The Children’s Rights Alliance for England today (10 June) welcomes the Munro review of child protection as a long-awaited opportunity to fully consider the laws and systems in place to protect children and the extent to which the UK is meeting its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Carolyne Willow, CRAE’s national co-ordinator, says:

That the Minister has asked Professor Munro to consider the strongest systems of child protection in other countries shows an excellent open-mindedness and willingness to truly put children’s best interests at heart. We would be surprised, given the broad remit of the review, if it did not carefully consider international norms relating to child protection, set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and, more recently, by the UN Violence Study which the UK helped to fund.

CRAE urges Professor Munro to take evidence from children directly and to scrutinise the extent to which social workers have been supported to meet new duties to give due consideration to children’s wishes and feelings. This requirement was introduced in the Children Act 2004 following lobbying by CRAE. However, a CRAE Freedom of Information survey in 2007 revealed that 10% of directors of children’s services had been personally unaware of the provision before CRAE's request and only a third of local authorities had taken action to raise awareness among social workers of the new duty. A third of directors either did not know what had been done in their authority (18%) or had taken no action (15%).

It is also essential that the review does not limit its scope to child protection within families and looks at other settings where children are at risk. The Minister says he wants ‘social workers to be clear about their responsibilities and to be accountable in the way they protect children’. CRAE is deeply concerned about the safety of children in custody.

Carolyne Willow adds:

Child protection law does not differentiate between children who are harmed within families or within institutions. Yet, the abuse of children in custody is going unchecked: 30 children have died in custody since the UK signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and there have been endless reports of injuries, degrading treatment and child protection referrals to local councils that have not improved protection. International law gives every child the right to an effective remedy when their rights are violated and we hope the Munro review will keep this firmly in focus.      

Notes

1. The terms of reference for the review are set out in a letter from the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, to Professor Eileen Munro, dated 10 June and available at: http://www.education.gov.uk/news/news/munroreview
2. The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) is one of the largest children’s rights coalitions in the world.
3. CRAE’s FOI request was made to directors of children’s services in England. We received 139 responses to the following question: ‘Section 53 of the Children Act 2004 amends sections 17 and 47 of the Children Act 1989 and places a duty on local authorities to give due consideration to the child’s wishes and feelings in child protection enquiries and children in need assessments. Were you personally aware of these new provisions before receiving this survey?’ We received 131 responses to the following question: ‘Has your authority taken any specific action to increase awareness of these new provisions among social workers? ’.