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One angle that seems to have been avoided, lost in oversight or deliberately avoided is why there has been so much secrecy about the Baby P case.

The names of the mother and her boyfriend and "lodger" were kept anonymous by Court order but yet the names are out there on the Web. Why?

The Ed Ball's sponsored urgent report into Harringay Council Childrens Services and Procedures surrounding the death of Baby P has been kept private and confidential (although seen by the Tory and Liberal opposite numbers for Ed Balls). Why?

Nobody can challenge the need for secrecy but the reason for the secrecy should be understood otherwise the secrecy becomes a need unto itself.

The current UK Government has become used to governing through secrecy, has recently hypocritically initiated police action to investigate the leaking of embarrassing documents declared "secret" because the documents are simply embarrassing and goes to extreme lengths to conceal the background to the reasons why they make political decisions.

To my mind the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ should always be challenging the need for government sponsored secrecy and doing the same job as the Government Opposition parties - challenging government as to whether their policies and decisions and the secrecy around those decisions should not be open to scrutiny.

Let it be said that secrecy because the Government think it should be kept secret is not neccessarily a good enough reason for information to be kept secret. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ should challenge that ethos and let the public know when the government obstructs the right of the public to know this information and why so!

You do cover a lot of British stories, especially the ones involving the Queen, which are of no interest to many world viewers.

This story deserved coverage. It was a failure of the system. There were lessens to be learned by all.

The Baby P story, while tragic is inh no way a worldwide story.

It is a localised story to the UK and should not be covered ahead of news that has a wider impact.

There was no reason for anyone outside the UK to need to know about Baby P, it effected none of them.

At least stories about the Queen do have international significance (despite pdileepa's view to the contrary) just as much as news of the US president, Chinese leadership or German chancellor would have significance.

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#2. The Queen is at least legally head of state in several other countries including Canada, New Zealand, Australia etc. She's also head of the Commonwealth so what she does should at least have passing interest for much of Africa and South Asia too.

You could argue that the Josef Fritzle story had no relevance outside Austria, but after hearing that a very similar thing happened in South Yorkshire maybe highlighting this kind of story to raise awareness is a very good idea. Child cruelty is not unique to one nation.

#1

I am also bothered by the secrecy that surrounded this case whilst being aware of the sensitivity in keeping identities out of the picture unless they have relevance to the public interest.

Although this particular item has been subject to extensive coverage most of it has focused on the death of a baby despite the many "interventions" that were made. Nothing was revealed of the chains of command above those at field level. Nothing was revealed of who was responsible for cross agency communication and how high up the chain the information about Baby P went.

It is very easy for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and others to appear to join in with the "let's hang someone out to dry" mob rather than to get to grips with the reasons why history keeps repeating itself. At least some high fliers have resigned this time around but what of the mental well being of those who were closer to the action and may have valuable experience (and/or trauma) that coldly demonstrates the inadequacy of our protection systems.

Could "The World Tonight" have deepened this story by focusing not on the death of Baby P but on the blanket of secrecy that hides much of the detail of child protection cases from us?

Thanks for not talking about this story about Baby P, and allowing the other programmes on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4...to cover it.

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#1

Amongst the many phoned in anecdotes on the subject of Baby P, I was struck by that of a District Nurse on Five Live' s Victoria Derbyshire' s program who stated that she had concerns about a two month old baby but had her fears "ignored" because the case conference carried a majority decision. This DN' s concern was that ALL decisions where a very young baby is "at risk" should be unanimous and I believe this to be sensible opinion.

Many have defended local authority action in child protection matters by pointing out the large numbers of successful interventions but surely this must be tempered by the equally large numbers of near misses.

Many years ago, when I worked in social work support, I remember that there was serious concern amongst senior managers of the large numbers of graduate social workers who were still "wet behind the ears" when sent out on field work. It still seems appropriate to suggest that life experience should be high on the list of requirements for those who wish to pursue a career in social work. I would suggest that grandparents and older extended family members are often the providers of support, respite and space in many difficult cases. It would be interesting to know just how much "in the family" support is available in cases where a child is at risk.

Perhaps the World Tonight was not the most appropriate place for reporting on Baby P but surely there is scope for a large studio audience participation program on this subject. That it should include people who have children on the "at risk" register is of course a no-brainer.