Our interview with Lord Herbert Laming is part of a new series of profiles of key figures who have shaped social work over the past five decades, to mark Community Care's 50th anniversary.
More than 20 years after delivering his report into the death of Victoria Climbié, there is still a quiet sadness about Lord Herbert Laming at the mention of her name.
In 2001, the government tasked the former chief inspector of social services with chairing a statutory inquiry into the murder of the eight-year-old Ivorian girl by her great aunt, Marie-Therese Kouao, and Kouao’s boyfriend, Carl Manning the previous year.
The extent of the abuse Victoria had suffered shocked the country. Lord Laming’s report, published in 2003, called her a “victim of almost unimaginable cruelty”, with the post-mortem examination revealing 128 separate injuries to her body.
“It is the worst case of child abuse and neglect that I have ever seen,” said a hospital consultant who treated Victoria in her final days.
Yet almost as disconcerting were the several opportunities missed to save Victoria by the numerous services she had been in contact with prior to her death, including social services, hospitals and the police.
‘A gross failure of the system’
[audio mp3="https://markallenassets.blob.core.windows.net/communitycare/2024/04/Victoria.mp3"][/audio]
Lord Laming on the Victoria Climbié case
While Laming acknowledged in his report that these agencies were “underfunded, inadequately staffed and poorly led”, he described Victoria’s death as an “inexcusable” and “gross failure of the system”.
Not one of the opportunities that arose to intervene required “great skill or would have made heavy demands on time to take some form of action”, his report concluded.
Looking back now, Laming says poor communication between services was the catalyst behind their failure to save Victoria. Several staff at the time uttered words to the effect of: “But had I known that, I would have acted differently.”
“The sad thing is [her situation] was known, but it was not shared with other services,” he says now.
Laming’s report made 108 recommendations, designed to increase the priority placed on children within government, local authorities and other agencies, enhance joint working and significantly improve the quality of practice by social workers and other agencies.
The then New Labour government implemented several through the Children Act 2004 and its wider Every Child Matters agenda, including requiring councils to appoint directors of children’s services.
The ‘Baby P case’ and Laming’s second report
However, in 2008, child protection practice came under the microscope again following the convictions of those responsible for the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly (‘Baby P’): his mother Tracy Connelly, stepdad Steven Barker and Barker’s brother, Jason Owens.
A serious case review found Peter’s “horrifying death could and should have been prevented”.
So the government called back Laming to review progress on child protection since his 2003 report. His second report, in 2009, praised Every Child Matters, including for prompting additional investment in preventive services, but warned that a “step change” was needed to protect children from harm.
This time, he made 58 recommendations, including further injunctions to strengthen accountability for children’s services, enhance inter-agency working, improve practice and boost funding for preventive and child protection services.
While the response from ministers again was positive, the report’s impact was critically undermined by its timing.
More child protection cases and less funding
The Peter Connelly case appeared to trigger a shift to more risk averse practice, as the number of child protection enquiries and plans and applications to take children into care rocketed.
Then, in 2010, the incoming coalition government embarked on its programme of public spending cuts to close the deficit created by the 2007-8 financial crisis.
As a result, local authority spending on children’s services fell by 9% in real-terms from 2010-11 to 2015-16, according to government-commissioned research. With the increase in child protection and care cases, expenditure on family support was squeezed.
Spending has since increased, but children’s services have faced new and different pressures, not least the experience and lasting impact of Covid-19 on the risks children face and the complexity of their needs.
Just in the last two years, child protection practice has been heavily criticised in the cases of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, one-year-old Star Hobson and, more recently, 10-month-old Finley Boden.
Laming’s doubts about child protection improvements
[audio mp3="https://markallenassets.blob.core.windows.net/communitycare/2024/04/have-things-gotten-better.mp3"][/audio]
Lord Laming on whether there has been improvement in child protection since 2003
So, 21 years after his first report and 15 years after his second, has Laming found that things are better?
There was a time he would have said yes, he says. Unfortunately, he is no longer sure.
Laming attributes this in part to the decline in funding after 2010.
“I think the financial cutbacks in recent years have led to each of the services withdrawing into themselves and I fear that sometimes they only act once the crisis has happened,” he says.
“I am a great believer that one of the strengths of social work is the opportunity to meet people at a time of pending crisis in their lives, to identify and assess what the issues are and [create] a plan of action that will help recover the situation.”
The need for children’s services to shift from crisis response to prevention was also a key conclusion from Josh MacAlister’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which reported in 2022. It has also been adopted by the Department for Education in its 2023 strategy for the sector, Stable Homes, Built on Love.
Under this, some local authorities are testing a new model, ‘family help’, designed to provide families with earlier and more effective support to stave off crises and keep children at home, an approach broadly endorsed by Laming.
A preventive outlook, he adds, would not only keep children out of care, but save local authorities “a lot of money in the process”.
‘Realistic expectations needed’ for social workers
[audio mp3="https://markallenassets.blob.core.windows.net/communitycare/2024/04/funding.mp3"][/audio]
Lord Laming comments on the current funding crisis in social work
Yet, despite funding constraints, Laming notes that expectations for frontline staff have continued to climb higher.
“It's no use to dream and want to live in a castle but only have the funding for a one-bedroom flat,” he says.
“I tell you we went through a phase where, if you read the objectives for social care services, there were lots of statements [with] the word ‘excellence’ featured a great deal. It’s no use saying to frontline staff our objective is ‘excellence’, but we're not going to give you the resources to achieve anything like that.”
It is “people detached from the field”, he says, who continue to make important funding decisions. And so it is on councils and senior management to be “absolutely realistic, honest and open” with both social workers and the government about what can and can’t be achieved, he stresses.
“I don't like putting staff in a position where the expectation is high, but they know that delivery will not be anything like that.”
Progress in practitioners’ expertise
Still, he acknowledges the “enormous” progress that has occurred in practitioners’ expertise and attitudes towards disability, mental health, alcoholism and drug addiction - and their work with families, local communities and the ageing population.
“I think that social workers have gotten a much better understanding of their role, responsibilities and their powers.”
And it’s not that he hasn’t encountered exemplary work in social services - he has met remarkable people. But, the crossbench peer says, some of that outstanding work has been lost.
“Not because of the lack of enthusiasm, professionalism or commitment, but because the resources have been taken away. Frontline staff have found themselves constricted in what they can do and how much time they can give.”
Social work ‘needs to be purposeful’
[audio mp3="https://markallenassets.blob.core.windows.net/communitycare/2024/04/recommendations.mp3"][/audio]
Lord Laming on why social work needs to be purposeful
There is eloquence in the way Laming speaks. His careful answers are preceded by long pauses where he deliberates on each question to ensure the message is, as he would say, purposeful.
It is a word he thinks needs to be connected more with the work social services do.
“Each of the reports that have happened since [Victoria] into awful deaths of children have highlighted some of the same issues about not sharing information, about not having an action plan,” he says.
“The thing about social work is it can go on for years with the same individuals, but it's got to be purposeful. I personally attach a lot of importance to the discipline of doing a thorough assessment of where we are, whether or not there’s been progress and whether it’s gone in the right direction.”
He recalls his start in probation services in the 1960s when he had to be very disciplined and clear in the plans he made for individuals placed under a probation order.
Later, as a social worker, he never went on a home visit without being transparent about what the purpose of his visit was, he says.
“I'm very clear that in social work it's not about the chat. It's not about having a cup of tea. These things might help but it's about the purpose behind being there.”
Assessments ‘are about using your senses’
In the past, he has witnessed that ‘purpose’ lacking in assessments of potential children in need.
An assessment should not be a tick-box evaluation, but instead one based on basic senses, he says.
“Go in and use your eyes. See how the adults relate to each other, how the child or children relate to the adults. Do they go rushing up for comfort and reassurance or cower? Smell - is this place neglected or not? Use your ears. What am I hearing about how they address each other? Is it antagonistic or disparaging? Where are the toys?
“So when you walk out of your visit you've got a good picture of the family dynamics. You won’t get everything all at once, but you’ll get a reasonable idea of whether or not that is a child-centred home.”
More direct work, less paperwork needed
Laming is the first to admit that nowadays he is far more removed from the sector and the daily realities of social work than he used to be.
However, pressures on social workers mean that his vision for assessment feels as far away as ever.
A poll of 716 practitioners by the Social Workers Union recently revealed that 58% find their workload either not at all or only partially manageable. And in 2022, children’s social workers reported spending 59% of their working time doing case-related paperwork.
Laming is very candid about his displeasure towards senior leadership about this administrative burden.
“I really don't understand it. When social workers [tell me] that, I want to ask, 'Does the director of children's services or your senior management know that?’. Because you're employed as a frontline worker to work with people. There must be a way of ensuring that the bureaucratic stuff can be kept in its place. I'm all for record-keeping - I've read too many bad records [as a chief inspector]- but it is a means to an end. The end is the child.
“We've never had such a means of easy communication as we have now. What we mustn't do is make it the master. It is the servant and enabler. It is the thing that releases the social worker to get out and do the main part of their job.”
A child’s journey through services
These days, Laming is also concerned about the link between children’s and adults’ services, particularly issues that arise when a young person transitions from the former to the latter.
Laming tells me of a severely disabled young adult who, until the age of 18, had been well supported by children’s services. But upon reaching adulthood, when the child got referred to adults’ services, it was as if the young person’s history with children’s services had been erased.
“They started again as if there was no previous contact with this child. An early social history had to be taken and a new file had to be created, etc. And I think to myself, we've got to see the whole person.
“But then I've also seen some wonderful work where adults’ services were brought in when the child was some years away from finishing school and the authority arranged for prospective employers to be engaged.”
Ultimately, for him, this sums up the problem in children’s services. You always “get the extremes” - a child that has had a wonderful experience and one that was failed.
“What I want to see is the good stuff, the exceptional stuff that is out there, to become the standard stuff everywhere.”
Which influential figures in social work would you like to see Community Care interview?
