Why the delay in government response to Munro report?

The Final Report of the Munro Review of Child Protection has been published today. It'll be interesting to see if social work can really move on from "a defensive system that puts so much emphasis on procedures and recording that insufficient attention is given to developing and supporting the expertise to work effectively with children, young people and families".

Government should embrace the review but instead is going to take its time to consider it. It's been easier to scapegoat people such as Sharon Shoesmith (see previous post) rather than set up what Munro calls a 'learning culture'. Government has not taken any heed previously of this message. It must have been clear which way the review was going, so I think it would be helpful if ministers could explain why they haven't got their response ready.
 
An executive summary of a major research programme on safeguarding children has also been published. The concluding message from the research document is "A key question for policy makers is how to ensure that improvements are better implemented in the drive to increase the effectiveness of services, and why it is so difficult to do so". Maybe it's made more difficult because government is more concerned what the Sun thinks than Professor Munro.

Meanwhile, perhaps people can learn from some of Eileen Munro's publications:  Learning together to safeguard children and Learning to reduce risk in child protection