Tag Archives: sharon shoesmith

The roles of Sharon Shoesmith and George Meehan

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On Saturday went on Ken Livingstone’s LBC show.

Most of the time was spent on Baby P, not surprisingly. Just to break for a brief moment from Baby P – Ken said at the end that I could spend the last minute ranting about whatever I wanted. So I did. I made an appeal to Gordon Brown to re-open the sub-post offices in London that he has closed. Having decided to stop any further closures it seems to me that those of us who were unfortunate enough to have had the axe already fall should have the closures reversed.

Back to Baby P – Saturday was the day Sharon Shoesmith received some support in the form of a letter to the media from 61 head teachers in Haringey. Sharon is Director of Education here in Haringey. As Ken put it on air – she’s their boss.

But this isn’t about her competence or otherwise in education – it’s about her responsibility and accountability for the social services side of her brief – which includes having – under the Children’s Act of 2004 – the responsibility for child protection in Haringey. Under this legal framework her and the political leadership side of the equation have the ultimate responsibility.

Whilst she has – rightly – been in the firing line, thus far George Meehan, Labour Leader of Haringey Council, has not had the decency to step forward to take his share of the responsibility. He was leader too during the Victoria Climbie affair – and it is worth remembering some of the damning conclusions in Lord Laming’s report:

The manner in which a number of senior managers and elected councillors within Haringey discharged their statutory responsibilities to safeguard and protect the welfare of children living in the borough was an important contributory factor in the mishandling of Victoria’s case … I was left unimpressed by the manner in which a number of senior managers and councillors from Haringey sought to distance themselves from the poor practice apparent … [The report’s criticisms] are directed not just at the front line staff … but at senior managers and councillors.

Neither George nor any of the other councillors so criticised resigned their posts then.

What Sharon Shoesmith, Geroge Meehan and Liz Santry (the Haringey Council Cabinet member for this area) don’t seem to understand is the really, really deep sense of outrage amongst the public.

One illustration of the depth of public concern and anger over this issue is that in the last week my website has been read more heavily that at any time ever before. My office is inundated with phone calls and emails – all virtually of one voice – how could this happen again in Haringey and this time they must not be allowed to get away with it.

During the time of the Laming inquiry I wrote a newspaper column, quoting Ambrose Bierce – and the quote seems all too apposite once more: responsibility is “a detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it on a star”. If only it were not so.

Inspectors praised Haringey just weeks before Baby P's death

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Today’s Evening Standard:

GOVERNMENT inspectors gave Haringey’s social services a clean bill of health just weeks after the death of Baby P, the Standard can reveal.

The council’s children and young people’s services chief Sharon Shoesmith received a glowing report from Ofsted in a report written by an inspector who had been a senior Haringey official. Inspectors led by Juliet Winstanley, who worked under Ms Shoesmith, congratulated her former boss’s department on providing “a good service for children” and working well with police to tackle domestic violence. The praise came despite accusations that Haringey failed to pass on all relevant documents to officers investigating Baby P’s death.

Now the same watchdog has been sent in by Children and Schools Secretary Ed Balls to find out why the baby was left to die. The revelations will raise fears that the new Ofsted investigation could be tainted…

[Ofsted said] The study was “a paper-based exercise and not an in-depth inspection”.

“There are major differences between the thorough inspection we are currently leading in Haringey and last year’s review.

“Looking at policies, procedures and paperwork gives part of the picture, but cannot of itself safeguard vulnerable children like Baby P.”

Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said she had “no confidence” in Ofsted’s new investigation.

She described Ms Winstanley’s report as “quite extraordinary”.

This all raises yet another set of questions we need answers to.

Open Door and Highgate Wood School

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I met with Open Door yesterday – which literally opens its doors to young people in trouble. It is a charity and has to scrabble for funding grants and pots and donations – but delivers the most incredible service to young people who need talking therapies to hold them safe as life’s challenges destabilise them on their passage to adulthood.

This is a centre of excellence in terms of the quality of the staff and a truly professional organisation in an area where there is a need for real professionalism. With so many quasi-professionals offering a variety of counselling in a variety of circumstances with very little oversight or supervision, there has to be a concern about standards, training and outcome.

So when you have an excellent local organisation working in a key area, you would have thought that Haringey Council would welcome Open Door with open arms. And yet, my understanding is that they won’t even agree to meet with them to see how Open Door can be involved and engaged in this area.

Lord knows, I get so much traffic on issues around young people and behaviour – I can only assume that the Council is so big that it doesn’t truly understand how to involve and engage organisations like Open Door. I will write to Sharon Shoesmith – Director of Childrens’ Services – to try and orchestrate a meeting between the Council and Open Door. I have no doubt that this could be a very beneficial engagement – particularly if they can be involved with schools and the well-being of young people. Early intervention in terms of support for those who without such support may go on to a lifetime of troubles seems like a good idea to me!

Then it was straight on to meet the new Headmaster of Highgate Wood School. Patrick Cozier seems a very good thing to me and in the end, it is the enthusiasm and vision of the Head that plays such a large role in inspiring the staff and the pupils and the school. He seemed very clued up as to relations with the local community. Take the recent hoo-haa over flood-lighting for example – where the local papers describe it as a sort of war. In reality he and staff are meeting and working with local residents and local residents’ associations. Schools always bring hazards for those living close by – but a Head who understands and wants to work with the community is half the battle. And the other half is his ambition to inspire the school to improving results in line with other schools in the borough. So – I hope to help wherever I can and look forward to working with Mr Cozier, the staff and the pupils.

And finally – I had an American shadow me the other day and she blogged me! You can read about here experience at http://myfairladybug.livejournal.com/51887.html.

Ming Campbell on crime

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Had to change my schedule around to be at Ming’s crime speech. I thought Ming did a good job on it – and was disappointed by the leader in the Independent which slags him off and the Lib Dems for not standing up for Liberalism. Bollocks! Press slag us off for being soft on crime and then when we state our credentials more aggressively – slag us off anyway. I do think we should take the world on our terms and I am for going out and being far more bold on our stance. I am convinced that we actually hold the intellectual and policy keys to making the world a better place – which is why both the other parties continually steal or try to steal our territory. It is irksome to see Cameron getting the coverage he does for doing sweet FA other than ride a bicycle with his shoe chauffer in attendance. He ought to have been slaughtered for that.

Then an afternoon of other peoples’ problems at surgery at Wood Green Library. The BBC ‘See Hear’ team arrive to film me after surgery as they are doing more in depth coverage of the Blanche Nevile School for Deaf Children story.

Haringey Council would like to make out that we (the governors, teachers and me) have all made a fuss about nothing – that there was never any intention to close Blanche Nevile. Fly in the Council ointment of course is the letter in my possession from Sharon Shoesmith (Director of Children’s’ Services) to Judy Downey (Chair of Governors) stating in black and white that the school is financially vulnerable and that there is a proposal to integrate the deaf teaching into Highgate Primary and Fortismere and to possibly close Blanche Nevile. I rest my case.

Actually, it is fine by me. I am more than happy to have upped the ante on this – now that the Council has been forced to publicly state that the school won’t close – mission accomplished. They might not admit they’ve back-tracked, but the key thing is – they have, and that will be good news for the children and parents who rely on the school.

Northern Line and Blanche Nevile

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Briefing on the Northern Line. My poor old local tube line – so much trouble in running reliably. So – London Underground and Tubelines put together a presentation to brief the interested in what they are going to do. Basically two main things are happening – short-term and long-term. Firstly – reliability during off-peak hours. They are tackling this by changing the pattern of running between the different line options. Without boring you with details – the outcome should be reliable trains every three to four minutes (I think) through the day – which is good news. No more 8 or 12 minute gaps. Hurrah! And that should come in this September. No change at peak times – but they say that better running during the day will mean that problems in the day that would have knocked on into the evening rush hour will be mitigated before the evening and so will benefit the rush hour too.

In the long term – work on the infrastructure, track and signal. This will mean the by 2011 we will have about 25% more capacity with more trains running and lots of stations upgraded – sadly not Highgate yet (personal interest).

The bad news – as ever it was – is that this increase in capacity that we are paying through the nose for (fares on the tube being amongst the highest in the world) will only cope with the projected increase in passenger numbers as London’s population grows over coming years. So – the overcrowding will not get better at peak hours despite all this improvement. This was one of the arguments I had many times with the Government when the PPP was coming in. It was always the way it was contracted by the Government. So – in true tradition – I told you so.

Evening sees me going to Blanche Nevile (the deaf school that Labour were threatening to close) for a meeting with governors, parents, officers of the council, deaf children and assorted interested parties. It was a fascinating meeting to attend as the mingle of deaf and hearing exactly replicated proper integration – rarely experienced, but what Blanche Nevile is all about.

First the officers presented – well nothing. Ian Bailey told us that because of the local elections he couldn’t really say anything. Except he was quite clear there were ‘no proposals to close Blanche Nevile’. And a note from Charles Adje – Leader of the Council (for the moment) read out that there were no plans to close Blanche Nevile. So – you might have wondered why we had all bothered. Why did I write my column in the Ham & High to spark this off? Why the Ham & High’s news story – deaf school to be axed? Well, I had based my column on a leaked letter from the Director of Children’s Services at Haringey Council – Sharon Shoesmith – to the Chair of Governors, Judy Downey. In black and white it states that the school is no longer viable and goes on to say that there may be a proposal to close Blanch Nevile.

I am long enough in the tooth to know that despite the protestations of officers and Labour Leader Charles Adje – saying ‘there are no proposals’ does not mean there are no proposals. What it means in Haringey speak is that there are no finalised proposals that we are prepared to put on the table in an open way and discuss with parents, governors and staff. I have been told before there were ‘no proposals’ to sell off residential care homes like Honeywood. And then Honeywood is closed and sold.

So – the reason I ‘outed’ Labour’s secret machinations – is to make sure they are put in a position where they cannot close this wonderful, wonderful school by stealth. And the meeting was fantastic – from Chair of Governors, to Head, to Staff Governor, to parent, to teacher governors to deaf children – they all made the resounding case for keeping and loving and being proud of this exemplar school.

So – my hope is – that now the Council will start talking properly and honestly to the school. The cat is out of the bag – and we are all there to fight for the best future for the children – as that is what really matters.

Education in Haringey

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[If you’ve come to this post looking for information about Baby P’s tragic death, please see my most recent posts about it.]

Met with Sharon Shoesmith, Director of Education at Haringey Council. Wanted to float a couple of ideas with her as well as getting updates on some key Haringey education issues.

The TUC are planning to sell their education centre in Crouch End. My fellow councillors in Crouch End have been pushing for it to be considered as a possible site for a new school. The good news is that this is now happening and a feasibility study is about to be published.

Also asked about the situation on school places for local children in Muswell Hill. The planning mess at Haringey meant that this year something like 40 children were unable to go to school anywhere near where they lived. I am assured that planning is well advanced and more sophisticated than has been the case to date. We’ll see.

One of the ideas I raised with her was the issue of pupil behaviour near schools. A few months ago I went to see the Head of Highgate Wood School about this. I often get complaints from residents around schools (not just this one) about the behaviour of pupils. I wanted to see how the school and local community could work together on the issue.

The Head suggested I follow up the idea through the LEA (local education authority) and Haringey Council channels. I’d heard nothing from them for some time, but the Director said she would follow up on this and let me know where the idea had got to.

My ‘big’ idea (well – the brilliant idea sent to me by a local resident) was to find if there were any retired teachers in Haringey who would like to help children with their homework after school in libraries. The person who had the idea was herself a retired teacher.

I thought this was brilliant – it would help children, help libraries and help retired teachers who still wanted to be active in this way. So I put this to Sharon Shoesmith, who liked the idea very much.

She suggested that instead of libraries – which might be difficult – the venue should be the after school clubs. This would make easier the police checks which have to be carried out on anyone working with children as they are venues already covered by this work.

I said that I would see if we could find if there were any retired teachers out there who would like to come forward. We will see – but she was open and enthusiastic about it – which is a good start.