Accountability and Hyperaccountability in Child Protection Scandals

Abstract

The number of child abuse–related deaths has decreased significantly in the United Kingdom over the past 50 years, but there remains public and political concern about the actual and perceived risk of child deaths, with resultant processes enacted to supervise child protection practice. Drawing upon an analysis of the ways in which the deaths of two children, Victoria Climbié and Peter Connelly, became child protection scandals in England, we examine the gap between notions of accountability as an ideal, and enacted accountability, as the embodiments of supervisory mechanisms. We consider how these two sides of accountability are produced in child protection practice via three mechanisms: the inspectorate, the child death review process, and the oversight of individual social workers by their employers and professional regulator. We explore how these mechanisms can lead to the unbalanced apportioning of blame in child protection scandals, whereby social workers and managers are held individually responsible for a child abuse–related death beyond any reasonable conception of answerability—what we refer to as hyperaccountability. Through exploring these issues, we seek to contribute to debates as to how child protection services can be robust, while proportionate, in how they seek to support families and protect vulnerable children.