Well said, Julie. Social services knew about the risks to Khyra. They just didn't act appropriately on the information they had, despite having all the powers they needed.
The DCSF must NOT waste money inspecting thousands of well-functioning families. They should target the money at families known to be at risk since SS across the country are finding it next to impossible to cope with these.
Gerald Warner in the Telegraph agrees and Merry writes an open letter to Fern Britten and Jeremy Vine, explaining the facts of the matter.
UPDATE: According to Children and Young People Now, Balls has sparked outrage in the HE community. Too right he has. Blogdial puts the full case against the state and N. Shropshire provides useful links and further information.
If social services are not going to act when real concerns are reported to them, what difference does it make whether those concerns are reported by teachers, neighbours or even EHE inspectors?
ReplyDeleteIn any case, Khyra was slowly starved over 5 months, which could still easily have happened between the proposed 6 or 12 months HE inspections.
The real issue here is that social services failed to act, not that there was no HE inspection.
Nicky
At lunch time yesterday there was a woman on radio 4 being interviewed and she was spitting and fuming about the existence of HE and saying it was why Khyra died. That sort of irrational and slanderous interview is the government's tactic, I suppose. Lots of people will just listen to the superficial message.
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