Thought I’d continue with my mini-experiment with YouTube films – especially as plaster cast has not yet come off! – so here are my views on the staff sackings over Baby P:
You can also watch the film on the YouTube website here.
Tag Archives: baby p
Four sacked at Haringey over death of Baby P
The BBC reports:
A social worker and three managers have been sacked for failings in the care of Baby P, Haringey Council has said…
Haringey Council said Cecilia Hitchen, the deputy director of children and families, had been dismissed for “loss of trust and confidence” following the damning Ofsted report in December last year.
A council spokesman said social worker Maria Ward, team manager Gillie Christou and head of safeguarding services Clive Preece were sacked for gross misconduct.
How the police failed over Baby P
Good Friday – and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme booked me early bird time – 6.45 am – to talk about the leaked information showing police failings in the Baby P case (click here to hear the piece).
What the leak – to Tim Donovan of BBC London – basically revealed was things like notes not being taken, a case report languishing in a drawer when the case wasn’t handed over and so on. Each of these ‘failures’ being small in themselves – except that this was a child known to be at risk and therefore we, the public, would expect absolute rigour in all procedures – not the sort of casualness exemplified.
Because the spotlight was so firmly on Sharon Shoesmith and Labour Haringey – rightly so, as they are the lead agency and she had the lead position and was accountable under the Children’s Act of 2004 – the other agencies (health, lawyers and police) have not come under the same scrutiny. That’s one reason why I’ve consistently pushed for a full public inquiry.
And furthermore – I want Ed Balls to admit that he was wrong in refusing to publish the full serious case review. The part each agency played in the ultimate tragedy of Baby P is important if he really means that ‘lessons must be learnt’ and ‘this must never happen again’. Unless everyone involved in protecting children can know what went wrong and why – they can’t learn the lessons that need to be learned.
Although I was looking forward to mostly having the day off – I agreed to do the Today interview because the issue is incredibly important – and my concern has always been that with the passing on of the media tsunami the underlying issues would simply not be addressed. Anyway – my sense of duty was rewarded ‘cos in the green room was Clark Peters (of The Wire and new film in which he plays Mandela). So that was interesting – but then a small woman walked in and sat next to me.
She turned, extended her hand and said “Carole King”. “Carole King the singer?” I stuttered stupidly. “Yes” she said. You have to understand that this woman’s songs were the backdrop to my life and love life in the 70s and then again when I sang all the songs from Tapestry to my girls to sing them to sleep. What a treat. And she said she would perhaps come back next year to do a tour. What a morning!
Police culpable over Baby P death – BBC
That’s the headline on today’s BBC report:
Police mistakes meant a chance to charge Baby P’s mother for assaulting him was missed several weeks before his death, an unpublished report says.
Delays securing an independent medical opinion meant the six-month legal deadline passed within which to charge the mother with common assault.
The report into what happened to Baby P before his death in August 2007 found several police errors.
The Metropolitan Police said it could not comment for legal reasons.
Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said there had been a “monumental failing” by the police.
You can read more on the BBC site.
Ten most popular blog postings (1st quarter, 2009)
Here’s what you’ve been reading the most on my blog over the last three months:
10. Lap dancing in Crouch End – one of the big local issues coming up for decision
9. Heading up the party’s Technology Board – see number 1.
8. Sharon Shoesmith – see number 2.
7. Reading the Baby P Serious Case Review – see number 2.
6. Why the number of female MPs matters – see why I think so.
5. What should you do with your emails? – a fun way to demonstrate to Jacqui Smith what’s wrong with the government’s latest plans to keep tabs on what we’re all doing.
4. Not so equal pay at Cambridge University – not Cambridge University at its best.
3. Politicians and Twitter: why The Times is wrong – not The Times at its best.
2. Sharon Shoesmith in The Guardian – I’ve found this blog really useful during the Baby P tragedy, as it’s given me the chance to raise issues and expound on my views at the length the issue demands, but which the media rarely gives MPs.
1. Are you a techno wizard? – no surprise that news about the Liberal Democrats online (and other) work should attract the attention of an online audience!
Has Lord Laming come to the right conclusions?
OK – so now I’ve had time to have a look at all Lord Laming’s proposals (from his review into the state of Children’s Services following the Baby P tragedy) – but my view is not much altered as his report is much as I expected. Another 50+ recommendations because his first recommendations were not implemented.
There’s some good strengthening stuff – but I still can’t see what will make it different so that we avoid the next time. For example – take the Safeguarding Children Board. This is where all the partners around child protection meet to discuss children at risk. In Haringey it is the Board that Sharon Shoesmith chaired, and it is from this Board that the deeply flawed Serious Case Review into the death of Baby P flowed. So flawed that Ed Balls has ordered a second Serious Case Review to be produced and has put in an independent chair.
Lord Laming has recommended an independent chair for all Safeguarding Children Boards and he further suggests the addition of two members of the public – but I’m not convinced this will really deal with the sort of events that went wrong in Haringey.
In the case of Baby P, my understanding is that various of those attending the Board did raise matters of concern – but the management wore down those who raised concerns and in the end forced through what it wanted to do. So – whilst Laming’s proposal could be a help, what we’re missing is a requirement to minute the discussions and disagreements. Lord knows every other bit of information is recorded, computerised, etc etc – but no records are kept of these crucial meetings – and that makes it far too easy to bulldozer past disagreements.
Next let’s look at Lord L’s recommendation for a National Unit for Safeguarding to ensure his recommendations are implemented. Forgive me – but the last thing we need is more central attempts to micromanage what is happening on the ground all round the country.
The eyes and ears that can really help are on the spot – locally. The tragedy is that they were ignored by Sharon Shoesmith and by the Labour Haringey leadership. It’s a strengthening of local accountability and scrutiny that we really need.
What went wrong in Haringey was that the Labour administration, ineffective and defensive, didn’t challenge officers. Ranks were closed, jobs were protected and there was a refusal by Labour or senior officers involved to engage or listen to the many voices that were trying to warn Haringey that children were at risk.
Quite frankly – I could go on and on. There are wider issues untouched by Laming’s investigation: budgetary pressures, the inspection regime (inspectors say things are good, something goes wrong, inspectors say things are bad), the temptation to fudge or mislead when jumping through government hoops brings funding, the need for whistle blowers to have somewhere to take their concerns and have them acted on; the failures of the health services – and so on.
I don’t want to be a misery guts – but I just don’t feel that Lord Laming’s work is going to really cut through the culture and attitude that Labour Haringey operates and which is the reason (in my view) why we have now had two tragedies, Victoria Climbie and Baby P, in Haringey.
Laming's inquiry reports
Not (yet) had time to blog about Lord Laming’s report into the state of children’s services – so instead here’s a link to press coverage with my views:
Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone, who represents Haringey in north London where the Climbie and Baby P deaths occurred, has repeated her calls for a full public inquiry into the Baby P case.
She said: “Clearly the rulebook doesn’t need to be rewritten, the rules just need to be applied. To do this, Haringey needs two things above all – more accountability and more openness.
“However, key questions remain unanswered, such as why did Haringey’s whistle-blowing policy fail so badly?
“Why were the people who warned that something was wrong ignored? We have had review after review and yet we seem no closer to the truth.” (epolitix.com)
What will Lord Laming have found?
The Laming findings on how his recommendations following the Victoria Climbie tragedy have been implemented will be reported tomorrow.
I have had some qualms about Lord Laming looking at his own recommendations as I have been afraid he might not want to find fault. However, he takes the issue of child protection extremely seriously and is the wise old owl who realised that the leadership was key to changing the way a department works – hence the Children’s Act 2004 which made clear where individual responsibility should rest – and so ultimately was why Sharon Shoesmith and Liz Santry were in the frame.
From all the leaks, I expect that Laming will have looked pretty thoroughly at social workers’ caseloads and discovered that they are not kept to the 12 cases I believe he recommended. But I also hope that he has looked at the line management. We were all gobsmacked that Baby P could be visited so many times to no avail. Surely we must see the creation of a culture where if the social worker visiting is too scared or inexperienced etc to ask to see the child from top to bottom – it would be normal for her or him to go back and report this, be supported, and be accompanied back to satisfy themselves of the true condition of the child.
More tick boxes and process driven stuff is the last thing we need – so I’m glad that Laming looks to be staying clear of that. However, I am pretty sure that the atmosphere on the Safeguarding Children Board in Haringey was such that the members gave up putting forward their professional views – as my understanding is that they were simply over-ruled by management and bludgeoned ultimately into silent acquiescence. This needs to change – and so a key recommendation I will look for will be to have the Board discussions and particularly disagreements minuted. They are not currently.
Outside of the leadership and management within Children’s Services – I am fearful that the wider issues will not feature – and those wider issues if not examined now will cause us regret after some future tragedy.
So what about the joining together of education and children’s social services – has it worked? I tread carefully as they were joined to stop children falling through the gap – but clearly in Haringey the Director of Education found herself then in charge of an area where she had no experience. How significant was that? During the furore – Ms Shoesmith was supported by many Heads of Schools who praised her education record – but amongst the hundreds of people from social services who contacted me, not one praised her work on that side.
What about the issue of Haringey Labour Council not heeding any of the warnings that children were at risk? They had plenty – from me, from relatives, from whistleblowers and from opposition members. They ignored all of them. If something is wrong – how can the administration be made to listen? Secrecy, cover-ups and rank closing were the culture of Haringey Labour and officers. Gagging orders, injunctions, refusal to submit to scrutiny and so on meant that no light shone on what was going on. Moreover, even since the furore and the shaming of Haringey – Labour are still blocking moves to proper oversight.
Then there’s the inspection regime. Ofsted gave Haringey three stars just whilst all this was going on under the cover. How can we rely on an inspection system that failed so miserably? And what of the Government whose system of stars makes authorities jump through hoops to get funding and autonomy – putting the temptation in front of people to fiddle and distort the system?
And what of budgetary pressures – they are ever-present. It was said that in an email managers were told not to take children into care because there was no funding. What part did this play?
And finally – what of the nightmare going on in the health services? More of that later.
So you can see – whilst I am hopeful Lord Laming’s recommendations will address some of the issues – in my view we still need a public inquiry on these other issues to ensure that the whole debacle and failure that let Baby P be killed is properly and extensively addressed.
Improving Haringey's care of children
I went to the Haringey Strategic Partnership meeting last night particularly to have the opportunity to raise some of my ongoing concerns over the plans for child protection post Baby P. Peter Lewis, who took on the role after Sharon Shoesmith’s sacking, will present Haringey Council’s response / action plan to the hideously damning Joint Area Review report by OFSTED commissioned by Ed Balls.
The action plan is pages and pages of issues, identified leads and objectives and so on and so forth. As I said to the meeting – and the meeting is all the key players in Haringey, not just the council – I can’t judge the actions as the majority as they are about details which go beyond what I know of. However the three key issues I raised which as I said might be in the many pages but I couldn’t identify them were:
– firstly that much of what went wrong in Haringey was culture and attitude – and unless that changed all the proposed actions would not deliver a safer child protection regime
– secondly – that so very many people – including myself – warned Haringey that children were at risk and they took no notice. Were there measures that would ensure that warnings were heeded rather than rebutted and ignored?
– lastly, what measures were there that would ensure that professional advice and experience was not simply steamrollered into submission by management? Decisions made by the Safeguarding Children Board that led to Baby P’s death were by agreement – but my understanding is that concerns were raised, professional judgements and warning were given – but that the managerial lead simply intimidated or ignored those who raised concerns into submission.
The answers were not wholly satisfactory. On the first – yes promises that culture and attitude would be entirely different. Good – but haven’t seen the text that will go with the action plan to the Secretary of State today. On second one – the answer was about escalating the issues brought by staff to senior managerment. Given I went to the lead politician and the chief executive with my warnings and they ignored me – not convinced escalation is the safeguard we need. And on the third – well we will see!
Haringey Labour still haven't learnt to listen to warnings
I met with a whistle blowers’ support and advice service yesterday. Following Baby P and the appalling problem anyone who tried to tell Haringey what was going on met with – i.e. Labour wouldn’t listen and ignored me, other elected Lib Dem members, Nevres Kamal (the whistle blower) and so on. Clearly the next issue has to be getting a failed council like Haringey to understand that they have to change. They cannot go on ignoring those who bring warnings to them just ‘cos they don’t want to deal with stuff and are afraid of it getting out into the ether and damaging them politically.
That is why they refused to scrutinise child protection when the Lib Dems put it forward as an area that needed looking at. Even more shockingly – at Full Council last Monday – Labour once again refused point blank a proposal by the Lib Dems to set up a special permanent group of members to watch over child protection. So – Labour have learned nothing and changed nothing about their resistance to proper engagement and scrutiny. Protect and hide (themselves and their actions of lack of) seems to sill be their creed.
Hence – my meeting with this legal based charity that stand to help those whistle blowers (in complete confidence) who find themselves turned on, spat out, bullied etc as did Nevres when she tried to warn of dangerous and negligent goings on in Haringey Childrens’ Services.
Lynne Featherstone 