Whilst we are all awaiting the Supreme Court’s judgment on duties of care in CN and GN v Poole Borough Council, it is worth revisiting what else claimants have to prove to successfully pursue a claim in negligence.
Whilst we are all awaiting the Supreme Court’s judgment on duties of care in CN and GN v Poole Borough Council, it is worth revisiting what else claimants have to prove to successfully pursue a claim in negligence.
Cases usually fall into approximately two categories:
To establish that a local authority breached the duty of care it owed, a claimant has to demonstrate that, the practice of the individuals in the team of local authority professionals around the child fell below the lowest acceptable standards of practice at the relevant time.
The Bolam case, (Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee) dated back to 1957. It has been qualified and clarified by a number of subsequent decisions, but the basic principal remains the same. In order to establish that a professional has been negligent, a claimant will usually have to show that ‘the professionals in question acted (or in some instances failed to act) in way that no responsible body of professionals in the same field of expertise would regard as acceptable or reasonable’.
At the end of February 2019, the Department for Education released its report on statistics for children and family social work workforce in England for the year ending 30 September 2018.
It is worth bearing in mind that statistics also recorded an increase in the number of children in need by 4% to 404,710 in 2018, and simultaneously the number of child protections plans has increased by 5.3% to 53,790.
The statistics are interesting, because they show that the number of cases held was ‘significantly smaller’ than the number of children in need. Explanations for this are not immediately obvious. The way in which different local authorities define, hold, share and make data available is not consistent nationwide, so a report was never going to be comparing like with exactly like.
Instinct would suggest that where social workers were holding a higher number of cases, there would be an increased risk of poorer quality social work, and therefore damages claims. In Kingston upon Thames, the lowest average caseload was recorded as 12 and the latest OFSTED rating is good. Other local authorities with caseloads below 13 and outstanding OFSTED ratings are Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Hertfordshire.
However, some of the local authorities who hold the highest social work caseloads have also performed reasonably in the latest OFSTED inspection, with North East Lincolnshire (26.8 average caseload) and Calderdale (22.7 average case load) both receiving a good OFSTED rating last time they were seen.
First of all, despite the above the broad theme of the statistics is that the lower the recorded caseload, the better the OFSTED rating and the lower the risk of negligence claims. Similarly, themes suggest that the higher the tendency to use agency social workers and the higher the turnover of staff, the lower the quality and consistency of social work that is provided to service users.
How these learning points are applied is ultimately a question for each authority in its work force planning. What we suggest should be done in each local authority, regardless of the number of social workers they employ, or the turnover of staff they have is to ensure that the following features are in place:
Instilling these standards will mean it is more likely that local authorities will be able to demonstrate to the court, and OFSTED, that the systems they have in place are the best available ones bearing in mind the budgets and resources available to them.
Law firm Browne Jacobson has collaborated with Wiltshire Council and Christ Church Business School on the launch event of The Council Company Best Practice and Innovation Network, a platform which brings together academic experts and senior local authority leaders, allowing them to share best practice in relation to council companies.
In the Autumn Statement delivered on 17 November, rises to the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates were announced, to take effect from 1 April 2023.
Announced in September but scrapped on 17 November the investment zone proposals were very short lived. The proposal has now morphed into the proposal for a smaller number of clustered zones earmarked for investment.