More children at risk as cases of neglect soar, charity warns

"Neglect is a neglected problem," said Diana Sutton, head of policy and public affairs at the NSPCC. "The problem is that neglect cases tend just to drift. There is a need to strike a balance between keeping the family together and taking the children away."

In fact most children placed on the at risk register are there because of neglect. The high profile physical and sexual abuse cases that hit the headlines are actually in the minority. And the major underlying causes of neglect? Drink, hard drugs and cretinism.

It's fine for the NSPCC (which, incidentally, gave up all front line child protection work years ago) to call for swifter action from social workers but it would do better to call for more social workers to start with. Most social services departments are grossly understaffed. And even if there was a full quota of staff what exactly does the NSPCC think they could do with all these children? There is already a desperate shortage of foster parents (especially from ethnic communities) and we abandoned children's homes a long time ago.

Pointing up problems is easy. Solutions are a litte bit more difficult to come up with. And it's a little galling when the comments come from an organisation which removed itself from the difficult job of dealing directly with child abuse and neglect to concentrate on the much more comfortable and safer area of 'therapy'.