Haringey Serious Case Review - Child T

Dear Colleagues,

I’m writing to let you know that the Haringey Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) today published its latest Serious Case Review (SCR).

The report details events that took place in 2010 and early 2011, during a period when we were rebuilding children’s services.

I’m pleased to say that the council was able to secure positive outcomes for the child involved, but it is also clear that, together with partner agencies, we could and should have intervened more swiftly in this case.

The SCR justifiably concludes there were weaknesses in the response of all the key agencies involved. It demonstrates a worrying failure of agencies and services to work well together, and an inability to effectively hear the voice of the child. 

The report highlights improvements the council has made in the last three years, which have been recognised by Ofsted, but also underlines the continued need for further improvement.

We have strengthened our management systems and information sharing between agencies, and it is these improvements and our culture of continued learning that I want us to build upon as we work towards ensuring positive outcomes for more of our young people and their families.

Next steps must be for us to refocus both our spending and our thinking – targeting resources at early help and prevention to stop problems from escalating and securing positive outcomes, while maintaining safeguarding as our top priority. These will be the subject of Cabinet discussions in coming weeks.

Of course, we can sadly never guarantee that children will not suffer neglect or injury at the hands of others, but I firmly believe that we can build on improvements already made to our services and deliver the best for all of the borough’s children and young people.

Cllr Claire Kober