Herbert Laming never allowed public prominence to diminish either his humility or his respect for colleagues. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy View image in fullscreen Herbert Laming never allowed public prominence to diminish either his humility or his respect for colleagues. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy Prisons and probation Obituary Lord Laming obituary Social worker whose inquiry into the murder of Victoria Climbié fundamentally altered the organisation of children’s services in England
Prefer the Guardian on Google Herbert Laming, Lord Laming, who has died aged 89, was the outstanding public servant of his generation in children’s and social care. Few exercised greater influence over the development of English social services over the last quarter of the 20th century, and none commanded greater respect across the political and professional divide. It was therefore no surprise when, following the murder in 2000 of Victoria Climbié , an eight-year-old girl, ministers turned to Laming to chair what became the most consequential child protection inquiry of modern times.
Victoria died after months of sustained abuse at the hands of her great-aunt, Marie-Thérèse Kouao, and Kouao’s boyfriend, Carl Manning. Laming’s inquiry sat for 18 months and exposed profound failures not only in frontline practice, but also in leadership, management and inter-agency communication.
No one who sat through the hearings, held at Elephant and Castle in London, could doubt the seriousness with which Laming approached that task or his determination that Victoria should receive justice. His conclusions were measured rather than rhetorical, but they fundamentally altered the organisation of children’s services in England. Whether every subsequent reform proved wise remains open to debate; but few disputed that his inquiry exposed failures that could no longer be ignored.
His report , published in January 2003, criticised senior managers as firmly as practitioners and condemned the London borough of Haringey, where Victoria lived, for a culture in which social workers lacked what he called “respectful uncertainty” – looking beyond the obvious without causing offence – when faced with possible child abuse.
Its impact was immense. The Children Act 2004, the policy programme Every Child Matters , the creation of the Children’s Commissioner for England and a wholesale restructuring of children’s services all owed much to his recommendations. Although he welcomed many of the reforms, he remained unconvinced by the subsequent integration of children’s social care into local authority education departments.
It was poignant then that the notorious “Baby P” case occurred only seven years after Victoria’s death and in the same borough. Many of the failures and shortcomings identified in the Climbié case featured in Laming’s report into the death of Baby P – the 17-month-old Peter Connelly, who suffered more than 50 injuries and had been seen by social workers, doctors and police before his death in 2007. His mother, her partner and the partner’s brother were all convicted of causing or allowing the death of a child.
Laming’s exasperation bubbled over finally at a subsequent seminar for councillors and directors of social services in London. When they confessed they were surprised at the deficits in the quality and quantity of their services, he famously told them “I am surprised that you are surprised!”
View image in fullscreen Laming, second right, with, from left, det…