 | FOREWORD
By the Secretary of State for Health, The Rt Hon Frank Dobson PC MP, Chairman of the Ministerial Task Force on Children's Safeguards
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The Utting Report from the Children's Safeguards Review was published in November last year. It painted a woeful tale of failure. Many children who had been "taken into care" to protect and help them had not been protected and helped. Instead some had suffered abuse at the hands of those who were meant to help them. Many more had been let down, never given the attention they needed, shifted from place to place, school to school and then turned out when they
reached 16.
This wasn't just a failure by care staff. The children had been failed by social services managers, councils, councillors, police, schools, neighbours, the Social Services Inspectorate, Government Departments, Ministers and Parliament. Some people from all those categories and institutions had worked hard to do a good job for these children but too many did not. The whole system had failed.
When the report was published the Government set up a Ministerial Task Force to thrash out our response. This involved Ministers from ten Government Departments and outside representatives from social services, education, the police and the voluntary sector. It also included one young woman who had recently been through the system. She made some very important contributions and provided salutary reminders of the real world in which children were actually living . I am grateful to all concerned for their positive contributions to the work of developing such a comprehensive set of measures.
Throughout our deliberations I asked all concerned to look at things from the point of view of the children and to ask "would this have been good enough for me when I was a child" or "would this be good enough for my children". And that is what the Task Force has tried to do. As a result our proposals are intended to ensure that those responsible at any level for children in care act towards them as any good natural parent tries to act towards their children.
We have proposed and the Government has accepted a range of practical measures to try to make sure that in future children in care are looked after properly and get a decent start in life. Having completed our report the Task Force has been given the further task of making sure it is implemented. In the past the whole system failed these children. It's our job to make sure that the whole system delivers. It's called joined up Government - all Government Departments, local authorities, police and voluntary organisation working together to a common goal with clear targets and a demanding timetable. Additional resources are being made available. There can be no more excuses.
Frank Dobson
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