Baby Peter - Petition for Public Inquiry - Govt Response!

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BabyPEnquiry/

Government response
There has understandably been a considerable amount of public interest in the tragic death of baby Peter Connelly, but the Government does not believe that a public inquiry would be a helpful or necessary step to take. Please be assured, however, that the Government is committed to greater transparency and openness in serious child protection incidents.

As you may be aware, the Coalition’s Programme for Government confirmed the new administration’s commitment to publishing anonymised Serious Case Reviews. This commitment was followed by the announcement on 10 June that the two Serious Case Review overview reports into the Peter Connelly case, along with the Serious Case Review overview reports into other high profile cases in Edlington, Kirklees and Birmingham, would be the first to be published in full, with identifying details removed. Ministers have also written to all Local Safeguarding Children Board Chairs and Directors of Children’s Services to confirm that Local Safeguarding Children Boards should publish overview reports of all new Serious case Reviews initiated on or after 10 June 2010.

The key purpose of undertaking Serious Case Reviews is to enable lessons to be learned from cases where a child dies or is seriously harmed and abuse or neglect is known, or suspected, to be a factor. In order for these lessons to be learned as widely and thoroughly as possible, professionals need to be able to understand fully what happened in each case and, most importantly, what needs to change in order to reduce the risk that such tragedies will occur again in the future. The publication of Serious Case Reviews is intended to help restore public confidence and improve transparency in the child protection system, and to ensure that the context in which the events occurred is properly understood so that relevant lessons are learnt and applied as widely as possible.

The Government also announced on 10 June that Professor Eileen Munro has been appointed to carry out an independent review to improve child protection in England. The review will, amongst other things, include a focus on improving transparency and accountability in the system. Professor Munro has also been asked to consider how Serious Case Reviews could be strengthened and whether there are alternative learning models that could be more effective and efficient.