10,992 entries for Inspections - State

Recommendation No 8 urged that administrative responsibility for all aspects of childcare be transferred to the Department of Health with responsibility for the education of children in care to remain with the Department of Education. The Working Party reported that: While this matter has formed the subject of some inter-departmental discussions, no decision has yet been taken in this matter. Legislation would be required to carry this recommendation into effect. Pending such action, this recommendation has promoted increased liaison between the different Departments concerned and regular meetings are held between officers of the Departments in question.

Recommendation No 9 dealt with the updating of all laws related to childcare into a proposed composite Children Act and Recommendation No 10 involved the raising of the age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 12 years. The Working Party recorded these recommendations had not yet been implemented.

Recommendation No 11 was to the effect that the Special Schools and Residential Homes should be paid on a budget system rather than by capitation grant. The Working Party reported that the new Special Schools at Finglas and Lusk were being paid in this way and arrangements were in train for this arrangement to be applied to the other Special Schools. However, they noted: No firm steps have yet been taken to put the recommendation into effect in the 26 residential homes. In the first place, while the homes continue to be the responsibility of the Department of Education there would be practical administrative problems entailed in the direct supervision by the Department of the detailed budgets of so many individual homes. Secondly, transfer to a budget system would require that prior agreement be reached at least on staff structures (numbers, grades, qualifications, remuneration). The matter is at present being approached from two directions. Firstly, the Association of Workers in Child Care (AWCC), representing the management of residential homes and special schools, has been asked to provide information in relation to actual costs of running homes. This will then be submitted to cost analysis with a view to considering the structure and financial implications of a possible budgetary basis of payment. The second approach is indirectly through the discussions on training referred to at the end of the notes on recommendation 5 above. Training requirements have consequences for career structures which in turn involve pay rates etc. Meanwhile, attention is being given to the maintenance as far as possible of the real value in money terms of the capitation grant. The rate of grant which had been doubled in 1969 was increased by 20 percent in 1972, by a further 10 percent in 1973 and approval is being sought for a further increase in 1974 which would bring the total increase since 1969 to 50 percent.

Recommendation No 12 was that an independent advisory body be established at the earliest opportunity to ensure that the highest standards of childcare are attained and maintained and the Working Party noted that ‘this had not yet been done pending the determination of the matter of administrative responsibility’.

Recommendation No 13 called attention to the need for continuous research in the field of childcare and the Working Party noted that ‘there is at present no research being done by Government Departments (as distinct from what may be in progress in University Departments)’.

In relation to other recommendations contained in the Report, the Working Party reported: Under the recent re-organisation of the Department of Health, a Welfare Division has been established which has responsibility for general welfare services including child care. There is a Children’s Inspector attached to this division and one of the aims stated by the Minister is to orientate the welfare services towards the family.

The Group also reviewed the existing legislative provisions relating the major recommendations of the report, and noted: The laws concerned are chiefly the Children Acts (1908, 1934, 1941, 1949 and 1957), the Health Act, 1953, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904. The Criminal Justice Act, 1960 and the prisons Act, 1970, relate to St. Patrick’s Institution. The Courts of Justice Act, 1924, governs the court procedures and probation is provided for in the probation of Offenders Act, 1907. Other existing legislation which may be considered relevant is the Adoption Acts, 1952 and 1964, and the School Attendance Acts, 1926 and 1967 – in particular, in the case of the 1926 Act, the power of the district court to send a child to an industrial school. No statutory amendments have been made in regard to the legal recommendations on p.78 of the report.

The Working Party concluded their review by noting that the Kennedy Report, as its title suggested, was primarily concerned with the Reformatory and Industrial Schools system and did not contain a comprehensive overview of all aspects of childcare. On that basis, they recommended establishing a group, who would have access to civil service and outside experts, to consider and make recommendations in regard to: (1)the identification of children at risk and the requirements by way of preventive measures; (2)the assessment of children at risk; (3)the court system and the adequacy of methods of disposition (including boarding-out or fosterage and residential care); (4)standards of child care in regard to education, trained staff, specialist services, buildings and equipment, etc.; (5)provisions as to after-care, employment, etc.

They further recommended that: In order that there be no undue delay, it should be possible for the group to consider more than one of the areas simultaneously and to make interim reports’. In addition, ‘It is essential that adequate, full-time secretarial services be available to the group....and recommendations by the group should be accompanied by (a) draft heads of legislation where appropriate (b) estimates of cost where possible.221

In addition to the review of the recommendations of the Kennedy Report by the Government Departments with varying levels of responsibility for residential childcare, the Association of Workers for Children in Care (AWCC) and CARE, also conducted their own review of the degree to which the recommendations had been implemented. The AWCC made the following commentary based on a survey of 1,215 children in 25 Residential Homes: It is clear that family breakdown accounts for an increasing number of children coming into care. These children, in the main, are coming from disturbed family backgrounds and have to suffer the further traumatic experience of separation from their families, however inadequate. They are children with problems. They are in need of therapy and treatment in a relaxed, accepting situation. They need help exploring their own feelings towards themselves, their peers and their own family. The Kennedy Committee did not pay sufficient attention to the increasing incidence of disturbed children in residential care, and the implications of this for future planning. ....The group home model envisaged by Kennedy is suited to the long stay care of more or less normal children, and does not provide for the majority now in need of care, the children with problems.222

They also argued that: ..some form of closed facility for boys who cannot or will not avail of the programmes offered in St. Laurences’s or Ard Mhuire is necessary. If children persistently abscond from both centres, they are eventually left at large in the community, often living rough and deteriorating both physically and socially. Young offenders have a very good understanding of the loopholes in the present legal system, and realise that if they are persistent enough they can escape the law.223

However, the core concern for the AWCC was that: there is as yet no salary scale or career structure available for child care workers. Despite protracted negotiations between the AWCC and the Department of Education, the Department has not yet accepted the principle that such a scale and structure should be established on a national basis. The present position is that the salaries of the 26 Residential Homes must be paid by the managers of these homes from the capitation grant provided by the Department. But increases in this grant have barely kept pace with the increase in the cost of living, and have in no way taken account of the radical restructuring of these homes in recent years, resulting in a considerable intake of staff, mostly lay. The religious orders managing these homes are placed in the invidious position of not being able to provide lay workers with the adequate salary and security which is their due....The provision of training facilities for child care workers, particularly the diploma course at the Kilkenny School of Social Education, has attracted many more lay people into the work and resulted in improved standards of care and greater professionalism. But elementary justice requires that an adequate salary scale be available to these workers, and in the opinion of the AWCC this salary must be paid by the Department concerned. It cannot be provided from a system of capitation designed for an entirely different staffing structure, composed in the main of members of religious orders who rarely received any formal salary whatsoever.224

CARE also set out to review the recommendations of the Kennedy Report ‘individually and in sequence’. However, they argued that such an approach: ...was a mistake. A mistake in which the authorities responsible for implementing the Kennedy recommendations were implicated too. In general we would agree with the recommendations of the report, but if they were interpreted exactly and implemented as they stand, we would have created new problems in order to solve existing ones. In the report the overall subject indicated in the committee’s terms of reference is dealt with under various chapter headings, but this division, and the sequence, of the various aspects of the subject are not very systematic or logical. The report lacks coherence, it lacks perspective which would facilitate planning. The need for the overall planning of children’s services is recognised in the report, but the various disparate recommendations do not fit into an overall planning framework. For this reason Government agreement with the various recommendations is insufficient if the Government does not see them as part of a coherent purposeful approach to the problems of deprived children; in short, the Government must be concerned with planning for deprived children.225

On 17th June 1974, Mr John Bruton, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, wrote to the Minister for Education, Mr Richard Burke, outlining the state of play. In his letter he stated: while the Working party was originally intended to review progress and indicate gaps in the implementation of the Kennedy Report it has in its introductory statement gone farther and recommended the setting up of another working group. As I read the suggested terms of reference of this new working party it seems as if it would in effect be undertaking the production of another (albeit updated) Kennedy Report. This major undertaking is not demonstrably necessary. The major lines of policy are in fact accepted by all and their main problems are availability of resources, administrative procedures and enabling legislation. I feel that the proposed investigation is too broad and would stifle much needed action pending issue of its findings. It is also unwise in that it involves the handing over to a committee of issues which require more and not less political direction. I suggest that following alternative course of action. In order to provide a firm starting point for action, a decision should be taken now that the administrative responsibilities of each Department will remain as they are at present. To co-ordinate day-to-day implementation of policy an inter-departmental committee (similar to that in operation in relation to handicapped children)...To draw up legislation and consider such wider policy issues as may arise in the context of legislation another higher level; interdepartmental committee should be set up. As the primary task of this committee would be drawing up of substantive legislative proposals it would need to act under continuing political direction. Such continuing political direction would only be feasible if it consisted of public servants.

On the basis of the proposals outlined in the letter, the Department of Education prepared a draft memorandum for Government. In this the Minister for Education outlined his position in respect of the proposal put forward by the Working Party, arguing ‘the modus operandi proposed by the Working party would appear as a recommendation for another (updated) Kennedy Report and would constitute a dilatory and abstract approach to the problem’. It reiterated the recommendation from the Kennedy Report in relation to administrative responsibility for childcare services, also noting that The Care Memorandum recommended ‘having one Minister and one Department have the “main responsibility” for deprived children and children’s services’. The memo went on to state that the CARE Memorandum ‘does not, however, attempt to define what should be the limits of this responsibility of the principal Minister (i.e. the Minister for Health) in relation to the services which would remain with the Ministers for Education and Justice. Moreover, it would seem to take no account of the very important principle that political accountability and administrative responsibility should rest with the same person.’226