Following our recent article examining the blunt use of legislation to appoint an interim Director of Children’s Services in Harrow, attention must now turn to a wider safeguarding concern: whether the structural design of the Director of Children’s Services (DCS) role itself provides sufficient independence, challenge and accountability within the system.
Safeguarding failures do not arise solely from poor practice. They also arise from weak system design, where accountability is blurred, challenge is muted and assurance becomes circular. Sustainable improvement requires more than changes in leadership; it requires honest scrutiny of whether existing governance structures are fit for purpose.
Working Together to Safeguard Children is explicit that effective safeguarding depends on clear accountability, robust assurance and effective escalation when concerns are not being addressed. Independent scrutiny and professional challenge are not optional safeguards but core components of a functioning child protection system.
Yet the current design of the DCS role concentrates extensive responsibilities within a single post. These include operational leadership of children’s social care, strategic safeguarding leadership, quality assurance functions, oversight of Independent Reviewing Officers, Child Protection Conference Chairs and the Local Authority Designated Officer role, as well as representing the local authority within the safeguarding partnership. In practice, this means the same role is responsible for delivering services, overseeing compliance and assuring the quality and safety of practice.
This concentration raises a fundamental governance question: where does independent internal challenge sit? Ofsted’s inspection framework places strong emphasis on effective scrutiny, escalation and learning from failure. However, when oversight is structurally embedded within the same leadership responsible for service delivery, there is an inherent risk that assurance becomes self-referential and insufficiently independent.
Learning from serious case reviews and national safeguarding reviews has repeatedly highlighted the dangers of blurred accountability and failures to challenge or escalate concerns. Safeguarding systems are deliberately designed to avoid such conflicts of interest, recognising that scrutiny cannot be fully effective when it is absorbed within operational leadership.
Given Harrow’s status under intervention, there is a strong case for examining whether the current configuration of the DCS role aligns with the expectations set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children and reflected in Ofsted’s framework. This is not about individuals, but about whether safeguarding governance in Harrow provides the independent challenge and assurance that protecting children demands.
Safeguarding systems must be designed to withstand pressure, not depend on good intentions alone.
Safeguarding failures do not arise solely from poor practice. They also arise from weak system design, where accountability is blurred, challenge is muted and assurance becomes circular. Sustainable improvement requires more than changes in leadership; it requires honest scrutiny of whether existing governance structures are fit for purpose.
Working Together to Safeguard Children is explicit that effective safeguarding depends on clear accountability, robust assurance and effective escalation when concerns are not being addressed. Independent scrutiny and professional challenge are not optional safeguards but core components of a functioning child protection system.
Yet the current design of the DCS role concentrates extensive responsibilities within a single post. These include operational leadership of children’s social care, strategic safeguarding leadership, quality assurance functions, oversight of Independent Reviewing Officers, Child Protection Conference Chairs and the Local Authority Designated Officer role, as well as representing the local authority within the safeguarding partnership. In practice, this means the same role is responsible for delivering services, overseeing compliance and assuring the quality and safety of practice.
This concentration raises a fundamental governance question: where does independent internal challenge sit? Ofsted’s inspection framework places strong emphasis on effective scrutiny, escalation and learning from failure. However, when oversight is structurally embedded within the same leadership responsible for service delivery, there is an inherent risk that assurance becomes self-referential and insufficiently independent.
Learning from serious case reviews and national safeguarding reviews has repeatedly highlighted the dangers of blurred accountability and failures to challenge or escalate concerns. Safeguarding systems are deliberately designed to avoid such conflicts of interest, recognising that scrutiny cannot be fully effective when it is absorbed within operational leadership.
Given Harrow’s status under intervention, there is a strong case for examining whether the current configuration of the DCS role aligns with the expectations set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children and reflected in Ofsted’s framework. This is not about individuals, but about whether safeguarding governance in Harrow provides the independent challenge and assurance that protecting children demands.
Safeguarding systems must be designed to withstand pressure, not depend on good intentions alone.
Harrow Monitoring Group 
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