ON AVERAGE last year, the Guernsey branch of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children provided services to more than five youngsters every day.

Now, the world-renowned organisation which pledges to provide immediate help on a strictly confidential basis to children in need from neglect, deprivation, and emotional or physical cruelty and which can include the effects of marital discord, alcoholism, financial difficulties and emotional problems, is to close.

For the children and the 1,477 adults who also used its services last year, it is a serious blow.

Unfortunately, we are unable to explain just how damaging its withdrawal will be because the society’s London bureaucrats have gagged the highly regarded Bailiwick manager and his team from speaking to the media.

However, other professionals whose work impinges on child welfare are very worried about the development and what will take its place.

The NSPCC – campaign motto: Cruelty to Children Must Stop. Full Stop – has had a distinguished and fruitful partnership role in Guernsey, working with a number of other agencies, including the States and the Health and Social Services Department.

Its budget of £400,000 and a staff of 12 full- and part-time staff indicates how much work it has to do here. That has not changed.

If anything, the cost and pressures on families, the gap between those with money and those with too little and the growing issues of drug and alcohol abuse in our increasingly divided society should mean its caseload is increasing.

Yet an organisation whose initials have been a byword for child care and putting youngsters first is now effectively turning its back on them.

What makes the process more distressing is the words the society has adopted to mask its actions. Over the years, it said, ‘we have wanted to focus our efforts on key areas’. What can be more key than an abused child? What it really means is that Guernsey does not have enough, or sufficiently traumatised, children to interest it any more.

For those who rely locally on its services, that’s an unacceptable level of cynicism from a previously well-regarded organisation. Full stop.