Children potentially left 'at risk of significant harm' in borough where Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was murdered, inspection finds

Children have been potentially left “at risk of significant harm” in Solihull after parents’ details were entered incorrectly into police databases, a report has found.

An inspection report into agency failings was called for by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi following the death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, who was murdered in Solihull borough in June 2020.

The six-year-old boy suffered a campaign of abuse and was left with an unsurvivable brain injury at the hands of his father and his partner.

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Published on Monday, the investigation looked into child protection services in Solihull, and found that in a “significant minority” of cases decisions on safeguarding were “over-optimistic” and lacked “professional curiosity”.

Incomplete police records found

Inspectors said they were concerned by incomplete police records which had left children potentially “at risk of significant harm”.

“It is recognised that some frontline police officers, when making referrals, are continuing to record children in the wrong place, or not at all, on the system,” the inspection found.

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Examples of separate records for the same person, because their name had been spelled incorrectly, were found, while children had not been linked on the system to family relatives who could pose a risk to them.

In one case, inspectors reviewed the records of one young child who was not linked to her father despite his history of domestic abuse, drugs misuse, and the fact he was the subject of a non-molestation order.

As a result “it is not obvious that the man poses a significant risk to her” in the system, the report stated.

The report tells West Midlands Police it needs to act urgently to “improve the quality of the information” held in their integrated operational system, ‘Connect’, to make sure it is “accurate”.

Some at-risk children waited ‘over a month’ for initial risk assessment

It also discovered children in “need of help and protection in Solihull wait too long for their initial need and risk to be assessed”, with leaders of the local safeguarding children partnership told to “take urgent action” to identify their requirements.

“This inspection identified a significant number of children that did not have an initial review of their needs and risk assessed, some of them for over a month,” it said.

“This means that for a significant number of children, they remain in situations of unassessed and unknown risk.”

‘Long-term systemic issues’

However, it did note that Solihull’s Safeguarding Children Partnership has experienced “frequent changes of personnel” that have resulted in a “loss of knowledge and experience”.

And the local authority has faced “long-standing difficulties in ensuring there are enough social workers” in the area.

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It added that the court case relating to Arthur’s murder “made social workers highly reluctant to work in Solihull either on a permanent or agency basis”.

It made a point of mentioning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on staffing levels but said that whilst this brought additional pressures on children’s services, there are “long-term systemic issues”.

The report stated that the current workforce is “committed and knowledgeable and dedicated” to meeting the needs of children but is still under “immense pressure”.

All child protection agencies in Solihull have been asked to send a written statement of action to Ofsted by 30 May next year.

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