A local enquiry is not good enough

With the news this morning, on the BBC's website, about another council failing to protect children the time has come to ask, is an inquiry specific to that area good enough? Personally, I believe that time has long gone.

With the news that Doncaster Council is now launching an independent inquiry in to it's child protection department, after the deaths of seven children in two years, that were at risk, then it begs the question is it the system or just individual local authorities that have these fundamental failings. Now, I'm not calling for peoples heads, well not yet anyway, but Ed Balls really needs to have an epiphany and ask himself, is this a systemic problem, and then hold an inquiry/review of the whole system. Alas, I fear that is not Labour's way, after all they still won't hold inquiries into Iraq or the intelligence failings that lead to the 7/7 bombings. The reason for that is that Labour only see inquiries as being used for apportioning blame.

However, this is not the case. A full independent review, or inquiry, should be used to identify the systemic failings across the country in the field of child protection. It shouldn't be about apportioning blame, unless somebody is being grossly negligent, but looking at why the processes are failing our "at risk" children. Recent cases in both Haringey and Doncaster have identified local failings, but is that because of the national system? We simply do not know. A national review of child protection services should therefore be held to identify that fact, and if it is a national problem then those problems should be put right.

This is not about playing party politics, as Labour believe the Tories want to play, and its not about apportioning blame to individuals, it IS about finding out what the problems are and solving them before anymore children lose their lives.