24/02/03

NSPCC told to spend its cash on children not campaigning

Daily Telegraph

All is not well with the NSPCC, Britain's best known child protection charity. Criticised in the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, it is now facing accusations that it does not spend enough money protecting the children most at risk.

The charity's aggressive and high-profile advertising campaigns ensured it an income of more than £90 million last year.

But Lord Laming, chairman of the Climbie inquiry, said the work of such organisations was seriously undermined by a lack of "basic systems and processes" when it was revealed that the NSPCC's family centre failed to visit Victoria once in the six months between receiving an urgent referral and her death from appalling abuse.

Now the charity is accused of spending too much time trying to ban parental smacking and too little on children at genuine risk of abuse. Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, claims supporters would be horrified by the sums of money spent on "preaching" campaigns, funds that would be better spent on front-line work to protect children.

"So many children's charities have cut back on actual child protection to concentrate on quite tendentious issues," said Robert Whelan, Civitas director. "I took a very cynical view when, at the time the NSPCC was being lambasted (by the Climbie inquiry), it launched yet another in-your-face anti-smacking campaign.

"It was trying to seize the moral high ground when it had failed to do the very thing we want it to do, intervene to save children like Victoria." Families First, a family advocacy group, accused the NSPCC of questionable tactics after the charity published a poll claiming that the majority of parents supported legal reform against smacking.

"The truth is that it didn't ask what people thought about smacking; it asked how people felt about 'hitting' children which is altogether different," said Norman Wells, of Families First.

"It is like asking whether doctors should be allowed to stab their patients. Everyone would say 'no' but it would be dishonest to draw the conclusion that there was an overwhelming public support for a legal ban on inoculations."

The NSPCC strongly rejects such criticism, arguing that its remit is to prevent harm to children before it happens, as well as afterwards. Any suggestions that the charity had lost public confidence, was in crisis, or harboured views that were unrepresentative were "absolutely not true".

"We [tackle child cruelty] by being available on the ground locally, through our helpline nationally and through public education," said Mary Marsh, NSPCC director. "Hitting children is wrong and dangerous and the nature of our present law does not protect children at all."

The society has just announced plans to spend another £1 million on an advertising campaign by Saatchi and Saatchi to outlaw smacking. Such campaigns were not a waste of money just because ministers would not support them, Miss Marsh said.

The NSPCC, which employs 1,800 staff, is the only children's charity with statutory powers to take action to safeguard children at risk. It can apply for a court order to place a child under supervision or in care but normally works with the police and social services to assess risk and deal with it.

It operates 180 child protection teams across England, Wales and Northern Ireland but spends less than 50 per cent of its budget on "child protection and preventative services and projects". More than £11 million is spent fund-raising, while £15 million goes on campaigning and public education, and £1.7 million on "child protection research".

David Hinchliffe, Labour chairman of the Commons health select committee, believes it is right for the NSPCC to adopt a more campaigning role against child abuse and corporal punishment. "With improved statutory services for child protection, raising awareness is what it should be about," he said.

But NCH, another children's charity, takes a different approach. "We spend 92p in the pound on children's services," said Miriam Solly, NCH director of communications.

"We are very service-led and subsequently our profile is nowhere near as high (as the NSPCC's) which I am not arguing is always a good thing."

Miss Marsh remains unrepentant about the NSPCC's approach. "You could not end cruelty to children just by providing services for a few children in a few places," she said. "You have got to campaign publicly and it has worked.

"If you go back six or seven years, people used to deny children were abused on the scale we now know is true."

Miss Marsh, who joined the NSPCC only two years ago, seven months after Victoria Climbie's death, insisted that the organisation was now "fit for the future".

Victoria's death had forced the organisation to look critically at itself and it remained committed to learning lessons from the case.

"No organisation ever wants to be involved in having failed. Sometimes when things go wrong, people can be shocked and concerned but if they pay attention to how you deal with it, confidence can increase," said Miss Marsh.

Members of the public could have absolute confidence that when they referred children to the NSPCC, the case would be dealt with properly, she said.