Introduction

In a speech on child protection, Michael Gove (2012) called for “an open discussion free of cant, obfuscation, emulsifying jargon and euphemism”. This chapter, jointly authored by an independent chair of a local safeguarding children board (LSCB) and a director of children's services (DCS), aspires to promote just such open discussion. It offers a reflective critique of the expectations invested in current systems for embedding accountability, assurance and improvements in children's safeguarding in England and Wales, underpinned by evidence drawn from experience and research. Subsequently, Gove (2013) has questioned whether politicians have been “sufficiently systematic, radical and determined” when reforming children's social care, and whether their responses to child protection failures have promoted “a defensive response based on compliance with bureaucratic demands rather than pursuit of excellence”. The critique offered in this chapter highlights missed opportunities and simplistic assumptions relating to how LSCBs might best ensure effective and accountable child protection practice.

A chapter in an earlier book (Preston-Shoot, 2012) questioned the hope placed in LSCBs to make a difference in promoting accountability, monitoring effectiveness and generating learning from practice. That chapter concluded that despite examples of innovative practice and leadership investment in creating structures, audit and training programmes, and protocols for information sharing and serious case reviews (SCRs), LSCBs had yet to demonstrate the impact of their work, manage effectively the breadth of their safeguarding responsibilities and engage meaningfully with children and young people.

Updated statutory guidance (HM Government, 2013) restates the importance of LSCBs in providing the effective co-ordination of, and challenge to, safeguarding children services. It increased the responsibilities placed on LSCBs, particularly the function to promote learning and improvement, and modified the accountability architecture, giving greater prominence to the role of local authority chief executive officer (CEO) in appointing and holding to account the independent chair. However, little has been done to remedy the arguable weaknesses in how the LSCB mandate has been configured, namely, the resources available to guarantee board capacity to fulfil its statutory functions, the complexity of legal rules surrounding information sharing, the reliance on permissive rather than directive authority to ensure interagency collaboration, and the assumed independent voice when the majority of board members are on the inside of the safeguarding systems and services being scrutinised.