Politics live blog - Tuesday 1 February

Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen

8.52am: Social workers should spend less time filling in forms and more time talking to children, Professor Munro's report on child protection says. I can't find the report yet on the Department for Education's website, or on Munro's website, but the Press Association has a story. Here's an extract.

Professor Eileen Munro also wants to strip Ofsted of the power to evaluate reports into the deaths of abused or neglected children.

And the regulator should scrap making pre-planned checks on children's services in favour of unannounced visits, the review found.

Prof Munro's report also stresses the importance of having a management and inspection
process that monitors whether children are getting the help they need, rather than being a "tick-box exercise".

She said: "Everyone in the profession can think of meetings and forms that don't actually make a child safer.

"Whilst some regulation is needed, we need to reduce it to a small, manageable size.
"Professionals should be spending more time with children, asking how they feel, whether they understand why the social worker is involved in their family, and finding out what they want to happen."

And this is what Munro told the Today programme this morning.

We are not giving enough attention to whether we are actually protecting children. One of the problems is that rules give people a sense of security, but it is a false sense of security.

8.35am: Like many people, I suspect, I decided to start the day by putting my postcode into the government's new crime mapping website (which Alan Travis has written about in today's Guardian). And, like many people, I couldn't ge! t it to work. Nick Herbert, the police minister, has just told the Today programme the site is getting 75,000 hits a minute, or 4.5m an hour. If you do manage to get onto it, do let us know what you think.

As for today's other attractions, here's the list.

9.15am: Damian Green, the immigration minister, gives a speech defending his plans for a crackdown on student visas.

10am: Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former lord chancellor, gives evidence to the Commons political and constitutional reform committee about prisoner voting.

10.15am: Theresa Villiers, the transport minister, gives evidence to a Commons committee about EU transport policy.

10.30am: Three former cabinet secretaries, Lord Armstrong, Lord Wilson and Lord Turnbull, give evidence to a Commons committee on civil service reform.

10.30am: Ray Mallon, the mayor of Middlesbrough, gives a press briefing on why he thinks the government cuts are unfair.

11.30am: Bernard Gray, the new head of procurement at the Ministry of Defence, gives evidence to the Commons public accounts committee.

12.40pm: Lady Neville-Jones, the security minister, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about the government's review of counter-terrorism.

At some point today, Tim Loughton, the children's minister, is publishing Professor Munro's report on child protection.

As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at about 1pm and an afternoon one at about 4pm.


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