A LIPSKIAN ANALYSIS OF CHILD PROTECTION FAILURES FROM VICTORIA CLIMBIE TO 'BABY P': A STREET-LEVEL RE-EVALUATION OF JOINED-UP GOVERNANCE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Marinetto, Michael
• 署名单位: Cardiff University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3298
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01939.x
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1164-1181
• 关键词: Bureaucracy; POWER

摘要

This paper explores the issue of joined-up governance by considering child protection failures, firstly, the case of Victoria Climbie who was killed by her guardians despite being known as an at risk child by various public agencies. The seeming inability of the child protection system to prevent Victoria Climbie's death resulted in a public inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Laming. The Laming report of 2003 looked, in part, to the lack of joined-up working between agencies to explain this failure to intervene and made a number of recommendations to improve joined-up governance. Using evidence from detailed testimonies given by key personnel during the Laming Inquiry, the argument of this paper is that we cannot focus exclusively on formal structures or decision-making processes but must also consider the normal, daily and informal routines of professional workers. These very same routines may inadvertently culminate in the sort of systemic failures that lead to child protection tragedies. Analysis of the micro-world inhabited by professional workers would benefit most, it is argued here, from the policy-based concept of street-level bureaucracy developed by Michael Lipsky some 30 years ago. The latter half of the paper considers child protection failures that emerged after the Laming-inspired reforms. In particular, the case of 'Baby P' highlights, once again, how the working practices of street-level professionals, rather than a lack of joined-up systems, may possibly complement an analysis of, and help us to explain, failures in the child protection system. A Lipskian analysis generally offers, although there are some caveats, only pessimistic conclusions about the prospects of governing authorities being able to avoid future child protection disasters. These conclusions are not wholeheartedly accepted. There exists a glimmer of optimism because street-level bureaucrats still remain accountable, but not necessarily in terms of top-down relations of authority rather, in terms of interpersonal forms of accountability - accountability to professionals and citizen consumers of services.