Josh MacAlister, the head of the new care review looking into children’s social care in the UK, has announced that he will not help families and children who have been hurt or negligently treated by professionals inside the sector.
In his engagement plan, MacAlister said the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (IRCSC) would look to the future rather than provide any historical context, and that it would not “remedy the individual poor experiences individuals may have faced.”
How an inquiry can offer anything of value without looking into allegations of gross misconduct and negligence is beyond us, but that is the official line MacAlister has chosen to take.
If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, the engagement plan — rather condescendingly — adds, “To summarise simply, if willing, we want you to use your experiences to help us build a better system for future generations and tell us about what we can fix now for those of you that already have children’s social care experience. We will support you to contribute to the review by providing specialist and professional support [provided by the NSPCC and Child Line], or you might want to access support by speaking to someone you already trust.”
Despite offering no incentive for families to get involved at this point, the plan then goes on to list the ways in which people can help the inquiry, by sharing what they think should be done to improve children’s social care. These include, workshops, local discussions, focus groups and online surveys.
Our priority suggestion would be to ensure that the sector is held accountable for every negligent act and injury.
And we will be calling this review Josh MacAlister’s review from now on, to reinforce the understanding that this is not a faceless, people-less review, but one which is run by real humans, who should be held accountable when doing a job, particularly one as important as reviewing an entire system.
Language has never been more important – calling something a review, or an inquiry, makes it too easy for people to hide behind an inanimate object without a conscience. This is Josh’s review.

This comes as no surprise. When officials make statements such as this it points to only one conclusion.
They don’t want to rock the boat and so they do nothing. It also points to an atmosphere of distrust, they know full well that an in depth honest investigation would likely result in many admissions that corruption is endemic. Also, many social workers, local authority legal staff, solicitors, barristers and possibly a fair number of judges would be heading to various houses of incarceration for their crimes against innocent children and parents.
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this country is totally screwed.
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I got refused to be part of this by josh because my family are victims of corruption, “gagged yet again”my 3 grandchild were stolen by social workers for “possible future harm” Crystal ball” bs.
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My 4 year old was stolen from the mum. The social worker and family court process is not fit for purpose lost recording allegedly forgetting to press play and did not prosecute the social worker for being in contempt of court for telling lies about her availability on the stand which such availability placed her in position to write the court experts reports . It is truly sad and what do you expect from a john !. Since then the mum and the carer all died of their own hands . The social worker went on the break court awarded contact and to ensure no contact was made with my daughter. The latest person has never had an assessment and is receiving LAC payments pretending to be a good parent when her family member was known to the police in Ireland as violent and drunk heavily eventually causing death. This is now two people Social Services has placed my child in jeopardy with !
We really need better reform as the whale process is flawed stealing 4 year old should not be happening and there should be no LAQ payments as if your supposed to be a perfect parent you should not require additional funding to look after them it’s applying the waste of our taxes and the lack of human rights for our children . My child is still lost in Ireland without a relative and the death of two carers . What can I say !Family court does not work. It’s been subverted and corrupted by years off, defiled or marred, poor children’s social work which is casual in our current failure in our social unity and identity we are giving to our citizens. Reform is needed Urgently.
I have subscribed to the children commissioner https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/thebigask I havent a clue how to start an email with them yet as the area of social work is such a flawed one.
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Sad! families ripped apart, especially by the wrong social workers, being unaccountable for their actions – when they have ruined children’s lives and stolen them from their families when they stand in as medical experts denying medical experts belonging to the children their say
The first few paragraphs show what the UK system has come to, The state can abuse children with impunity.
Where are the expert practioners’ voices who support families in court as they fight for the voice of the child – none of them are on the panel to bring a counter balance to those of the one sided views.
along with the criminal justice system the UK are worse than a third world country.
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Judge people by their actions and not their words. We realised some time ago that ‘Child Protection’ is in fact ‘Child Abuser Protection’. The truth is grim hence why most people do not want to or cannot face the reality of what the state is doing to our children. Know thy enemy.
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Sounds like another pointless waste of tax payers money by people who have no interest in the atrocities of the SS against family life.
mind you it comes as no surprise to me. i wonder if MacAlister has shares in fostering and adoption agencies. its almost a lucrative as investing in Bitcoin.
What has this world come to. even more devious and cold hearted than Nazi Germany i would say.
If Advanced aliens did create this planet its about time they got their asses back here to sort out the trash!
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