Safeguarding standard bearer: David N Jones, chair, the Association of Independent LSCB Chairs

David N Jones has been working in child protection social work for 41 years. So his assertion that the systematic sexual exploitation of children by criminal gangs is one of the biggest challenges the profession has ever faced carries weight.

“Not only are we dealing with battered babies, neglect and family sexual abuse, but also now child trafficking and organised criminal exploitation of children, which our system was never designed to cope with or recognise,” says Jones, chair, since June 2014, of the Association of Independent Local Safeguarding Children Board Chairs.

In June, the government established a cross-government taskforce, chaired by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, in an attempt to deliver a co-ordinated response to the growing threat – a move that Jones welcomes.

“If people feel the country isn’t safe for children, that is a real threat to government,” he says. “I see the taskforce as primarily a political structure. But if it will bring together the different elements of government, then that will be a really significant achievement.”

The failure of different parts of the child protection system to talk to each other has been a consistent feature of serious case reviews and abuse inquiries over recent years, but Jones says this is also a “fundamental weakness” of central government.

“We’re told by government agencies we should be doing better over partnership working, but government departments find it difficult to co-operate too,” he says.

“It has felt at times over the past few years that government departments really find it difficult to co-ordinate their work and we’ve seen that particularly with child sexual exploitation (CSE) where the Home Office leads on sexual abuse and Department for Communities and Local Government leads on troubled families.”

Created through the Children Act 2004, local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) bring together agencies that co-ordinate child protection arrangements in a local area. Jones, who is also the independent LSCB chair in Leicester, says partnership working is a key component of their work, and something that local services and professionals are finding increasingly hard to do.

“To get organisations to co-operate, you have to give people time and that time is evaporating because of austerity,” he explains.

“This is one of the biggest threats to the child protection system – are there going to be the people who will have the time to invest in brokering the agreements between agencies?
“Resources for supporting families are being reduced; early help services are under pressure; children’s centres are closing – the money is just not there. That creates risk and the government has to find a way of managing it.”

Rising demand and spending cuts

In a climate of rising demand and reduced resources, Jones believes that communities have to play a bigger part in protecting children “without unleashing a sort of vigilantism”.

He says: “Around the world, people are talking about the need to rediscover skills in community engagement and social work, and mobilise communities to support themselves. That is a huge challenge. There are assumptions that there are vast numbers of volunteers around to do things, but from my personal experience, I know they don’t always exist.”

The impact of government spending cuts are being seen throughout children’s services, and LSCBs are no exception. And, as with other parts of the public sector, the tougher fiscal climate is accompanied by rising expectations of what safeguarding agencies can deliver among politicians and the public.

Jones says it is right for expectations of LSCBs to be high, but that the resources available must also be taken into account: “One of the things the government taskforce will have to consider is how do you ensure there is sufficient local challenge within the safeguarding system that is cost-effective, but doesn’t build a whole monitoring bureaucracy in an age of austerity?”

LSCBs are essentially self-monitoring and their constituent local agencies hold each other to account for the safeguarding work they do. All 146 boards across the country have an independent chair and two lay members who are there to “hold people’s feet to the fire”, says Jones.

“That can work reasonably well, but does rely on the willingness of local partners to co-operate and engage and have the capacity and resources to do it,” he adds.

To make resources stretch further, there have been suggestions that the number of LSCBs could be reduced, with safeguarding scrutiny arranged on a larger regional basis. Jones is sceptical that this would improve joint working because he says partnerships rely on good local relationships.

“It has to be sufficiently local to make it work,” he says. “That might be at a level of one, two or maybe three local authority areas depending on their size. If you create a regional structure, like a partnership of local authorities, that will need to be resourced: it will require money and people to do the analysis. That doesn’t feel very real in an age of austerity.

“Debates like this will happen and the association is happy to discuss different models, but there isn’t a simple solution. For most of the agencies involved [in LSCBs], child protection isn’t their first priority – it’s something they have to manage alongside other things.”

The increasing demand on boards is putting additional pressure on England’s 100 LSCB chairs (some chair more than one board), says Jones. Most are employed just three days a month, an amount Jones says “isn’t very realistic” considering the level of work and responsibility.

“A chair used to be somebody who ensured the meetings worked, but increasingly they are being seen as the one person to hold this complex system to account.”

In addition, he warns that the association’s ability to support independent chairs – nine out of 10 of who are members – is limited because its funding is “vulnerable”. The association receives a DfE grant of £90,000 and Jones says about half of local authorities provide £1,500 a year in support.

He adds: “For such a crucial role within the system, it feels a very fragile infrastructure to sustain the dialogues at national and local level.”

Despite these limited resources, the association continues to provide conferences, training tools for chairs and research reports on safeguarding trends. It recently reviewed LSCB inspections by Ofsted, and raised concerns that boards, like local authorities, are struggling to achieve the inspectorate’s highest ratings. In his foreword to the accompanying report, Jones suggests this could have more to do with politics than practice.

He writes: “Can this really be because there is no outstanding practice, especially when international comparisons show that our arrangements are as good as the best and better than most? This appears unlikely.

“Could it be that recent events have increased anxiety about the possibility that an authority/board might be judged ‘outstanding’, but shortly afterwards suffer a serious case in which service delivery is found to be poor?”

Multi-agency approach

Jones’ misgivings about the inspection process also extend to the planned introduction later this year of joint targeted area inspections of child protection work. The new multi-agency process – which will involve Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary – will see a team of inspectors spend five days looking at different aspects of an area’s safeguarding work.

Jones – who spent three years at the end of the last decade working at Ofsted – supports the drive to develop a multi-agency approach, and hopes it will help the different inspectorates co-ordinate their priorities and the expectations on agencies. However, he says the amount of time for consultation on the proposals – the four-week timescale ended last week – was not enough. In addition, he questions the decision for CSE to be the first area on which the inspectorates are planning to undertake an in-depth look.

“It is unfortunate that the first round of joint inspections are going to focus initially on CSE,” Jones says. “I’ve said this to Ofsted and I’m sure they are reacting to government pressure. Our view – and it is widely held across the sector – is that the really challenging issues are early help and child neglect, both of which are under financial pressure.”

He says focusing on CSE also risks reinforcing the view that it is the main safeguarding issue.

“CSE is important, but it is a small part of work in terms of numbers. Appearing to suggest the only thing that is really important is CSE is not a good message to send to the public.”

David N Jones CV

• July 2014 Chair, Association of Independent LSCB Chairs
• March 2010 Chair, Leicester Safeguarding Children Board
• 2009 Deputy director (children’s services), Ofsted
• 2007 Ofsted inspector
• 2006-2010 President, International Federation of Social Workers
• 1994-1999 Director of UK operations, the Council for Training in Social Work
• 1985-1994 General secretary, British Association of Social Workers
• 1975-1985 Various roles, NSPCC
• 1974 Social worker, Nottinghamshire Council