We’re investigating more but not protecting children better

Decades of policy changes in child protection resulting in increased referrals have failed to reduce harm to children, according to a leading academic.

In a recent presentation at a conference in Bulgaria, professor of social work Andy Bilson argued that Anglo-American child protection systems have taken an “investigative turn” which leads to “many children being wrongly subjected to a child protection investigation”.

Prof Bilson studied child protection systems in England, Scotland and Australia and identified “huge increases” in the numbers of referrals and reports but “no evidence that we're actually reducing harm to children".

He highlighted research in Western Australia over a 14-year period that showed a huge rise in reports and investigations following a policy change in 2005. However, it did not lead to more harmed children being identified.

In England, despite a doubling of child protection investigations, the number of child deaths recorded by regional child death overview panels (CDOPs) as being due to deliberately inflicted injury, abuse or neglect have also not decreased, said Prof Bilson.

From a low of 30 in 2010, recent figures issued by the National Child Mortality Database show there were 160 deaths of children or young people due to violence or maltreatment between 2019 and 2022. 

Professor Bilson argues that child wellbeing remains poor in countries with Anglo-American child protection systems. “None of the post-industrial English-speaking countries with increasing investigations and child protection-based policies are in the top 14 rich OECD countries on measures of child health and wellbeing.”

Prof Bilson said: "Sadly, we have no evidence that child protection systems at the national level reduce harm to children."

In a separate presentation called We Can't Afford Child Protection, Prof Bilson claims the increasing number of child protection investigations is contributing to a quarter of local authorities in England likely to go bankrupt in the next year.

These are also more likely to be in areas of high deprivation, he said, resulting in less funds for early intervention work that could prevent harm.

He said: "Children in the most deprived tenth of the country are ten times more likely to be on a child protection plan or in care. 

"The investigative turn, with its large increases in child protection investigations, is accompanied by reductions in support for families and large increases in children in care in the past ten years, despite or maybe because of these high levels of intervention.

"In England there has been no reduction in serious harm and deaths despite a tripling of investigations. The rate of children put through a S47 investigation which did not lead to a child protection plan has nearly doubled since 2014.

"There has, however, been a major increase in expenditure on children's services that will see almost a quarter of English local authorities declaring bankruptcy this year."