Lord Laming – reflections on an often misunderstood legacy

The death last month of Herbert Laming brings an end to the life of a champion of social work, but not his influence and impact. 

I have had contact with Lord Laming since the late 1980s when we were both social services senior managers, and in 2010 interviewed him for a book I was preparing on the history of the personal social services.

These are my reflections on one of the most influential figures within social work based on that interview and our shared history through a time of major reform.

Community and continuity

Laming had a professional practice and management background in the probation service in the 1960s. With the advent of local authority social services departments in 1971 following the 1968 Seebohm Report recommendations, he was appointed deputy director of social services at Hertfordshire County Council.

Four years later he became its social services director, remaining until 1991 when he was appointed chief inspector of social services at the Department of Health. 

That’s 20 years in one council, 16 of them as director of social services, quite a contrast to the revolving door of children’s services directors in more recent times.

Laming strongly believed that social services and social work leaders should get to know the communities they serve and their colleagues in frontline teams and services working within those communities.

He was an admirer of the Seebohm vision which he described as bringing together the “rescue, protection, and caring for vulnerable people at times of crisis with something rather more which was to do with the impact of community and a lot of really imaginative and proactive preventive work which was about engaging people who lived in particular areas about how they could improve the quality of life in those areas”.

Laming believed in the importance of community and context – not as an alternative to assisting and, when necessary protecting, children and adults – but as something that should be embedded within the understanding of practice and services. 

Values

Alongside this vision was Laming’s focus on values. The introduction in the early 70s of a unified social work profession and integrated social services departments tackled the fragmentation of different occupational groups of workers and separate local council departments for children, disabled and older people, and what was then termed mental handicap and mental illness.

It also came with new legislation, including the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act and the 1970 Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. 

Laming believed such legislation was informed by values and “how we view our fellow human beings and what a civilised society ought to be”.

He saw as a major milestone the “idea of promoting independence with people with long-term disabilities, of helping them to take charge of their own lifestyles as far as possible, of changing values in society”. 

Inspector who saw the need for influencing policy

In 1991 Laming was appointed chief inspector of social services in the Department of Health. While in the role he ensured that as well as the inspection function he was to lead, there was also a development function to enhance and improve services.

He believed it was crucial to have influence on policy and political action across government departments.

Laming told me: “I’ve always been aware of the limitations of inspection. It would not only be arrogant, I think it would be stupid to think that you can parachute a team of people in from outside, that they can see everything, know everything and evaluate everything, and make recommendations that are far-seeing, and then disappear and the world is going to change. 

“It concerns me that now we have a situation whereby inspectorates have no development function whatsoever and I think that we have lost a huge amount.”

Victoria Climbié and Peter Connelly

Laming was best known for the inquiry he led following the horrific abuse and death of seven year old Victoria Climbié and also for the review he was asked to undertake following the awful abuse and death of three-year-old Peter Connelly (known through the media as ‘Baby P’).

The Laming Report following the Victoria Climbié inquiry has often been credited with leading to the 2004 Children Act which resulted in the demise of local authority social services departments and the role of director of social services.

It also subsequently resulted in a move away from a unified social work profession and separate local authority organisational and leadership arrangements for children’s and adults’ social services.

This was not something Laming had advocated for in his reforms. He told me: “I can’t claim any credit for the separation of adult services from children’s services, that was a step beyond me and that was a government initiative. 

“Whether it will prove to be a good thing in the long term, I don’t know. There was nothing in the Victoria Climbié report that was a stimulus to that, so it came from elsewhere. 

“The government response was altogether deeper, wider and greater than I envisaged, and I think that Every Child Matters [a government White Paper] captured a vision that was way beyond what I did.”

Laming had concerns about the impact of the split on children’s social care. He noted that about 80 per cent of the budget for children’s services was earmarked for schools and warned “if you have only about 20 per cent which is free to play with, and that happens to be the 20 per cent which deals with the social care of children, and you are required every year to produce three per cent efficiency savings – well, I feel very worried about it”.

Much has changed since 2010, including the removal of schools and school budgets from local authorities so this concern has less resonance now. 

But what does still resound is Laming’s dismay – indeed anger – in the Victoria Climbié report that senior managers, local authority councillors and leaders in the police service were distant from and had little awareness of the difficulties and major issues in the frontline services for which they were responsible, and for which they should carry accountability. 

Leadership and children’s social services

One of the implications of the immediate post-2004 Children Act was that the directors of children’s services in the new local authority children’s services departments had previously been the directors of education. Former directors of social services typically became the directors of adult services. 

Directors of education had largely been about the strategic planning and administration of education services, not the hands-on leadership of schools which was undertaken by head teachers accountable to their governing body. 

At a stroke – and counter to the findings and recommendations of Laming’s Climbié inquiry – the experience held by directors of social services was lost within the new local authority children’s services. It took many years to regain the leadership understanding, style and grounding in children’s social care.

Final thoughts…

If there is to be only one legacy and lesson from Laming it’s that the essence of social services and social work leadership is to be close to and aware of the realities of what is happening within frontline services and the communities where they are working.

To really feel and act upon the accountability within leadership – that is what he challenges us to do.

Ray Jones’ is Emeritus Professor of Social Work at Kingston University and St George's, University of London. His book The Story of Baby P: Setting the Record Straight is published by Policy Press