What will become of failure to remove cases?
Claims in negligence for failure to remove became increasingly common after the case of D v East Berkshire (CA, 31 July 2003). Courts were asked to scrutinise the actions of social services when investigating child protection concerns or deciding whether to start care proceedings. This run of cases stalled after the Supreme Court decision on CN & GN v Poole BC (SC, 6 June 2019). In CN, Lord Reed ruled that local authorities could not avoid liability on public policy grounds, but he distinguished between cases where they made things worse (‘positive acts’) and cases where they failed to make things better (‘pure omissions’). A duty of care existed for positive acts, but not for pure omissions usually.
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BLM Abuse & Neglect News blog 