Baby P: Ed Balls Statement In Full And Sun’s Failed Campaign
I received the full confidential Serious Case Review into the death of Baby P on the morning of 12 November. After studying it and seeing the clear failings of practice and management that it highlighted, I immediately arranged for the secondment to Haringey of John Coughlan, the Director of Children’s Services in Hampshire, to oversee that proper procedures for safeguarding children are in place and being followed.
We also immediately decided that Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary should carry out an urgent inspection of safeguarding in Haringey.
At 6 o’clock yesterday evening, I received the final draft of the inspectors’ report. The Children’s Minister and I studied it overnight with our experts. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector Christine Gilbert presented the final report to us at 9 o’clock this morning and to Haringey Council shortly thereafter. And copies of the final report and my response have been passed to the Home Secretary, the Health Secretary, the Opposition spokespeople, the two local MPs and the Chairman of the Select Committee.
This morning, I met with the Leader, Deputy Leader, Lead Member for Children’s Services and Chief Executive of Haringey Council to discuss the report’s findings and my response. I am grateful for Haringey’s co-operation and agreement to act upon my decisions. And as you will know, in the last hour, the Leader of the Council and the Lead Member for Children’s Services have announced their resignations.
Over the past fortnight, as part of their work, the Inspectors have studied the case files on Baby P and his family, the full Serious Case Review and a significant number of other child protection case files – and their report delivers a damning verdict on the current management of safeguarding in Haringey.
In their summary judgement, the Inspectors say that there are:
“…a number of serious concerns in relation to safeguarding of children and young people in Haringey. The contribution of local services to improving outcomes for children and young people at risk or requiring safeguarding is inadequate and needs urgent and sustained attention.”
They find that:
“…the arrangements for the leadership and management of safeguarding by the local authority and partner agencies are inadequate.”
The catalogue of failings reported to me – many of which are clearly apparent in the case of Baby P – include:
- a failure to identify those children and young people at immediate risk of harm and to act on evidence;
- agencies generally working in isolation from one another and without any effective co-ordination;
- poor gathering, recording and sharing of information;
- inconsistent quality of front-line practice and insufficient evidence of supervision by senior management;
- insufficient management oversight of the Assistant Director of Children’s Services by the Director of Children’s Services and Chief Executive;
- incomplete reporting of the management audit report by senior officials to elected members;
- insufficient challenge by the Local Safeguarding Children Board to its members and also to front-line staff;
- an overdependence on performance data, which was not always accurate;
- and poor child protection plans.
The Inspectors also highlight a failure to talk directly to children at risk; and where children were not seen alone, it worries me greatly that the Inspectors find little evidence of management follow-up to ensure that children suspected of being abused were properly heard and able to speak up without fear.
Posted: 1st, December 2008 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comments (13) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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December 8th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Is everyone missing the point of who is to blame for Baby P’s death - the parent ***edit***! The social workers, doctors and police did not kill this child. Yes they were negligent in their enquiries and perhaps more training is needed but to have them sacked for an error, i don’t wish to underestimate the severity of losing a human life. Why are the professionals being blamed. There is a huge shortage of social workers who are overworked and stressed. The salary isn’t particularly brilliant to cope with the stresses they take on, yet we wish to sack them so that the parents never do this again??? Can we ensure that the parents are named and shamed and dealt with accordingly. Money needs to be put into educating and training more social workers to cope with the demands of our evil society. There will be more deaths as there are more and more sick adults who feel that its ok to kill their children and yet they don’t seem to be held responsible. Who really should be educated here? The parent - do we now blame education for letting them down? Where does it stop? Why blame, can we not just do something positive about it.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
The Baby P episode, as horrible as it is, is just one more error in a catalogue of disasters under this inept Government.
Sharon Shoesmith has rightly been suspended, also could there be a case for her to be prosecuted? Especially when one dwells on the nightmare and horrors that Baby P had to go through, due, no doubt, to the failures of Jaqui Smith and her cronies to spot what was going on.
We can only hope that that Gordon Brown, who incidentally, should go back to Scotland where he belongs, takes some drastic action and perhaps redeem some of the Labour Party’s atrocious record, although I and thousands of others doubt this very much. One would also hope the salaries of those guilty persons should go to children’s charities where it could go a long way to perhaps alleviating more suffering.
CJ
December 1st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
There was one whistle blower , and she got shouted down
December 1st, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Well if nothing else it’s given us another question; we are all used to ‘who watches the watchers?’ but what we need to know is ‘who reviews the reviewers?’.
I would perfectly happily see the editorial staff of the Sun tossed off the top of Canary Wharf, but the Serious Case Review carried out by Haringey was abysmally flawed.
If Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary hadn’t been called in, we would still be being told that it was all very sad but there was nothing which could have been done about it.
That clearly wasn’t true; safguarding in Haringey, and possibly a lot of other places as well, ‘needs urgent and sustained attention.’
It won’t get urgent and sustained attention if no-one knows it needs it.
However tainted the motives of the Sun, it can reasonably claim that, without the media coverage, there would have been no critical appraisal of what went wrong…
December 1st, 2008 at 7:57 pm
the lower echelons may be heaving sighs of relief, and perhaps ready for promotion? not only that if they have been working under the duress of bad management better people might emerge.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:37 pm
and who on earth would ever want to work in Haringey to plug the gaps? or any other lousy catchement area come to that. I know I wouldn’t.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
If everyone is sacked, then what? A chasm… The Sun is going to f*** it up
December 1st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Cool and Calm
The report seems to be heavily critical of the management, which is something of an advance; whether it will be carried through into senior people actually taking on responsibility for junior staff is another matter…
December 1st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Spot on June. fingers crossed.
I’m happy that the people at the top are having to take responsibilty instead of the individual Social Workers who had little or no supervision and huge unmanageable case-loads.
Like the Social Worker who had to carry the can for Victoria Climbie,
However, I’m sure the Sun disagrees and will hound them as infinitem coz that’s what they do best.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Well, according to the Evening Standard:
‘Two top councillors at Haringey fell on their swords today’
Funny, I could have sworn they were pushed…
December 1st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Perhaps the focus of the ‘targets’ will move now from paperwork etc to where it should be on vulnerable people
December 1st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
The Sun will undoubtedly claim that, were it not for the Sun, Haringay would have carried on in its own inimitable way, and battalions of children would have been slaughtered to appease the requirements of breaking news and reality tv.
The really nasty bit is that the Serious Case Review was so abysmally badly done that every other Serious Care Review in the country is put in doubt; I wonder what’s happening everywhere else?
December 1st, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Will the Sun let it lie?