Vulnerable children left at risk by 'horrifying' state of social services, government watchdog finds

The National Audit Office says poor services have persisted despite years of action and billions of pounds spent by the Government

Poor standards persist despite six years in which the Government has spent £2bn a year on the problem, said the report (Rex)

Vulnerable children are being left at risk of harm due to the dire state of social services, a report from the Government’s spending watchdog has found.

The National Audit Office (NAO) study, branded “horrifying” by one leading MP, concluded the quality of protection offered to at-risk children is “unsatisfactory and inconsistent”.

Poor standards persist despite six years of Government action which has involved spending almost £2bn a year on the problem.

A lack of data, different approaches in different council areas and a failure on central government’s part to intervene early enough were key issues.

Meg Hillier MP, who chairs the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: “It is horrifying that over three-quarters of local authorities’ child protection services are inadequate or require improvement to be good.

“The Department for Education needs to take radical action to meet their aim for all vulnerable children to receive high-quality care by 2020.”

The report acknowledged that the DfE had recognised the existence of a problem in 2010 and took action on the recommendations of the following year’s Munro Review on child protection, but it went on to find that services are still “not of good enough quality”.

Almost 80 per cent of councils inspected by Ofsted in the past three years failed to meet the “good” rating for support to children needing protection, said the NAO.

Some 26 out of 152 child protection departments are subject to Department for Education intervention after being rated “inadequate”.

But the NAO also found that good performance was not related to levels of deprivation in an area, numbers of children covered by the authority or the amount of money spent.

The £2,300 average annual council spend on a child in need has actually increased slightly in the past three years, but the figure varies wildly from £4,970 in the highest-spending authority to £340 in the lowest, without the NAO finding any relation to quality levels.

There is now an annual spend of some £1.8bn on children’s social work across the country.

Instead the auditors found “systemic” problems with the way services are provided, with thresholds for assistance varying from area to area, meaning some children were left at risk while others were inappropriately referred for help.

Meanwhile, the DfE and local authorities lacked the data needed to understand which approaches would provide the most effective help and protection, the NAO said.

At the same time demand for help is rising, with a 124 per cent increase in the past 10 years in the number of serious cases where a local authority believes a child may be suffering significant harm.

Auditor general Amyas Morse said: “Six years have passed since the department recognised that children’s services were not good enough.

“It is extremely disappointing that, after all its efforts, far too many children’s services are still not good enough.

“To achieve its new goal of improving the quality of all services by 2020, the department will need to inject more energy, pace and determination in delivering on its responsibilities.”

A DfE spokesperson said keeping children safe from harm is an absolute priority for the Government, pointing out that in July this year it published plans to deliver “excellent children's social care”.

They added: “We are taking tough action to drive up standards in children’s services across the country, stepping in when councils aren’t doing well enough and linking them up with better performing local authorities to share best practice.

“We have also cut red tape so that social workers can spend more time actually supporting families.”