'Council has learned lessons after Alfie's death'

Alfie Steele died after being held under water as punishment

Lessons have been learned from the murder of Alfie Steele council bosses have said.

The nine-year-old died at his home in Droitwich in February 2021 after suffering months of cruelty and abuse at the hands of his mother Carla Scott and her partner Dirk Howell.

The pair were jailed in June last year, and a review highlighted a string of missed opportunities by professionals to protect Alfie.

At a Worcestershire County Council cabinet meeting on Thursday, chief executive Paul Robinson said hundreds of staff had attended webinars in response to the review.

"Alfie Steele was a dreadful moment for this authority and for the county and for the community," he said.

"But on the positive side, if there is one [thing], our people have learnt from that.

"They have experienced it, they know what happened, we have the examples and the learning points from the report and those have been communicated to our staff."

Alfie Steele died at the age of nine

Councillors heard from Steve Eccleston, independent chair of Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership.

He said: "We have to be realistic here. We are often asking our youngest, most inexperienced practitioners, be they from social care, health or police, to go in and deal with some of our most challenging adults within our communities - challenging, intimidating, switched-on and able to avoid that sort of scrutiny.

"A Probation Service representative told me as a result of those webinars there have been challenges among professionals in a small number of cases, which have led to individuals who pose a risk to children being recalled to prison.

"It's small numbers and it's anecdotal but that for me is a demonstrable outcome."

'Empowering practitioners'

Marc Bayliss, the councillor for Bowbrook, which covers the area where Alfie lived, said he was pleased to hear about the focus on "real change rather than communicating details, because an awful lot of these serious case reviews tread the same path".

He asked the safeguarding chair what were the most important differences that will come out of the review.

Mr Eccleston said: "The most important changes are not structural or procedural.

"They are empowering practitioners to have the confidence to challenge their own initial thoughts and perceptions, and also challenge what they're being told and be more robust with individuals.

"I'll give you a simple example from the review. When Alfie's mother was saying 'no, he's not here' but it was reported that he was in the house.

"Be confident enough to say 'actually, we don't believe you and we want to take this further'."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.