1. Child Protection
and the Police:
A Summary of Liz
Davies’ proposals.
Nathan Loynes

2. Introduction
• The following is a summary of Dr Liz Davies
submission to ‘The Reader in Child Protection’
• It is available for download at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm20
1213/cmselect/cmeduc/137/137vw17.htm
• [Also as the first excerpt in today’s pack]
I have truncated some of Davies’ arguments so that
this presentation focuses upon ‘Police Involvement
in Child Protection: The need for joint s.47 Social
Worker and Police training especially around
interviewing children’.

3. Legislative Recap:
• The Children Acts 1989 and 2004 remain the
legislative framework for child protection
policy and practice in England with Section 47
as the cornerstone.
• Section 47 is the investigative duty required
of local authorities when there is reasonable
cause to suspect actual or likely significant
harm to a child.

4. Davies’ claim 1:
• The 2006 and 2010 editions of the statutory
guidance Working Together to Safeguard
Children, have undermined the effective
implementation of this law by confusing the
very different professional tasks of the
assessment of children’s needs and the
investigation of child abuse.
(Continued…)

5. A critique of current statutory
guidance
• Working Together to Safeguard Children
(2010) states that, “the core assessment is
the means by which a Section 47 enquiry is
carried out” (5.62). This is not the case.
Section 47 involves an investigative process
implemented by social workers, police and
other agencies to protect children from harm.

6. Davies’ Claim 2:
• Neither The Victoria Climbié Inquiry (Laming
2003), The Protection of Children in England
(Laming 2009) nor The Munro Review of Child
Protection (Munro 2011) addressed these
issues.
(Continued…)

7. A decline in police involvement in the
investigation of significant harm
• Lord Laming recommended that, the Working
Together arrangements must be amended to
ensure the police carry out completely and
exclusively, any criminal investigation
elements in a case of suspected injury or harm
to a child’ (Laming 2003:14.57).

8. The need to address child abuse and
crimes against children
• Child abuse occurs within families and this
context provided the focus of the Laming and
Munro reviews (2009 and 2011). However,
there is a vast international child abuse
industry that exploits children and includes
trafficking for commercial, domestic and
sexual exploitation, online abuse, the illegal
adoption trade, the illegal organ trade and the
trade in abusive images.

9. Davies’ Claim 3: A move away from
detection and prosecution?
• Since the mid-90s, policy and practice moved
away from proactive child protection.
• This development led to the demise of child
protection systems and structures which had
previously enabled children to seek justice
and gain effective protection.
• This shift also led to a reduced focus on the
targeting of perpetrators as an integral aspect
of multi-agency child protection practice.

10. It is now difficult for social workers to engage
police in child protection matters that do not
clearly constitute a potential or actual crime.
The impact of this change is that social workers
are now often isolated in undertaking single
agency investigations whereas in the past this
would have been a joint process from the point
of referral.

11. • These are not marginal issues but are
addressed by child protection professionals on
a regular basis and yet the Laming and Munro
reviews were narrow in focus relating only to
abuse within the family. There is therefore a
risk that models of practice recommended in
these reviews omit examination of the intense
joint investigative work required to identify
and target perpetrators and protect numbers
of children in the context of organised crime.

12. • The close working that there used to be
between police child protection officers and
social work specialists in protecting children
has therefore been minimised. An exception is
seen in the MASH model where police are colocated with social workers and health
professionals in intake teams.

13. Claim 4: Effective working with the
police should:
• When a Section 47 investigation has been
agreed between police and social workers
there is no requirement to gain parental or
carer consent to child interviews or medical
examinations if to do so may place the child at
risk of harm.

14. • Following a referral which raises, “suspicion of
actual or likely significant harm” to a child, this
process must begin immediately and not
await the outcome of an initial or core
assessment. The process will include decisions
about the need for recorded child interviews
according to the guidance Achieving Best
Evidence in Criminal Proceedings (CJS 2007).

15. • It will also include decision making about the
need for medical examinations and forensic
retrieval of evidence. Legal safeguards to
provide immediate protection may be agreed
as well as strategies to identify and target
alleged or known perpetrators. The process is
conducted through professional only strategy
meetings and the work demands the highest
level of skill from all involved.

16. • The work may be conducted in partnership
with families and often results in a family
support approach. However, it may involve
challenging and confronting parents and
carers about the detail of the alleged or
known abuse of child/ren and/or intervention
to protect the child by removing the alleged or
known perpetrator from the family or
removing the child from the family.

17. • The Section 47 process may also involve large
scale, national and international investigations
of institutional and organised crime against
children. Sometimes the family may be
involved as perpetrators or be in collusion
with the abuse.

18. • The recent Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs
(Golden et al 2011), provide an example of
good practice and present an innovative
return to multi agency joint investigation
work.

19. Claim 5: Joint Training
• The Achieving Best Evidence guidance requires a childcentred interview to be conducted collaboratively (CJS
2010:2.22). However, there has also been a reduction
in the provision and availability of joint child protection
training at advanced level between police and social
workers in Section 47 investigation and investigative
interviewing of children. With few social workers now
trained in these skills, it is not uncommon for police to
conduct child interviews without social work
involvement

20. • It is of significance that neither Lisa
Arthurworrey (social worker for Victoria
Climbié) nor Maria Ward (social worker for
Peter Connolly) had undertaken this specialist
advanced level joint training with police. In
the absence of specialist joint training,
practitioners will make errors of judgement
through lack of expert knowledge

21. Summary of Davies’ Claims
• Claim 1: Working Together (2010) – Confuse ‘risk’
assessment by emphasising full assessment (core
assessment).
• Claim 2: Neither Laming nor Munro address
‘urgency’ of s.47.
• Claim 3: Cultural shift of reduced police
involvement (prosecution) of child abuse.
• Claim 4: There is good practice (MASH).
• Claim 5: Both SW and Police practice would be
improved with joint ‘best evidence’ training.

22. Davies’ Recommendations:
• Working Together to be amended in order to clarify that Section 47
joint investigation is a process which is distinct from a social work
assessment of the child’s needs.
• The police to resume their role in child protection in the joint
investigation of significant harm.
• The provision of Section 47 investigation and investigative
interviewing training for police and social workers to be a
requirement of the LSCBs.
• The development and implementation of the MASH multi agency
child protection system to be promoted throughout the UK.

23. Davies drew upon:
•
Brandon, M, Bailey S, Belderson, P (2010) Building on the learning from serious case reviews: A two year analysis of child protection database
notifications 2007–09. Research Report. London. Department for Education.
•
Carpenter J, Szilaassy E, Patsios D, Hackett S (2009) Organisation, outcomes and costs of inter-agency training for safeguarding and promoting the
welfare of children. Research brief. London. Department for Children, Schools and Families.
•
Criminal Justice System (2011) Achieving best evidence in criminal proceedings: Guidance on interviewing victims and witnesses and using special
measures. London. The Stationery Office.
•
Dhanda P (2007) Response to parliamentary question by Annette Brooks M.P. 5 February 2007. London. Hansard.
•
Garboden M (2011) Suffolk outsourcing plans put on hold due to public outcry. Community Care. May.
•
Golden S, Aston H and Durbin B (2011) Devon multi-agency safeguarding hub: case study report. Slough. National Foundation for Education Research.
•
House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee (2009) Training of children and families social workers. Seventh report of
session 2008–09. Volume 11. London. The Stationery Office.
•
Laming H (2003) The Victoria Climbié Inquiry. London. The Stationery Office.
•
Laming H (2009) The protection of children in England. A progress report. London. Department for Children Schools and Families.
•
Munro E (2011) The Munro review of child protection: Final report. London. Department for Education.
•
Munro E and Calder M (2005) Where has child protection gone? The Political Quarterly, 76 (3) 439–445.
•
Reder P and Duncan S (1999) Lost Innocents. A Follow-Up Study of Fatal Child Abuse. London. Routledge.
•
Rose D (2009) Hospitals fail to do routine checks on injured children despite Baby P. The Times. 19 February.