"Within these Departments are experts who can get down to the facts and who ought to be able to propound some suggestions to ameliorate the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. They should, of course, be authorized, and indeed requested, to enlarge the departmental group and to take in representatives of principal welfare organizations."
The suggestions made by Mr Barnett were adopted, and the work recommended by him is being carried on. The results have not yet been made available to us.
We think that in matters of this kind fact finding carried out by experts in a thoroughly scientific manner is fundamental, and in a later portion of this report we have a specific recommendation to make on this subject.
Specific Recommendations of Mazengarb Committee Relative to Child Welfare Administration
In paragraph (4) of the report of the Mazengarb Committee—pages 57 to 60 inclusive—there are a number of comments and suggestions relating to the Child Welfare Act and its administration. We have examined these paragraphs very carefully, and we set out below some excerpts from the report furnished to us by the Director of Education. Our views are given immediately following the extract from the opinion expressed by Dr Beeby, which is as follows:
"We have always felt that the spirit of the Child Welfare Act 1925 placed an obligation on us to do preventive work, and there are two Cabinet decisions, one going back to 1941, which certainly give the authority. However, we agree that it might be desirable to have the obligation expressed explicitly in the Act. Indeed, in the draft Child Welfare Bill prepared by the Division some eighteen months ago you will find this done in two ways:
"(1) On page 43 of the draft Bill I sent you you will find Part I devoted to preventive work, and clause 1 begins, 'It shall be the duty of the Superintendent to take positive action to prevent children, etc.'.
"(2) On page 1 the definition of 'Child in need of care and protection' is so widened as to cover every possible type of preventive case, if read in conjunction with the amendments passed during last session and with the Cabinet authorities to spend public funds on such children.
"We do not think it necessary to increase the powers of Child Welfare Officers for these purposes. To give them more actual powers over children who have not committed an offence would be to risk justifiable public objection to interference with the liberty of the subject and the rights of parents."
Page 58, paragraph (b)