsibilities and allow them to focus their efforts on protecting children in need, or at risk of significant harm.