For most of the twentieth century a child in the care of the state in England had no route to challenge how they were treated. Parents whose children were removed had little more.
The Short Report in 1984 described a care system children disappeared into with almost no independent scrutiny of the decisions made about them. The Cleveland inquiry followed in 1988. Section 26 of the Children Act 1989 was Parliament’s answer. Every local authority had to operate a complaints procedure, and at least one person from outside the authority had to take part in it.
Complainants still sometimes open an interview with me by saying they expect nobody to believe them. That expectation has a history.
Complaints get talked about as a drain on time and resource. I used that as the title of my article in Child Abuse Review, published this month. It draws on more than 75 Stage 2 investigations across more than 15 English local authorities. Around half are partially upheld. The substantive decision is usually defensible. What fails is the process around it.
James Anderson recently wrote for Child Abuse Review: Volume 35, Issue 4
