PM announces new taskforce to transform child protection

24 Jun 2015 04:35 PM

Child Protection Taskforce announced to help protect the most vulnerable children in our society and give them the opportunity to succeed.

Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday (24 June 2015) announced a new Child Protection Taskforce to drive forward fundamental reforms to protect the most vulnerable children in our society and give them the opportunity to succeed.

Chaired by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, the taskforce will be responsible for leading improvements across police, social services and other agencies – focusing on transforming social work and children’s services, improving inspection and tackling child sexual exploitation.

It will join 10 other implementation taskforces already established across government to monitor and drive delivery of the government’s cross-cutting priorities.

The taskforce’s work will build on the government’s wide-ranging reforms to create a care system that puts children’s needs first. This includes the appointment of a Chief Social Worker to champion reform in the profession, a £400 million investment in social work training, and cuts to bureaucracy to free up social workers to do what they do best.

The Prime Minister said yesterday:

As I outlined in my speech on Monday, tackling disadvantage and boosting opportunity is a key focus for this one nation government, and we need to intervene more directly to help the most vulnerable families in our country.

That is why I have asked the Education Secretary to chair a new Child Protection Taskforce to drive fundamental reforms to make sure that we are protecting the most vulnerable children and giving them the best chance to succeed in life.

Through this work we will accelerate our current reforms to children’s social work, and will overhaul the way that police, social services and other agencies work together locally.

This approach – dealing with the causes of stalled social mobility – will give children the best start in life; this is what I mean when I say ‘one nation’: extending opportunity to everyone in our country.

About the Child Protection Taskforce

Terms of reference

The taskforce’s terms of reference are to drive improvements in the protection of vulnerable children by:

• extending and accelerating reforms to the quality of children’s social work practice and leadership
• promoting innovative models of delivery
• overhauling the way that police, social services and other agencies work together locally

Taskforce membership

The membership of the taskforce, which is due to meet in the next few weeks, is:

• The Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP (Chair), Secretary of State for Education
• The Rt Hon Theresa May MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department
• The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
• The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Justice
• The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
• The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Health
• The Rt Hon Greg Hands MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury
• The Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
• The Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC, Attorney General
• Edward Timpson MP, Minister of State for Children and Families
• Baroness Shields, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Internet Safety and Security
• Karen Bradley MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Preventing Abuse and Exploitation)