As if Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and other places were not enough, last week we had another local authority child sex abuse scandal, this time from Lambeth. The child sex abuse inquiry’s damning report concluded that for years councillors and local authority managers in the borough were too indolent, too concerned with politics, and at times too compromised with local pressure groups, to take steps to protect some of the most vulnerable children in their care. The sufferers, as ever, were the children.
Meetings, inquiries and promises to do better from Lambeth and other councils up and down the kingdom are a certainty. But it may be time for some more blue-sky thinking. True, any decent state needs to look after the young, the old and the vulnerable. But should we be giving this job to local authorities at all? Quite apart from the fact that a number of them seem to have done it very badly, there are several other reasons for a rethink.
For one thing, in contrast to the leisured days of 1948, when the numbers needing looking after were much smaller and councils less bloated and politically riven, it’s difficult to see the present system as enormously efficient.
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