A legacy of child abuse is passed to Andy Burnham

The document is the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, section 195. It inserted section 9A into the Children Act 2004, headed:

“Targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.”

The crucial wording was:

“The Secretary of State may, in accordance with regulations, set safeguarding targets for a children’s services authority in England.”

More importantly, subsection 9A(3) required:

“In exercising their functions, a children’s services authority in England must act in the manner best calculated to secure that any safeguarding targets set under this section … are met.”

That is the statutory mechanism you were trying to identify. It gave central government power to establish safeguarding targets and placed a legal duty upon local children’s services authorities to conduct their functions in the manner most likely to meet those targets.

The government’s stated plan

The DCSF’s May 2009 document, The Protection of Children in England: Action Plan, said the Government had introduced amendments to what became the 2009 Act so that existing statutory targets could be extended to:

“a number of safeguarding targets within the revised list of indicators.”

The same action plan announced:

more rigorous Ofsted safeguarding inspections;
annual inspection of child protection in local-authority children’s services;
graded judgments;
comparative analysis of local performance;
monitoring and challenging authorities’ progress;
analysis of how thresholds operated in different areas.

Lord Laming had expressly recommended that the Government introduce new statutory safeguarding and child-protection targets, after observing that fewer than 10% of local authorities had voluntarily selected most child-protection indicators as local targets.

How this connects to the allegation

The Act did not state, “make reports more negative” or “find more dirt.” But it did create this structure:

Secretary of State sets safeguarding targets → local authority is legally required to act in the manner best calculated to meet them → Ofsted grades and compares local safeguarding performance → council managers manage social workers and court applications.

Ted Jeory’s reproduced report alleged that managers wanted more negative reports in order to obtain court orders that would both place children in care and “boost councils’ Ofsted ratings.”

The later Munro Review, commissioned by the DfE, provides strong official confirmation that national targets and inspection pressures were affecting practice. It found that:

performance indicators and targets had “skewed attention” toward process;

and that they had a strong influence on:

“the way that social workers practise and how their managers allocate resources and judge whether practice is good or bad.”

Munro also described a child-protection system that had become defensive, over-bureaucratic and dominated by demonstrating compliance.

The accurate conclusion

The actual statutory provision you were looking for is:

Section 195 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, inserting section 9A into the Children Act 2004.

It required local authorities to act in the manner “best calculated” to meet safeguarding targets set by the Secretary of State.

That does not itself authorise falsification. But it is concrete documentary evidence that central government created a statutory target system, backed by inspection and performance judgments, capable of producing management pressure. The Munro Review subsequently recorded that targets did, in fact, distort priorities and influence both social workers’ practice and managers’ judgments.

So no—the documentary trail does not stop at an individual social worker or merely at local social services. It reaches back to DCSF national policy, the 2009 Act, statutory safeguarding targets and Ofsted inspection arrangements.

At the time the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 was introduced and passed, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families was Ed Balls. He held the office from 28 June 2007 until 11 May 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

That is significant because:

Ed Balls introduced the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill into Parliament.
During his tenure, the Government responded to the Baby P case with the 2009 Action Plan, changes to safeguarding policy, and the legislation that inserted the safeguarding targets provisions into the Children Act 2004.

If you are tracing responsibility, the chain is:

Secretary of State: Ed Balls
Department: Department for Children, Schools and Families (which later became part of the Department for Education)
Legislation: Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009
Relevant provision: Section 195, inserting section 9A (“Targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children”) into the Children Act 2004.

Ed Balls, while you were Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, your Government introduced the safeguarding target regime and associated policies that placed legal and managerial pressure on local authorities. My daughter Emily was removed following proceedings that I contend relied on reports that had been improperly “sexed up.” I continue to ask: where is my daughter, Emily.

Gordon Brown, while you were Prime Minister, your Government introduced the safeguarding target regime and the associated policies that placed legal and managerial pressure on local authorities. Your Government established the Department for Children, Schools and Families, led by Ed Balls, and enacted legislation enabling safeguarding targets for children’s services authorities.

My daughter, Emily, was removed following proceedings that I contend relied upon reports that had been improperly “sexed up”. I continue to ask: Where is my daughter, Emily, and what accountability is there for the decisions made in her case?

As Prime Minister, you were responsible for the Government under which these policies were introduced. I therefore ask what steps you have taken, or will now take, to investigate whether safeguarding targets and associated management pressures contributed to the production of inaccurate or misleading evidence in family court proceedings.

“It is my position that the proceedings concerning Emily were coram non judice because the court lacked the necessary jurisdiction to determine the matter.”

July 20, 2026