Last night Haringey’s Labour councillors rejected calls from the opposition for a series of re-inspections of Haringey’s services.

The request follows the admission by chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, that Haringey officials misled Ofsted during a key inspection. Council services have been subject to thirteen separate inspections over the last few years and the Liberal Democrats want re-inspections to find out whether other inspectors were also misled.

Haringey opposition leader, Councillor Robert Gorrie, and local MP Lynne Featherstone are now be writing directly to the heads of government inspectors to request re-inspections.

Commenting, Councillor Gorrie says:

“Council officials provided misleading information to Ofsted inspectors only weeks after Baby P died.

“The culture of secrecy and cover-up is endemic in Haringey Council. It is extremely unlikely that its Children’s Services are alone in misleading inspectors or councillors.

“Now that the Labour Council has failed to recognise the significance of providing misleading reports to government inspectors, we will be ourselves to ask for a blanket re-inspection.

“Local residents need to be confident these inspections provide an accurate report of the services provided by their council.”

Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, adds:

“These are critical services affecting the everyday lives of thousands of very vulnerable people in Haringey. Inspections play a vital role in allowing us to make sure these people are getting the service they deserve.

“How can we trust any of these reports? We need to start again with re-inspections across the board to start rebuilding confidence in these key services.”