A CHARITY is to scrutinise court applications made by social services to place vulnerable children in care.

There has been a sharp increase in the number of requests for care orders in Waltham Forest in the wake of the Baby P case.

And now the borough has been selected for a pilot scheme, which will involve charity Coram assessing applications before they are submitted to court.

The move aims to address potentially dangerous delays in acquiring care orders.

Child protection services nationally have been recently criticised in a review conducted by Lord Laming.

Waltham Forest social services have been rated as good by the Audit Commission, but some local social workers have complained that children are being put at risk because of unmanageable workloads.

Public sector union Unison has welcomed the move, saying it will free social workers up to do their jobs on the frontline more effectively.

Dave Knight, Waltham Forest branch secretary, said: “I think in child protection there is a mood caused by the Baby P case and a lot of people are concerned.

“The idea of something like the foundation looking at the decision process is something a lot of people would approve of.

“It means there is an organisation that can take an overview and they don’t strike me as being a punitive or policing organisation.

“Social workers have really difficult workloads and they have not got time because of all the bureaucy to do the work they would like to do. This is coming in to help them with that, so they will have more time to work with families.”

Coram, which works with vulnerable children and young people, were given a three-year contract and work is already underway.

Cabinet member for children and young people, Chris Robbins ,explained the work Coram weredoing.

He said: “If we have a child that’s on the protection list, where the family has perhaps not responded effectively enough, Coram will look at the paperwork and ensure that the family has been given appropriate support.

“This provides a much more efficient service. It's a safety mechanism to make sure everything’s been done correctly.

“We will probably run it for about six months before we have another review but so far, I’ve not heard any adverse comments.”

He added that Coram’s services were to be used only when the council was set to go to court and not on every decision regarding child protection.