Why do social workers keep failing children like Arthur Labinjo-Hughes?

Why does the number of children dead from abuse — like poor Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson — stay roughly the same year in, year out?

More children are taken into care every year in this country. So why doesn’t this reduce the number of desperate, abused children who are dying at the hands of the people who should be caring for them?

My suspicion is that it’s become normal for over-worked, badly-managed social workers simply to focus on the easier cases, and leave the violent addicts and the psychopathic step-parents alone. And if this is true, what it means is not only are children like Baby P and Victoria Climbié left abandoned, but that some children who might perhaps safely be left with their parents or with extended family, given enough support, are instead being taken and put into care, or given up for adoption, behind the closed doors of the family courts.

It’s a hard thing to prove, but the collection of facts we do have hang together in an ominous way. For two decades, and especially in the 14 years since Baby P, local authorities have been incentivised to be more proactive about removing children they deem at risk. And by this narrow definition of success, they’ve done quite well. There were 58,100 ‘Looked after’ children in 2000 and 80,000 in 2020.

Yet throughout this period, the amount of kids killed annually in unspeakable abusive circumstances has stayed roughly the same. The figures vary wildly depending on the source, but whichever set you follow, the annual rate over the last 20 years hasn’t fallen. I wish to God it were the Arthurs, Stars and Victoria’s making it, in increasing numbers, into safer homes. I fear it’s not. In 2016, the University of the West of England reported that child protection referrals had risen by 297 per cent since the Children Act came into force, and assessments by social services have risen by 359 per cent. But the proportion of cases in which abuse was identified had plummeted from 24 per cent to just under 8 per cent.

Some 5 per cent of all families in England are now referred for assessment every year — that’s roughly a million families, though I don’t suppose this will come as any great surprise. Everyone knows someone decent who’s had the heart-stopping experience of being deemed a suspicious parent by social services.

Nina Lopez, from a group called Support not Separation says of about 3,500 adoptions a year, 90 per cent are against the will of the birth family, but they are hidden by a closed family court system, and that many of these children could, with better support, remain with a family member.

If this was the price we pay for high-functioning and assiduous social services, and for the saving of every Arthur, Victoria or Star, that would be one thing. But every horrific case that goes to trial reveals that at least some social workers have a disturbingly casual approach. Both Arthur and Star had other family members who tried repeatedly to raise the alarm. In both cases, police officers and social workers were easily fobbed off with weak excuses. It would be a terrible thing if, after all the outcry over these horrific cases, their legacy was a system that removed even more of the wrong children from their parents, whilst continuing to fail the most desperately needy.