An unreleased report that is critical of child protection services in the State has been leaked to Fine Gael and published online.
According to the report, which was compiled by PA Consulting on behalf of the Health Service Executive (HSE) in October 2009, roles and responsibilities within services "are unclear and overly complicated."
The Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services: Putting Children First and Meaning It report says there is an urgent requirement to set and communicate direction for the service and claims that currently there are "significant and, in many cases, unnecessary” variations across local health offices in application of child protection guidelines and supports.
PA Consulting's study states that more visible leadership is required across all levels of the service as well as tighter leadership.
"The current management style tends to be reactive, crisis-driven and focused on individual cases," the study says. "There is a lot of management 'traffic' around individual cases but much of this is not purposeful in the sense of building better delivery to secure better outcomes.
"At a fundamental level there is no clear understanding on the respective roles of professionals working with children and HSE managers. This contributes to a disconnect between service delivery at national, regional and local level." it adds.
The report also claims that connections with other services within the HSE and related agencies needs to be strengthened and says that supports to social workers and their managers are under-developed.
Fine Gael, which today published the study online, said it confirms "a chronic and systematic failure in the management of child protection services."
"This report contains another searing indictment of the HSE’s child protection services. It contains a series of detailed recommendations of substantial importance that don’t appear to have been recognised or acknowledged by subsequent published reports by the HSE. Damningly, it shows how systems and bureaucracy takes priority over child protection demands under current HSE structures," said the party's spokesman on children, Alan Shatter.
“The failure of the HSE to publish this important Report is another example of the obsessive secrecy surrounding the management of our child care services," he added.
Fine Gael has called on the Minister for Children Barry Andrews to state if and when he received a copy of the report and what consideration, if any, he has given to its publication.
A statement from the Department of Health and Children this evening said Mr Andrews had been briefed on the report's finding last October and that the study was also presented to the board of the HSE.
The statement added that Mr Andrews had met with Phil Garland, the HSE's assistant national director of children and families, as recently as last Thursday and discussed implementation of the report.
This evening the HSE said the report was “necessary to provide critical external advice to the organisation”.
Phil Garland of the HSE said: “There is no secrecy about the PA report, it is just one element of a comprehensive review of child care services which is critical to planning how we deliver the best possible services in the future.”
“As a consultative document it contributed to the overall process of major reform which is currently underway but such significant changes cannot be delivered overnight.”
The report can be found at Fine Gael's 'Let in the Light’ website www.letinthelight.ie
