Introduction

Changes to child welfare policy over the last decade have strengthened the case for categorising the English system as a child protection rather than a family service system (Parton, 2014: ch 1). By examining the key drivers of policy change, this research has helped to explain this shift, while also accounting for unresolved tensions and contradictions in policy. Public and political debate about the English child welfare system has tended to take place in the shadow of high-profile child abuse inquiries and media-generated scandals. Moreover, successive waves of national reform have been framed by ministers as responses to inquiry findings and the perceived failures of local agencies and professionals, invariably social workers. This book has challenged this perception by turning the spotlight on policymaking at the national level, drawing on theories of the policymaking process and interviews with prominent policymakers under the Labour and Conservative-led governments. The purpose of this concluding chapter is to reflect on these findings by summarising the key features of children's services policymaking over the last two decades.

The national politics of local service failure

The narrative connecting children's services reform and high-profile child abuse inquiries has been reinforced by ministers. However, previous research suggests that it is media pressure that drives ministerial responses, more so than the findings of the inquiries themselves (Parton, 1985, 2014; Butler and Drakeford, 2005, 2012; Stafford et al, 2012; Warner, 2015). The Maria Colwell inquiry (Secretary of State for Social Services, 1974) has been identified as a landmark case in this regard. Following the scandal surrounding the circumstances of Maria's death, and the agencies and professionals implicated, ministers searched for ways to assert tighter bureaucratic control over social services and social workers. Moreover, following subsequent inquiries over the next two decades, the responsibilities of specialist child and family social workers became increasingly prescribed (Parton, 2014: ch 2). In the period covered by this research, two cases stand out for the volume and ferocity of media coverage, and the changes to child welfare policy that they came to be associated with. Labour's ECM reform programme (HM Government, 2003) was presented as a response to the Victoria Climbié inquiry (Lord Laming, 2003) and required significant changes to the way in which local children's agencies were organised.