Child protection is still a ”huge problem” almost four years after the death of Dundee toddler Brandon Muir, Labour has claimed.
New Scottish leader Johann Lamont urged First Minister Alex Salmond to hold an independent inquiry into the system after the death of another child in tragic circumstances.
Last week Kimberley Hainey (37) was found guilty of murdering her toddler son, Declan, at a flat in Paisley and of hiding his death from the authorities.
Speaking at her first appearance as leader at First Minister’s Questions, Ms Lamont suggested the Scottish Government had failed to keep promises made in the wake of the Brandon Muir case.
Ms Lamont said: ”Christmas is a time of year that belongs to children but for some, abandoned or abused by their parents, there isn’t much to look forward to.
”When the First Minister was asked about a tragic case two years ago the death of Brandon Muir he assured us that the system for protecting children was ‘systematic’ and ‘strenuous’.”
She added: ”But the reality wasn’t good enough for Brandon Muir, or for Declan Hainey, or for scores of children whose names we do not know but who are suffering now.
”The reality is that, across Scotland, we have social workers overburdened and the inevitability of children who have been abandoned by their parents being abandoned by a system that’s supposed to care.”
Declan’s body was discovered on March 30 last year when he would have been 23 months old. He was last seen alive in July or August 2009 when he was aged around 15 months.
It is not known how or when he died but experts said he had been dead for several months when he was found.
Mr Salmond said improvements to the inspection regime had been made as the result of an inquiry held in the wake of Brandon Muir’s death.
And he insisted there is ”substantial evidence” that social work departments are performing ”much better” than they were before.
Dundee City Council’s social work department came in for heavy criticism following the death of Brandon Muir.
But Mr Salmond stressed no politician could guarantee that tragedies such as Declan Hainey or Brandon Muir would never occur.
No guarantee
He said: ”If [Ms Lamont] is asking for a guarantee that there will never be a tragic circumstance, that no child will ever be in that circumstance, I can’t give that guarantee. No politician can.”
However, he added: ”If she’s asking the question what has been done by this government, then the systematic improvement in inspection regimes validates what has been done by the government.
”We have a substantial system, we also have excellent social workers in Scotland who subscribe to the highest standards, who are a professional group of people.
”But however substantial we make our system, whatever the sincere efforts of our social workers, there will always be tragic cases. That is a certainty in society.”
He added: ”Our job as parliamentarians is to give the maximum support to our social work departments, to make sure our systems of inspection are such as to minimise these tragic cases, minimise the number and therefore minimise the effect on society.”
Inevitability questioned
But Ms Lamont said it was wrong to say there is ”some kind of inevitability” about such deaths and questioned whether the government is sufficiently funding social work.
She said: ”It’s not about blaming the workforce, it’s recognising for all of us that whatever systems in are in place they are not sufficient.
”If we can have an independent inquiry we can work together to challenge this most awful of circumstances that is happening in our communities and make Scotland a better place for vulnerable children.”
Brandon Muir died at the hands of his mother’s lover, Robert Cunningham, in March 2008 when he was just 23 months old. Cunningham was jailed for 10 years for the killing.
It emerged at his trial that Brandon and his mother Heather Boyd, a heroin addict, were well known to social services. After the tragedy, child protection services came under scrutiny.
An HMIE inspection was highly critical of children’s services in Dundee. However, a follow-up inspection noted major improvements.
Pitcure by Andrew Milligan/PA Archive