Abstract
For many years in the UK there was an implicit agreement that child care should not be part of party political squabbles, although there was considerable competition between government departments for control, with the Home Office winning the contest when children’s departments were first set up in 1948. 1 But this changed in the 1970s when the government of the day responded to the perceived threat posed by young offenders by making juvenile justice a political as well as a social issue. Since then, topics such as child protection, adoption and disability have been regular items on the Westminster agenda.
We are reminded daily that the social scene in the UK is changing and established political parties no longer represent distinct economic groups. In addition, there seems to be a move across the western world to what is perceived as the political ‘right’. But even then, the continuum of ‘left’ to ‘right’ seems inadequate in the light of the broader issues of nationality and anti-globalisation that have marked the Brexit, Trump and Le Pen campaigns. They suggest an anti-establishment and populist movement rather than a right-wing takeover.
So where does this incoherence leave looked after children? In my experience, children in care are affected by decisions on wider welfare issues as well as by those specific to them. I have also noticed that so-called right-wing administrations tend to highlight a few emotive issues, like historical child abuse or children’s hospices, and give them a prominent profile while quietly reducing basic services. However much politicians agonise in public about the lonely and unloved, behind the scenes they support policies to cut provision and reduce benefits. This ‘caring sharing’ front is effective in the short term but comes home to roost when, as Dinithi Wijedasa’s examples show, many care leavers find themselves moving overnight from fireside warmth to outhouse chill.
Left-wing administrations, in contrast, tend to devote more generous resources to welfare services, especially to education which is esteemed as an important route to self-improvement. They also employ micro-management techniques, setting standards and targets to ensure conformity. But despite this goodwill, they seem to come down heavily on those who do not comply; so, beneath trumpeted increases in public spending, there is often an undercurrent of punitive measures, such as prosecuting parents whose children truant from the lovely schools that have been created. As one wry justice worker opined, ‘If I was a young offender coming up in court, I’d much rather come up before a Surrey housewife than a city trade unionist.’
The critical question, therefore, is that if the anti-welfare climate does herald a long and chilly winter, as seems likely, how can we maintain the range of services needed to care for children and families who fall below the mainstream? It is easy to view some provision as side-shows and chop them off, devoting resources to what is deemed important, like safeguarding and foster care. As local authorities implement the cuts demanded by government, the easy targets are obvious: day care, prevention and family support. But the problem with this approach is that all these things are connected. Decisions made at the national level affect localities and individuals. Moreover, running down everything perceived as peripheral is likely to raise the demand for heavy end interventions, like taking children into care. Frankly, this is not a very imaginative approach and in the end, probably not much good to anyone. A system dynamics perspective rather than an anatomical framework has never been more necessary. This would be significant as it considers not just the constituent parts but also their interaction and – particularly relevant in times of radical change – the unintended consequences of intended human action.
In the new political climate, centralised planning and standardisation will probably be cast aside as social markets take hold. It is my guess that in this new context, some children may do better than before if they arouse public sympathy, drop into the soft end of the hard mattress and are taken on by innovative and sensitive providers. But my deeper fear is that these gains will be offset by a tough stance on welfare and widening social and economic divisions that, for the majority, will make things worse. Of course, individual weakness and failures will always be important in determining who comes into care, but broader social factors cannot be ignored, and it is the management of both of these that ultimately determines the fate of disadvantaged children.