Catalogue description Children's Department

Prior to 1908 the main work of the Home Office in connection with children was the supervision of the inspection of reformatory and industrial schools. In 1854 the Home Secretary was authorised under the Youthful Offenders Act to certify voluntary reformatory schools and give such schools financial assistance. Certified schools were to be inspected by a prison inspector. In 1857 the Committee of the Privy Council on Education was given similar powers to certify and inspect industrial schools under the Industrial Schools Act, and in 1860 these powers were transferred to the Home Secretary under an amendment to that Act. Its powers over industrial schools in Scotland were transferred to him in 1861. In 1866 the prison inspector inspecting reformatory schools was also authorised to inspect industrial schools under the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Acts. The inspectorate developed into a separate Reformatory and Industrial Schools Department, which was supervised by the Criminal Department until 1888 and thereafter by the Domestic Department. It included a central office comprising the following branches: statistical and clerical; accounts; and, for the collection of parental contributions, metropolitan and provincial collection branches.

The Children Act 1908 imposed on the Home Secretary a number of new duties in connection with neglected or delinquent children, and the previous year he had been given control of the new probation officers. A departmental committee on reformatory and industrial schools in 1913 recommended that a special branch of the Home Office be formed to deal with all the administrative and inspecting functions of the department relating to children.

D Division, sometimes referred to as the Children's Branch, dealt with the administration of the Children Act, probation work and reformatory and industrial schools, but the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Department remained separate. Responsibility for the employment of children was transferred to the division from the Industrial Department, but it also dealt with mental deficiency and Home Office staff matters, and further miscellaneous subjects were assigned to it during the First World War.

In 1924 a Children's Branch which incorporated the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Department was set up. Besides dealing with the schools it was concerned with child protection and employment, probation, traffic in women and children and obscene publication. Further responsibilities accrued, especially as a result of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. This brought remand homes and approved schools, which replaced the reformatory and industrial schools, under the Home Secretary's supervision. He also supervised procedure for the adoption of children and the juvenile courts. Other departments, notably the Ministry of Health, also had some child care responsibilities, and some voluntary homes were subject to visits from the inspectors of the Ministries of Labour and Pensions and the Board of Education as well as the two main child care departments.

The Care of Children (Curtis) Committee recommended in 1946 that one department should have central responsibility in England and Wales for the care of children deprived of a normal life. The recommendation was implemented in the Children Act 1948, with the Home Secretary being made responsible for the supervision of local authority and voluntary provision for children, including inspecting, advising and setting standards. He was to be advised on the discharge of two functions under the act by an Advisory Council on Child Care. The inspectorate was largely regionalised. The Home Office also established attendance centres under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1948. The Children and Young Persons Act 1963 gave the Home Secretary supervisory powers over the duty of local authorities to develop preventive measures with the aim of reducing the need for children to be taken into care or brought to court.

In 1971 the child care responsibilities of the Home Office were transferred to the Department of Health and Social Security and the Welsh Office, and the same departments also took over the Home Secretary's powers concerning adoption in April 1973. The Home Office retained responsibility for juvenile courts and delinquency. Records relating to the transferred functions were also passed to the Department of Health and Social Security, from where they are being transferred to the Public Record Office.