Arthur Labinjo-Hughes council makes ‘optimistic’ calls on child safety: report

A council inspected after the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes makes “over-optimistic” decisions on safeguarding in a significant minority of cases which lack professional curiosity, a report has found.

A joint targeted area inspection of child protection services in Solihull called for by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi in December 2021 found that children in need of help and protection in the West Midlands area “wait too long for their initial need and risk to be assessed”.

“This means that for a significant number of children, they remain in situations of unassessed and unknown risk” according to the report, which was published on Monday.

Six-year-old Arthur was murdered in June 2020 by his stepmother Emma Tustin at their home in Solihull. The boy had been seen by social workers just two months before his death, but they concluded there were no safeguarding concerns.

The report into multi-agency responses to risks to children in Solihull was carried out by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the Chief Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) and the Chief Inspector of Probation (HMIP) for England and Wales,

Inspectors said they were concerned by incomplete police records which had left children potentially “at risk of significant harm”.

They saw examples of separate records for the same person because their name had been spelt incorrectly, while children had not been linked on the system to family relatives who could pose a risk to them.

“This means that when officers and staff research ‘Connect’ (the police record system) they may miss important information, potentially leaving children at risk of significant harm,” the report says.

Inspectors reviewed the records for one young child who was not linked to her father in the system, despite his history of domestic abuse and drug use and the fact he is subject to a non-molestation order.

“Consequently, a domestic abuse incident the child was exposed to, involving her father, does not appear on her ‘Connect’ record. It also means that when officers conduct searches on the system, it is not obvious that the man poses a significant risk to her,” the letter says.

Some frontline police officers have also recorded children in the wrong place in the system or not at all when making referrals, it adds.

The Local Safeguarding Children Partnership in Solihull had “experienced frequent changes of personnel in its membership for a significantly long period of time”, the report said, leading to a loss of experience.

The multi-agency safeguarding hub is under-resourced, meaning that “too many children in Solihull face drift and delay” before services intervene to protect them, the report added.

The report also found that the local authority has faced “long-standing difficulties in ensuring there are enough social workers” in the area, and that attempts to improve this in 2021 had “limited impact”.

“These difficulties were compounded by concerns raised following the court case for the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in early December 2021, which made social workers highly reluctant to work in Solihull either on a permanent or agency basis,” the report says.

It adds that the current workforce is “committed and knowledgeable and dedicated to meeting the needs of children” but that they face “immense pressure” to meet daily demands and that this “reduces their ability to respond swiftly to all concerns for children”.

The report calls for agencies in Solihull to send a written statement of action to Ofsted by May 30 2022.

It says that Solihull agencies must work to ensure they can meet children’s needs “promptly” while West Midlands Police “need to take urgent action” to improve the information held on the Connect system about children and families.