My understanding was that the local authority through the social worker brought it to the attention of the local politician/s but where not given the resources to act, is this correct ? or where exactly does the book stop.
Seems like an unlikely chain events. Local Councillors wouldn't be involved in case work and no report is ever likely to have been written for committee consideration. Quite apart from anything there's a small issue of data protection. It wouldn't be unusual for the management to lobby Councillors for an increase in budget against ever finite resource depletion though, which is what this sounds like. They in turn lobby government (invariably with no success) so the authority faces having to make cuts in services or put up council tax which invaribaly sends the local electorate into a frenzy that results in them voting out the party of administration (quite possibly many of the same people now complaining about how this was allowed to happen, would be the very same ones complaining at their council tax bills?).
I don't know enough about criminal negligence, but would think it very difficult to prove given the web of people and agencies involved. I know a little bit more about corporate manslaughter, and if the burden of proof is the same or similar (the need to link a 'conscious mind' to an action) then it's going to be very difficult. Private sector managers have a tradition of killing off their workforces be it in railway accidents, unloading ships at Tilbury, or shoddy applications of H&S resulting in electrocution. Very few have ever been successfully prosecuted, though in truth very few ever gain anything like the media atention that a public sector mistake does. For whatever reason, the public sector is seen as being more accountable (although in reality that probably means more likely to respond).
There's doubtless been mistakes made, but my experience is that there is no small amount of there but for the grace etc Social work is a thankless task, and the only recognition you can get it seems is negative, and so avoidning this is the best you can hope for. The government didn't help matters after the Climbie case by saying that such a thing could never happen again!!! Well of course it could, and I'll tell you something else, it will happen after this one too. If the authority call it right, they get no recognition, if they call it wrong, they get mullahed. The more calls you have to make you will eventually get one wrong.
One of the other things that is going to make it difficult to prosecute is the nature of 'childrens services partnerships' and the numerous agencies involved in them. Isolating one particular contribution or indidvidual as being culpable is very difficult given that the requirement is to operate in a more joined up fashion, and as such there's probably a little bit of negligence all round the table with no single individual holding what could be desribed as overall responsibility within the realms of 'reasonable'. The Director of Children's Services would be the figurehead, but in reality she won't have been aware of the details of the casework, or if she was, it would only have been in passing. She'd be locked into strategic management issues and policy development. The team below her would be more up to date, but they'd probably be able to invoke the notion that they'd asked for additional resource from her and had been denied. She in turn would blame the councillors, or in turn would blame the government, and that's before you bring the police and any other agencies into play.
See the problem? Very difficult. The only person they could probably hang out to dry would be a menial case worker, and even then issues about the level of training, support and supervision they'd received might cloud the picture. It really would need to be an outstanding case of wanton neglect to make it stick I'd have thought, and I'm not sure what benefit a show trial would serve to satisfy public opinion. Far better to go down the enquiry route, and then take action
