The Children Act, 1948, and the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act, 1948 / edited by A.C.L. Morrison [and others].

  • Great Britain
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Children Act, 1948, and the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act, 1948 / edited by A.C.L. Morrison [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ill, and mentally deficient children in institutions under the Lunacy and Mental Treatment and Mental Deficiency Acts is the responsibility of the Board of Control—for understandable reasons as part of a highly specialised service. Finally, war orphans maintained under the War Orphans Act, 1942, were made the direct responsibility of the Minister of Pensions in order to avoid, for reasons of sentiment, these children being dealt with under the Poor Law. If our hopes for the abolition of war are realised the number of these war orphans will steadily diminish and within a period of less than 10 years the separate arrangements for their public care will need review. Meanwhile the Minister employs his own staff to supervise the care of these children throughout the country. The Central Authority The Curtis Committee had recommended that the central responsibility for the care of “ deprived’”’ children should be concentrated in one Government Department. They offered no suggestion as to which of the existing Departments should absorb this work, but did call attention to the fact that the Home Office contained a Children’s Department which had developed to a considerable extent the study of the substitute home. They were opposed to the formation of a separate department to be responsible for all aspects of the life of the deprived child. That would have emphasised what they wished to minimise—the segregation or marking off of these children from all other children. They thought deprived children, like other children, should come within the purview of the Ministry of Education for their education and of the Ministry of Health for their health. But they wanted the problem of making-up for the missing elements in these children’s lives—a normal home and parental love—to receive the comprehensive andcontinuous study it deserved ofa single Department. The choice was not a simple one for the Government, and since it may become a matter of historic interest it is worth while to quote what the Lord Chancellor (The Viscount Jowitt) said when intro- ducing the Children Bill into the House of Lords : ““As between the various Departments there is much that might be said. I have always regretted the view which is somewhat commonly held that the Home Office are a Department dealing only with crime and criminals. That is a complete misapprehension. In fact the Home Office have very large protective functions in regard to children .. .. they have provided for the welfare and training of children who were in need of care or protection as well as those who were offenders against the law.”’ The relinquishment by the Ministry of Health of responsibility for the care of fit children was expected, for it was mostly derived from the Poor Law, and both the Curtis and Clyde Committees had voiced a fairly general feeling that the administration of the new provisions for deprived children should be severed from the wonts and usages of the Poor Law system. The Ministry of Health were moreover preoccupied with the preparations for setting up the first comprehensive national health service. The Government’s decision, announced in March, 1947, to transfer the Ministry of Health’s child care functions to the Home Office and not to the Ministry of Education caused little surprise, for in their recommendations as to the central functions which should be concentrated, the Curtis Committee made no mention of the maintenance of children under the Education Act, 1944. It happened also that at the time when the Government made their decision the Ministry of Education’s hands were full with the replanning of the State education system under the Education Act, 1944.
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