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British Journal of Social Work 34/6 © BASW Trading Ltd 2004 all rights reserved
Care Proceedings under the 1989 Children Act: Rhetoric and Reality
Bridget McKeigue is a Senior Lecturer at Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, where she teaches on the Diploma of Social Work and the Post Qualifying Child Care Award. Her previous experience is as a child protection co-ordinator in a social services department and as a child-care trainer. Prior to this she worked for many years as a children and family social worker.
Chris Beckett is also a Senior Lecturer at Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge. Up to 1999 he was Team Manager of a social services children and families area team. His book Child Protection: An Introduction (Sage, 2003) includes a chapter on ‘System Abuse’ and he considers excessively long care proceedings-one of the main subjects of this article-to be a clear instance of this kind of abuse.
Correspondence to Bridget McKeigue and Chris Beckett, School of Community Health and Social Studies, The Old Gym, Anglia Polytechnic University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK. E-mail: b.m.mckeigue{at}apu.ac.uk
Summary
Among the most important changes that it was hoped would flow from the 1989 Children Act were, first, a reduction in delays in care proceedings, since this was recognized to be harmful to children and, second, a shift away from the use of compulsion towards working in partnership. In this article, Bridget McKeigue and Chris Beckett demonstrate that, in both respects, the Act has not only failed to deliver, but has been followed by rapid change in the opposite direction to the one hoped for. However, many commentators, both within and outside of government, continue to speak of the Act as if it had been a success. The article considers a series of characteristic rhetorical manoeuvres, which seem to allow the Act’s failings to be passed over in much of this discourse. They conclude that progress is more likely to be made if the Act’s failure to deliver is frankly confronted.
Keywords: care proceedings, court delay, Children Act 1989
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  B. McKeigue and C. Beckett Squeezing the Toothpaste Tube: Will Tackling Court Delay Result in Pre-Court Delay in its Place? Br. J. Soc. Work, September 4, 2008; (2008) bcn119v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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