Introduction

Before the Baby P crisis, social work reform had not been a high priority under the Labour government. Furthermore, the reform programme initiated by the SWTF (2009) was only just starting to be implemented at the time of the 2010 election. However, the Conservatives had identified social work reform as a priority even before the Baby P case. Furthermore, the recommendations of the SWTF were consistent with those of the earlier Commission on Social Workers for the Conservative Party (2007), and it therefore seemed likely that the new sector-led reform programme would be allowed to continue. Indeed, other than schools reform, the reform of child and family social work turned out to be the most active area of children's policy under the Coalition and Conservative governments. Thus, this chapter considers the development of policy in this area, building on the wider discussions in Chapters 7 and 8.

The first section focuses on the first two years of the Coalition government, which appeared to signal a commitment to the sector-led reform programme initiated by the SWTF. This includes a discussion of The Munro Review of Child Protection (Munro, 2011) and the government's response. The remainder of the chapter examines the development of policy on child and family social work since the end of 2012. The second section highlights how the familiar narrative of local authority and professional failure resurfaced. This is followed by a discussion of new reforms aimed at improving the consistency of social work training, regulation and learning in the third section. The fourth section reflects on the return to structural reform as the main solution to the challenges facing local authority children's services.