The Conservative MP Tim Yeo gave an interesting speechin the House of Commons on Wednesday denouncing the social work practices of Suffolk County Council. Often social workers are criticised for being too slow to remove children from their birth parents where this is necessary (and then often to slow to place the children for adoption, keeping […]
Haringey Council alarming failure to protect the borough's children have again been making headlines. The latest story concerns a two-year-old boy, Baby K, being placed in foster care with an 82-year-old blind widow. She died earlier this month at home where she lived alone with the boy. What an extraordinary placement. No doubt a risk […]
I am dubious about Councils handing over money to the Local Government Information Unit. But their boss Andy Sawford is right to focus on their poor outcomes for children in care (or "Looked After Children") as they are known. He says on the LGIU blog: Of every 1000 children in care only 7 will go […]
The state funded British Association for Fostering and Adoption, usually sticklers for Political Correctness, has used the term "retarded" to describe opponents of gay adoption, according to a report in the Daily Mail. Since 2002 unmarried couples, including gay couples, have been allowed to adopt. I think children will usually be better off placed with […]
Culture Minister and Tottenham MP David Lammy spectacularly missed the point about the Baby P scandal in his interview with Radio 4’s The World At One this lunch time. He was among the Ministers warned by former Haringey social worker Nevres Kemal last year who warned of flaws in the way the Department was operating. […]
Sir Cyril Taylor outlines some radical plans to transform the life chances of children in care. There are currently 61,000 looked-after children in care and a further 323,000 children in need of care in England, who are supported in their families or independently by local authorities. The combined total of 384,000 is equivalent to 5 […]
Disturbing piece in the Mail on Sunday about social workers in Norfolk placing two children in care rather than approving them to be adopted by their grandparents. There is a suggestion that the grandparents have been discriminated against because they are Christians. Stories of Politically Correct excesses by Social Services Departments are as commonplace in […]
Harry is a Hammersmith and Fulham Councillor. Congratulations to Conservative Home for launching this new section. We have too many arm chair generals in our Party grumbling about how David Cameron and the Shadow cabinet should be taking a tougher line on cutting tax, or fighting crime or raising school standards but at the same […]