The wheels on the bus go round and round …

I was in the audience at a child-safeguarding conference not long ago. As usual we were addressed by the ‘great and the good’ – members of an elite with fancy sounding job titles and, no doubt, even fancier salaries.

It was during one such presentation – in which there was repeated reference to the Munro reforms - that the thought crossed my mind that the presenter would have happily stood there and lectured us all in a similar way about Every Child Matters or the Re-focusing agenda or ritual abuse or the importance of child protection procedures or whatever was the current ‘flavour of the month’.

Did this person believe in the validity (or otherwise) of Munro's arguments? I don’t think so. I don’t even think that the issue of truth or falsity had entered the presenter’s mind. The Munro Review was on today’s agenda but this time next year it could equally be something else.

My cynicism increased when the next ‘expert’ stood up. The problem identified was that children’s and adults’ local authority services no longer came under single management. Talk about swings and roundabouts! I expect this person had argued for the split ten years ago, but I may be doing her/him a disservice …