Archived Transcript for 13 December 2001: Pages 1 to 50

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1 Thursday, 13th December 2001

2 (10.00 am)

3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

4 Mr Garnham.

5 MR GARNHAM: Good morning sir. Two procedural matters

6 before we start. The first is that yesterday we

7 produced a draft timetable for the remainder of Phase 1.

8 We will circulate during the course of today a copy of

9 the timetable covering the period from the New Year

10 until the conclusion. I think in fact that may have

11 gone round already. We have had to take into account,

12 sir, difficulties of some of the witnesses, difficulties

13 of counsel and the availability of your assessors in

14 order to come up with this schedule. I am afraid the

15 result is that we will have to take some witnesses

16 a little out of order.

17 I would ask you to note that we have not included in

18 this new schedule the recall of witnesses made necessary

19 by the late disclosure of documents by Haringey. Since

20 those witnesses are unlikely to take long, if it does

21 become necessary to recall them, we will aim to slot

22 them in as and when we can.

23 If interested parties are planning to invite us to

24 recall witnesses as a result of that late disclosure of

25 documentation or for any other reason, I would ask them

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1 to let us know as soon as possible.

2 Second, sir, as much in sorrow as in anger I have to

3 report to you, sir, and to the interested parties that

4 late yesterday afternoon Haringey produced yet more

5 documentation relevant to the Inquiry. It appears that

6 these were searched for and located as a result of

7 cross-examination of some of the trade union witnesses.

8 Sir, as you will know, in most criminal and civil

9 proceedings and in most public inquiries matters proceed

10 by parties producing the documents on which

11 cross-examination is then based. In this Inquiry, at

12 least as far as Haringey is concerned, it appears that

13 they are proceeding in the reverse order.

14 My concern is not just the administrative

15 difficulties created by this lack of efficiency on the

16 part of Haringey. It also, sir, in my submission

17 creates a real risk of unfairness and injustice to some

18 of those involved in this Inquiry. Take for example

19 just the late disclosure of the present set of

20 documents. We are now done with the trade union

21 witnesses. It is difficult for us now to recall all of

22 the relevant witnesses to put these documents to again.

23 Haringey's senior management and leaders and Council

24 leaders will be able to give their evidence on this

25 subject having had the benefit of seeing this material.

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1 That in my submission sir is patently unfair and it is

2 the direct result of Haringey's own inefficiency. Thus,

3 it appears that Haringey's incompetence would benefit

4 them.

5 Sir, we do not propose letting them get away with

6 that. In the first instance we will write to the

7 relevant witnesses and get their views on this new

8 material. We will then either invite you, sir, to take

9 that written evidence into account or we will recall

10 them depending on what seems most suitable, but my

11 submission to you would be that Haringey should be given

12 no advantage in consequence of their late disclosure of

13 material.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Garnham. Let me respond to your

15 final point. Ladies and gentlemen I am determined that

16 Haringey is not given any advantage. Having expressed

17 other emotions such as frustration, exasperation and

18 anger, let us see if sorrow will have any greater

19 effect. When you were speaking Mr Garnham I had ringing

20 in my ears the expression of embarrassment from the

21 Chief Executive as he sat before us the other day. It

22 does not seem as if that expression of embarrassment has

23 actually achieved the desirable end so let us see if

24 sorrow will do that, but I do take very seriously the

25 points that you have made.

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1 I am not in a position to consult the other

2 interested parties but I suspect that I am right in

3 thinking that they share the feelings that both you and

4 I have expressed in this matter and we must do

5 everything possible to ensure that this Inquiry is

6 conducted fairly as well as being rigorous.

7 On the first point about the timing of witnesses

8 I am very grateful to you for the thought that you have

9 put into it and that looks like a very good outcome for

10 your efforts. I should take the opportunity to mention

11 that this afternoon Detective Superintendent Fox has

12 another commitment and I have agreed that he attend that

13 commitment, so he will not be with us after lunch.

14 MISS HOYAL: I am very grateful to you for the remarks that

15 you have made and the remarks that Mr Garnham has made

16 this morning because the issue of injustice is one which

17 is becoming serious as far as my client

18 Miss Arthurworrey is concerned and I would like to read

19 a statement on her behalf. I make it clear that at this

20 stage I am not making any applications but I am

21 reserving my position with regard to whether to make

22 some arising from Haringey's recent conduct in this

23 Inquiry.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: Miss Hoyal I am very glad to hear from you.

25 MISS HOYAL: Thank you. On behalf of Lisa Arthurworrey,

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1 Victoria's Haringey social worker, Lisa wishes to

2 restate her full confidence in the integrity of this

3 panel of inquiry, its legal team, its advisers and its

4 Secretariat. She expressly disassociates herself from

5 the criticisms of this Inquiry made by Haringey from

6 time to time. At no time has Haringey spoken on her

7 behalf. At no time has she been a party to those

8 representations. She has been represented by Unison,

9 her trade union, since her suspension by Haringey

10 Council in October 2000. She was the only employee

11 suspended at the time and felt scapegoated and you may

12 think with justifiable cause.

13 The Team Manager Carole Baptiste was given

14 a generous redundancy package after having been found

15 professionally unfit to do her job as a manager in early

16 2000. She was even offered anonymity and fares to

17 testify at the Part 8 Inquiry set up into Victoria's

18 death, but she did not cooperate even then and escaped

19 further criticisms as a reward.

20 Following the criminal trial Lisa was abused,

21 threatened and hounded from her home. Meanwhile, her

22 dedicated and caring employer, Haringey Council, pursued

23 vigorous disciplinary proceedings against her.

24 Resources did not seem to be an issue in relation to

25 that. In July of this year a High Court judge postponed

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1 those disciplinary proceedings pending this Inquiry

2 despite opposition from Haringey.

3 Lisa has cooperated fully with the Part 8 Inquiry,

4 the Monaghan Disciplinary Proceedings Inquiry and this

5 Inquiry in contrast to Ms Baptiste.

6 It is with increasing astonishment that Lisa has

7 become aware of Haringey's defective disclosure of key

8 documents which have been filed since she completed her

9 evidence on 26th November, some weeks ago. Had those

10 documents been provided at the appropriate time, last

11 summer, Lisa would have been able to deal with them in

12 her evidence and in the questions submitted to other

13 witnesses on her behalf.

14 Potentially this injustice has been lessened by the

15 firm grip taken by the Inquiry. However, if it were not

16 for the summons against the Director of Social Services

17 to attend it is likely that the further documents would

18 have remained concealed from this Inquiry. A series of

19 feeble excuses have been offered by Haringey, yet it was

20 possible for an avalanche of documents to be found

21 within a few days of the shameful concealment becoming

22 public knowledge and your request for full disclosure.

23 The disclosed documents include the independent

24 reports by Alistair Prince revealing Ms Baptiste's

25 incompetence as a manager and a supervisor, the audit

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1 report by Mr Burns showing the continuing failings at

2 the Hornsey and North Tottenham offices; there is the

3 independent report by Mr Weir revealing Mr Duncan's

4 failings as a manager and supervisor. There have been

5 memos, briefings and reports showing the high risks

6 still faced by children in Haringey as a result of

7 defective practice, insufficient staff and resources.

8 If Lisa had had a competent manager and a stable

9 management system Victoria might not have died. Senior

10 management were fully aware that files were not read in

11 supervision and did nothing about it. The atrocious

12 case loads suffered by Lisa and other workers are well

13 documented.

14 On 11th December Mr Warwick, Chief Executive of

15 Haringey, attended at this Inquiry and spoke of his

16 acute embarrassment. No doubt he was sincere. Since

17 Victoria's murder Lisa has suffered from depression,

18 insomnia, anxiety and loss of appetite and weight loss.

19 Her career and life have been shattered. This is

20 nothing of course to the grief and sorrow that

21 Victoria's parents have endured, and the way in which

22 they have stoically sat through three months of this

23 harrowing evidence and extraordinary tactics by Haringey

24 is of course highly commendable.

25 Posthumous justice to Victoria has not been served

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1 well by some of Haringey's antics during this Inquiry.

2 Haringey is not some sleazy offshore cowboy outfit, it

3 is a public authority. The Council are elected by its

4 residents, it is financed through local and national

5 taxation and it has important statutory legal duties on

6 behalf of children, under the Children Act which is now

7 10 years old and nothing to celebrate in Haringey.

8 Dealing with the recent witness statements. At this

9 stage I do not intend to develop the contrast between

10 the pursuit of the disciplinary proceedings against the

11 lowest tiers of employees in the North Tottenham office

12 and the protection being given to the senior managers,

13 but in the light of the three recent further witness

14 statements served by Haringey for Mr Kousoulou,

15 Ms Graham and Ms Wilson I would like to flag up this

16 issue as being worthy of further consideration and

17 reflection.

18 Ms Wilson's statement is 30 pages long. It is dated

19 6th December and was served on 11th December last

20 Tuesday. It has not been possible to take instructions

21 on it from my client in the time available. That is of

22 course no criticism of this Inquiry which has been

23 copying and serving documents in record breaking time.

24 Of real concern is the invasion in procedure that

25 Haringey has attempted.

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1 This is the first time that a witness statement has

2 been served which purports to answer the letter of

3 potential criticisms prior to the witness giving oral

4 evidence to this Inquiry. If Lisa had had the same

5 privilege afforded to her on a pro rata basis, that is

6 10 criticisms per 30 pages, you would be having another

7 hundred pages plus of written evidence on behalf of my

8 client.

9 Sir, at all times my client and Unison have sought

10 to comply with the procedures that this Inquiry deemed

11 appropriate. If this Inquiry is now going to allow

12 Haringey to impose its own procedures it may be that one

13 is entering a murkier depth than one had previously

14 anticipated and this railroading of Haringey must really

15 come to an end.

16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much Miss Hoyal.

17 MR GARNHAM: I think it is appropriate for me only to reply

18 to one point although I see Miss Lawson rising and

19 perhaps I should let her speak first.

20 THE CHAIRMAN: Miss Lawson please.

21 MISS LAWSON: Sir it is obviously not possible for me in the

22 time available to deal with all the points made by

23 Miss Hoyal but I do make these. She has in some

24 instances allowed her understandable feelings about this

25 matter to override both the facts and in the assertions

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1 that she makes. I have been dealing with the question

2 of late discovery and I appreciate that some of the

3 documents, as I have made clear at this point before,

4 should have been produced before but large numbers of

5 them are of minimal if any relevance to

6 Miss Arthurworrey's case.

7 As far as those that are are concerned, of course

8 I appreciate the difficulties in which she has been

9 placed. I do think it is timely at least to remind this

10 Inquiry that Haringey has not sought to place all the

11 blame for what happened on Miss Arthurworrey's

12 shoulders, that the Part 8 report which has been

13 criticised for doing that was not one which was

14 undertaken by Haringey but by the Area Child Protection

15 Committee and was independently commissioned.

16 Haringey has not responded to that but as you are

17 aware there then followed an inquiry which looked

18 specifically at whether or not the conduct of any other

19 employees gave rise to potential disciplinary

20 proceedings. That was not done at the time that

21 Miss Hoyal's foreshortened chronology suggests, it was

22 commissioned in the aftermath of the trial, but the

23 decision to take disciplinary proceedings arising out of

24 it was not taken until much later, and I appreciate as

25 you indeed are well aware what happened to those

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1 proceedings, but the suggestion that somehow the local

2 authority is singling out Miss Arthurworrey is one which

3 is without foundation.

4 As far as the particular difficulties which

5 Miss Hoyal asserts she is in as a result of the service

6 of further witness statements by Haringey and in

7 particular to the statement of Ms Wilson, you may recall

8 that your procedures do indeed provide for additional

9 witness statements to be served by the parties as being

10 a helpful procedure, that is paragraph 4.12, and

11 Mr Garnham has referred to that from time to time during

12 the course of his remarks to you.

13 I appreciate that it was not envisaged that the

14 Inquiry would enter into correspondence about the

15 notices of criticism in any sort of detail but you will

16 appreciate I think that the general nature of the

17 criticisms which are addressed towards the managers, as

18 opposed to points arising out of particular situations

19 which were addressed to individuals, and particularly to

20 Miss Arthurworrey, do often require consideration of

21 documentation and procedures which were in place at the

22 time and Ms Wilson, who no longer works for Haringey,

23 volunteered this supplementary statement to us. Now, we

24 actually filed it and served it during the early

25 afternoon of 6th December.

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1 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

2 MISS LAWSON: And you heard from Mr Garnham on Tuesday about

3 the fact that that was not picked up and the reasons for

4 the delay. But that is the position and I can just

5 imagine what would be being said if Ms Wilson had gone

6 into the witness box tomorrow and announced that she had

7 sent down a second statement which had not been produced

8 to the Inquiry, so there is a difficulty there.

9 As far as the allegations of difference in treatment

10 between people at the bottom and senior management, the

11 truth is that most of these people no longer work for

12 Haringey. Ms Wilson does not, Ms Richardson does not,

13 Mr Kousoulou does not. So whatever perceived injustice

14 Miss Hoyal sees arising out of that, the fact is they

15 are no longer our employees. Miss Arthurworrey still

16 is.

17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr Garnham.

18 MR GARNHAM: Two points having heard Miss Lawson that I want

19 to make in reply. The first is that much of what both

20 Miss Hoyal and Miss Lawson said is really a matter of

21 submission rather than evidence and I know you will

22 treat it as such and give careful consideration to the

23 points that have been made.

24 The second is as to Haringey's additional witness

25 statements. We have not invited written statements in

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1 response to notices of criticism. We intended and still

2 intend that the criticisms we have formulated should be

3 put to witnesses orally. We took the view that we could

4 not refuse to accept witness statements that were

5 submitted to us but I would invite you to look primarily

6 to the oral evidence dealing with those matters and

7 I can assure you that the additional statements that

8 respond to notices of criticism will be tested in

9 cross-examination and tested vigorously and it will be

10 to that primarily that you will need to look in forming

11 a judgment as to whether those criticisms are well

12 founded or not.

13 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Garnham. Miss Hoyal, I think it

14 is appropriate that I receive your statement without

15 comment and I think that the only comment I would like

16 to make is not specific to your statement but more

17 generally, which is that I think that the contributions

18 that we have just heard underline the problem, whatever

19 the rights and wrongs, underline the problems of late

20 disclosure and I think that I have probably said enough

21 on that subject in the past to convey my thoughts fairly

22 clearly. It is a really serious problem and all I can

23 do is to underline yet again that I do hope that we have

24 come to the end of this and that this might be the last

25 time that I have cause to comment on it. Maybe you

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1 share my views on the subject Miss Lawson. Mr Garnham.

2 MR GARNHAM: I will ask Ms Gibson to call the first witness.

3 MS GIBSON: The first witness is Philip Peatfield.

4 MR PHILIP PEATFIELD (affirmed)

5 MS GIBSON: If could you give the Inquiry your full name.

6 MR PEATFIELD: Philip Peatfield.

7 MS GIBSON: Your address is possibly your home address so

8 I will not ask you for that. You have made one

9 statement to the Inquiry which is at volume 2, page 249.

10 I think you have a copy of that in front of you and that

11 statement was by way of a letter which you sent in to

12 the Inquiry.

13 MR PEATFIELD: That is right.

14 MS GIBSON: And you adopted that as your statement of

15 evidence?

16 MR PEATFIELD: I did, yes.

17 MS GIBSON: Can you confirm that the contents of that

18 statement are true?

19 MR PEATFIELD: They are.

20 MS GIBSON: Is there any additional amendment you wish to

21 make at this stage?

22 MR PEATFIELD: No amendment to the letter except just to say

23 that I think I wrote the letter in July. I should say

24 I wrote it independently, not through Haringey, directly

25 to the Inquiry. At that time I was chairing case

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1 conferences for Haringey and looked after reviews.

2 Since August I have ceased doing that, I have ceased

3 chairing conferences temporarily, that is largely due to

4 other work that I have, but I think coincided with this

5 Inquiry coming up. So at the moment I am not chairing,

6 and I should say that my letter was done independently.

7 I have only ever worked for Haringey as an independent

8 self-employed person, although I have lived in Haringey

9 for 30 years, my children have been through Haringey

10 schools, so I have a strong attachment to Haringey.

11 MS GIBSON: Thank you very much. I will ask you firstly to

12 confirm some details about your background. You began

13 your social work career in 1969?

14 MR PEATFIELD: That is right.

15 MS GIBSON: And you have worked in local authority social

16 services departments in Hackney and Camden through the

17 1970s?

18 MR PEATFIELD: Correct.

19 MS GIBSON: Both as a social worker and as a team manager?

20 MR PEATFIELD: Yes.

21 MS GIBSON: And in the 1980s you worked for voluntary social

22 work organisations --

23 MR PEATFIELD: That is right.

24 MS GIBSON: -- in a managerial capacity. Since 1992 you

25 have been self-employed principally as a Guardian ad

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1 Litem?

2 MR PEATFIELD: Amongst other things. I have chaired a lot

3 of conferences for Haringey and done periods of work for

4 other local authorities and in child protection and for

5 some voluntary organisations in a supervisory managerial

6 capacity.

7 MS GIBSON: You say in your statement you have served on

8 three ACPCs. Which ACPCs were they?

9 MR PEATFIELD: Looking back it was actually four. I was on

10 Camden's ACPC in the 1970s, I think from its inception.

11 Islington in the 1980s when I worked for Family Service

12 Unit. I was on Tower Hamlets' Child Protection

13 Committee for a year when I did some work for

14 Tower Hamlets in the early 1990s and I was briefly on

15 Brent's Child Protection Committee for about nine months

16 when I worked for Family Service Unit two or three years

17 ago briefly.

18 MS GIBSON: Thank you. And as you have said since 1992 you

19 have chaired child protection conferences in Haringey.

20 Have you performed that role in other boroughs?

21 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, in Tower Hamlets and in Westminster from

22 time to time. Mainly Haringey.

23 MS GIBSON: Perhaps you can comment on whether the

24 observations you make in your statement about problems

25 in Haringey are also difficulties that you have come

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1 across when you have chaired child protection

2 conferences in those other boroughs.

3 MR PEATFIELD: To a greater or lesser extent some of the

4 problems will arise. The work is extremely difficult

5 and Tower Hamlets for example when I worked there was an

6 area of very high need very similar to Haringey.

7 I think the difference is that in both Tower Hamlets and

8 Westminster my work was over a shorter period and the

9 departments were reasonably organised, reasonably stable

10 during the time I worked there. In working in Haringey

11 it has been over a 10-year period and in fact I did

12 a short about three or four months period of chairing in

13 I think 1989 in Haringey.

14 So my observations and perceptions of Haringey are

15 over a much longer period when there has been huge

16 changes. There has been legislative changes, there have

17 been organisational changes within Haringey which I have

18 mentioned. There have been lots of staff changes.

19 I have seen a lot of staff come and go and contribute.

20 I think where I would compare some of my observations of

21 Haringey as similar to other things I have seen is in

22 some of my Guardian ad Litem work but again that is very

23 episodic, but one witnesses similar types of worries in

24 some of those opportunities to look at practice and

25 contribute as I have seen in Haringey.

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1 MS GIBSON: I will ask you about that as we progress through

2 some of the detail of your evidence in terms of

3 comparison that you make with your experience in

4 boroughs outside Haringey. Just by way of overview at

5 this stage, is what you are saying that your experience

6 as chair of conferences in Haringey would suggest to you

7 that there is something different about the way that

8 Haringey manages its social services that exacerbates

9 the problems that all boroughs may face as a result of

10 pressures of resources and so on?

11 MR PEATFIELD: I would not say that Haringey is different

12 from quite a number of authorities, some of which I have

13 some experience of. I refer to the Guardian ad Litem

14 experience, and without naming names I have been into

15 local authorities on cases where one has been concerned

16 about the speed of intervention and what dangers the

17 children or the child might have been exposed to, but of

18 course by the time I have become involved in that,

19 action has been taken by the local authorities.

20 It would not have surprised me at all to hear of

21 these circumstances that you are enquiring into

22 occurring in other London boroughs that I have

23 experience of. But I mean certainly the two other

24 occasions where I have chaired that you mentioned, those

25 circumstances were more stable. I do not know whether

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1 they still are or whether they have remained so.

2 MS GIBSON: So your experience of those two other boroughs

3 was a more stable organisational structure. Is that in

4 summary what you are telling the Inquiry?

5 MR PEATFIELD: I think that is right, yes.

6 MS GIBSON: Can we get some impression of frequency of your

7 contact with Haringey Social Services through chairing

8 conferences?

9 MR PEATFIELD: I went back over my diaries and I counted

10 just over 500 case conferences over that 10-year period

11 and I think about 150 looked after reviews, and that is

12 over the last three or four years really. The frequency

13 of me chairing varied as an independent chair.

14 Sometimes I was used very frequently if there was

15 a shortage of chairs. On other occasions I was used

16 less frequently and that would also be affected by other

17 work that I had, but that was the total over the period

18 and --

19 MS GIBSON: Could you give us an approximate idea? Would it

20 be a monthly contact, weekly, fortnightly?

21 MR PEATFIELD: Weekly. There were periods of perhaps

22 a month or two over the last few years where I would do

23 very little chairing but there would be some years where

24 I look back and I was chairing three, four, five

25 conferences a week for much of the year, and in the last

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1 couple of years until I stopped in the summer I was

2 doing quite a lot. Haringey had lost a lot of staff and

3 a lot of chairs so there was a lot to do.

4 MS GIBSON: Thank you. I want to ask who if anyone had

5 management responsibility because Ann Graham in her

6 statement at volume 2, page 159, speaks of having direct

7 line management responsibility for four sessional

8 workers who acted as independent chairs for child

9 protection conferences. Would that include you?

10 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, the principal Child Protection Manager,

11 Ann's predecessor, I worked to -- I mean it was hardly

12 a sort of management relationship in a way, in that we

13 were there as independent chairs and the frequency of

14 contact was not that great.

15 MS GIBSON: Perhaps you can describe how often you would

16 come into contact with Ann Graham.

17 MR PEATFIELD: I would have met with her perhaps once

18 every -- I would have met with her individually perhaps

19 once every four months, two or three times a year, but

20 I saw her at other times. I would have contact with her

21 if I needed to on cases that I needed to mention to her,

22 but I mentioned in my statement the difference between

23 the arrangements, where I began chairing, and how things

24 developed and what I have referred to there was

25 a meeting that took place every month or six weeks.

21



1 MS GIBSON: I will ask you about that in a minute.

2 MR PEATFIELD: Can I say I think that forum fulfilled one of

3 the important functions around not so much supervision

4 but about connection between those of us who were

5 chairing and the management systems and that was never

6 satisfactorily replaced.

7 MS GIBSON: Thank you for that. So when you met with

8 Ann Graham on a four-weekly basis would that be a forum

9 where you would air concerns --

10 MR PEATFIELD: Four-monthly.

11 MS GIBSON: Would that be a forum for you to air any

12 concerns you had about issues arising such as allocation

13 of cases?

14 MR PEATFIELD: Certainly. I mean, those were generally the

15 issues about concerns about the standard of practice

16 and --

17 MS GIBSON: Did you feel you received an adequate response

18 to concerns that you raised?

19 MR PEATFIELD: From Ann?

20 MS GIBSON: Yes, in terms of if you raised issues were they

21 then resolved or did the same problems keep cropping up?

22 MR PEATFIELD: Well the problems were not that specific.

23 They were pretty widespread and chronic. I never got

24 the impression that Ann did not take those problems very

25 seriously and shared the concerns. Doing something

22



1 about them is another matter. I think a lot of that is

2 to do with achieving stability of staffing and, I mean,

3 those things I mentioned in my statement which would be

4 way beyond Ann's capacity to deliver. There was no

5 doubt that the worries were taken very seriously by her

6 and others with whom I talked.

7 MS GIBSON: You say the worries were taken seriously but

8 speaking of the chronic nature of the problems, is the

9 situation really that the same old problems kept

10 cropping up and with no real improvement in the

11 situation despite your expression of concern?

12 MR PEATFIELD: I think the situation gradually deteriorated

13 and never achieved a point of sort of turn-round.

14 MS GIBSON: I want to ask you a little about the timing you

15 put on events in your statement. You contrast the

16 situation in the early 1990s with that in the late

17 1990s. Of course, the early 1990s, when there were

18 various initiatives that you speak of in your statement,

19 coincides with the Children Act coming into force and

20 developments which would have occurred in any event as

21 a result of that. Would you agree?

22 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, that is absolutely right.

23 MS GIBSON: You speak at that time of a central team of

24 advisers being formed in Haringey. By that do you mean

25 the child protection adviser system?

23



1 MR PEATFIELD: Yes I do, but I think it goes wider than

2 that, it is not just Haringey Social Services. One of

3 the major opportunities of the Children Act was to

4 engage agencies across the board and within Haringey it

5 was the formation of that team but there are also the

6 Police Child Protection Teams, more dedicated staff in

7 schools, a lot of joint training with professionals from

8 a range of agencies had dedicated staff in the Health

9 Service.

10 So it went way beyond Haringey Social Services to

11 impress me as a process that had really engaged people

12 quite strongly, not easily. There was some great

13 difficulties at that time but you did get a sense that

14 people on the front line and their managers were very

15 strongly engaged in the process of trying to strengthen

16 and deliver a better child protection system.

17 MS GIBSON: You then in your statement contrast that with

18 the situation in the late 1990s. Firstly in terms of

19 interagency working, is it the position that you saw

20 some tailing off in that and some -- was there any slow

21 down in the amount of interagency training that took

22 place?

23 MR PEATFIELD: I think these are my perceptions. I do not

24 have figures but my sense was what would continue would

25 be the induction training, sort of basic training for

24



1 new staff clearly.

2 MS GIBSON: By that you mean new staff in all of the

3 different agencies, not just speaking of social

4 services?

5 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, but I think what had been the

6 opportunity of the Children Act implementation was

7 really to engage people at all levels and my impression

8 was that those of us really who had been involved at

9 that stage would be less likely to be involved in

10 refresher training and the sort of benefits that come

11 from that in terms of renewing people's sense of

12 engagement in the task and keeping people on their toes,

13 so I think there was a drift but I mean this is during

14 a time when certainly the Council and I think other

15 departments within the Council, other agencies were

16 under huge financial pressures, so not just child

17 protection, everything was under enormous pressure.

18 MS GIBSON: When you speak of problems occurring in the late

19 1990s, can you be more specific as to timing of when you

20 saw this deterioration in interagency working occurring?

21 For example, was it before or after the restructuring

22 that took place in 1999 within the Council?

23 MR PEATFIELD: There were restructurings virtually every

24 year during the mid, late 1990s of some sort or another,

25 and I am not the person to ask for the dates around

25



1 that, but I am very aware of the comments made to me by

2 staff, you know, some of whom are the ones referred to

3 this morning, who are directly involved in this case.

4 The amalgamation of Housing and social services did not

5 affect staff in the front line of social services

6 directly but it had a major impact on management

7 responsibilities and relationships. I think that was

8 early 1990s; and then there were a series of

9 reorganisations where in 1988 for example when I chaired

10 there were six generic neighbourhood offices in Haringey

11 and we chaired conferences in each of them and they were

12 quite near where people lived and by 1992 that was

13 reduced to four.

14 There were other reorganisations. I think in the

15 late 1990s there were other reorganisations into

16 separate sections within Children and Families et

17 cetera, so this was a series of events which I do not

18 think one would say one of them was more impactful and

19 damaging than any other. Some of them would have

20 benefits in terms of consolidating staff together and

21 there are arguments for that but there were a lot of

22 changes and a lot of changes of relationships, changes

23 of case load, responsibility, cases being moved from one

24 office to another because of the impact of

25 organisational change.

26



1 MS GIBSON: Can you comment on what effect that process had

2 on the morale of staff that you were coming into contact

3 with?

4 MR PEATFIELD: I think it had quite a significant effect.

5 I mean there was an important reorganisation and again

6 I think this was about 1999, where something in the

7 region of eight to 10 managers had to decide whether

8 they would apply for a smaller number of service

9 managers posts. At that time there was great

10 uncertainty about who was going to apply and who would

11 be offered these posts, who would not.

12 I remember one team in Hornsey where there was

13 a stable team, a manager who had been there some time,

14 staff had been there some time and they did seem to have

15 a better ability to contain the work and give me as

16 a chair confidence that work was getting done, the key

17 issues were getting understood and dealt with and there

18 was great anxiety about what was going to happen about

19 that team.

20 MS GIBSON: Is this what you picked up from your contact

21 with social workers? Was it by way of conversations or

22 was it discussions with management that you had?

23 MR PEATFIELD: You would know about it to a degree from

24 discussions with management, with Ann Graham for

25 example, but mainly you would pick it up in the process

27



1 of going into case conferences, by the fact that news

2 would arrive at the case conference that the case was

3 going to have to be transferred or that at the end of

4 conference someone would pass on their concerns about

5 the fact that there was going to be changes and what

6 would this mean. I mean, there was a lot of that around

7 and I think that increased in intensity in the late

8 1990s.

9 MS GIBSON: It might be said that perhaps when social

10 workers were coming to case conferences and perhaps had

11 not done all the work they might have done for those

12 conferences they may have been explaining that to you in

13 terms of the restructuring and all the pressures they

14 were under so you may have got a distorted picture of

15 what was going on. Are you able to comment on whether

16 that was your impression of what the situation was or

17 was it something more profound than that?

18 MR PEATFIELD: I think it was more profound than that. It

19 is not to say that there is not elements of people

20 explaining away their difficulties by that sort of

21 means, but it was certainly more profound than that and

22 there were, as the Inquiry probably knows, a large

23 number of unallocated cases during that time.

24 MS GIBSON: Yes, you mention unallocated cases in your

25 statement. I just want to clarify what period of time

28



1 you are referring to. Are you talking about the time of

2 the restructuring during 1999, which you have just

3 mentioned, or are you speaking about the period

4 following the restructuring when a number of social

5 workers we know left Haringey Social Services in late

6 1999 through to 2000?

7 MR PEATFIELD: I think that was when -- there were some

8 unallocated cases before then but I think that is when

9 it got more severe and of course following the trial in

10 relation to this case a large number of people left

11 Haringey and there were a lot of unallocated cases.

12 MS GIBSON: Can I take you back to what you said --

13 MR PEATFIELD: Can I mention one other thing in relation to

14 that?

15 MS GIBSON: While you remember, yes.

16 MR PEATFIELD: Which does go back to the sort of late

17 1980s/early 1990s which was that Haringey did have quite

18 a stable social services staffing then. At that time,

19 I think it was around 1989/1990, when I was not

20 chairing, but the Council offered voluntary redundancy

21 to staff to resolve a chronic financial problem, and the

22 people who left were the experienced social workers,

23 senior social workers some of them, not all of them

24 obviously, and I know a lot of teachers, because my

25 children were in Haringey schools at the time, because

29



1 they got generous redundancy pay-offs. That caused

2 a great difficulty for Haringey Social Services and

3 schools.

4 I think in the early 1990s there was some recovery

5 from that, there was some return to retaining staff,

6 holding staff and staff remaining in post for

7 a reasonable time, but I think that process kind of

8 appears to have repeated in the late 1990s.

9 MS GIBSON: What understanding did you gain of why staff

10 were leaving Haringey Social Services during late 1999?

11 MR PEATFIELD: I think people were finding the work harder

12 and harder, that there was -- people were anxious,

13 people expressed the anxiety to me about the work they

14 were having to do, the amount of support that was

15 available and people were anxious about being involved

16 in cases which would end up in inquiry. People used

17 expressions such as, you know, "It does not feel safe".

18 MS GIBSON: Was that something, was that real to the way in

19 which social workers were managed? Was it about

20 workload? Perhaps you can assist in what your

21 perception of the underlying problem was.

22 MR PEATFIELD: My perception was that it was not only

23 expressed by front line workers, it was something that

24 was expressed by team managers and more senior managers

25 about the anxieties that they were feeling. I think it

30



1 was about the volume of workload, the amount of support,

2 the fact that the availability of senior staff to

3 provide supervision was extremely stretched. I felt

4 I had some evidence of that in experiencing more

5 occasions when staff came to case conferences alone, not

6 accompanied by their supervisor, their team manager.

7 That was not always the case.

8 In many cases team managers did come but there were

9 a lot of times when they were not there and when one

10 heard the material being presented to the case

11 conference about risk, it seemed to me that this was

12 a case where a team manager should have been present

13 because there was considerable risk and a need to assist

14 the worker to drive forward the protection work.

15 MS GIBSON: When did you first notice this problem with the

16 attendance at conferences dropping off in terms of

17 times, the dates of this?

18 MR PEATFIELD: I keep saying it was a gradual process and

19 I think that is one of the things that I feel great

20 difficulty about and I would say that to the Inquiry,

21 that had one been able to identify one point where

22 things dramatically seemed much worse, one might have

23 been able to protest more loudly and strongly then, but

24 this was a gradual process and it was -- there were

25 reflections of it in the contribution of others, not

31



1 just social workers, Social Services Department.

2 Again I have mentioned in my letter the decision

3 that the Police Child Protection Team made to not attend

4 review conferences unless they had a direct role.

5 Schools were under enormous pressure. We frequently did

6 not have attendance from secondary schools in Haringey

7 when there were children being discussed.

8 I think what one noticed was that looking back to

9 that period around about the introduction of the

10 Children Act and post that, not just front line workers

11 were there, there were other people there, there would

12 be police officers there, who did not have a direct

13 contribution to make but what they could contribute was

14 their ideas and thoughts and their concerns, and so

15 there was a gradual process of experiencing the ability

16 of the child protection system to really be in charge of

17 the risk management deteriorating, and these were the

18 cases -- this was my experience -- where the changes had

19 actually been identified, had come to conference and we

20 were there to deal with them. So we had considerable

21 authority and opportunity to do something.

22 Clearly what that did not include was the intake of

23 work which had not reached that stage, but I knew that,

24 you know, for example at initial case conferences that

25 the procedures that needed to be gone through in terms

32



1 of strategy, discussion and meeting, you know, were

2 often done more slowly than they should have been. They

3 were often done, the work got done, but it got done far

4 more slowly than certainly the Department of Health says

5 it should be. We were then faced with the issue in the

6 case conferences of moving the issue forward for that

7 child and that family. I would say very strongly that

8 it was a gradual process.

9 MS GIBSON: When you mention that the police stopped

10 attending at conferences when they did not have a direct

11 contribution to make, did you actually feel that that

12 had a negative effect on the effectiveness of the

13 conference?

14 MR PEATFIELD: It might have.

15 MS GIBSON: Did you do anything to raise that concern with

16 anybody?

17 MR PEATFIELD: I mean, we talked about it in the meetings

18 that we had from time to time. I expressed it to other

19 chairs. We expressed it to the police directly at

20 conferences that we found that regrettable. I think the

21 fact is that a lot of cases where they were not present,

22 one could actually manage the needs of that case

23 satisfactorily. I think the problem is that it weakens

24 slightly the framework and you know if it was clearly an

25 omission in a conference you would deal with it, you

33



1 would adjourn the conference or set up an early review

2 and make a recommendation that the police attended the

3 next one, so on a case by case basis one dealt with it.

4 MS GIBSON: Can I ask you to look at a letter in respect of

5 police attendance at case conferences, volume 26A,

6 page 154. If you just read through that quickly. And

7 then page 155. Does that accord with explanations that

8 you were given at the time for the reason for the

9 non-attendance?

10 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, it does.

11 MS GIBSON: You raised your concerns about that. What sort

12 of response did you receive to your concerns?

13 MR PEATFIELD: To be truthful I cannot tell you that

14 I raised my concerns in a sort of vigorous detailed way.

15 It was part of the reality that one was working in and

16 one knew that resources were very stretched. I think

17 the consequence of that sort of decision can be

18 unfortunate because it can mean that as I say the advice

19 that might be available is not so readily available. So

20 I could not say that I wrote a letter to say this was

21 outrageous and difficult because, you know, this is the

22 life that the police are struggling to sort of work

23 within.

24 MS GIBSON: Can I ask you now, we touched before on the

25 regular meetings that you used to have with Ann Graham,

34



1 the child protection advisers, to discuss --

2 MR PEATFIELD: This is pre-Ann Graham?

3 MS GIBSON: Pre-Ann Graham -- in the early 1990s to discuss

4 cases I think on a monthly to six-weekly basis and the

5 fact that that went by the by and was not replaced by

6 anything. In one way did those meetings assist in

7 delivering a better service to families in Haringey?

8 MR PEATFIELD: I think just to be clear it was not not

9 replaced by anything. My recollection is that instead

10 of these meetings that -- it was Ann's predecessor in

11 post -- that the internal Haringey child protection

12 staff would be meeting and there would be occasional

13 meetings three or four times a year with independent

14 chairs. There was some of those meetings but they were

15 not that frequent and they tailed off.

16 The advantage of those meetings was that they were

17 meetings where business could be done but also practice

18 could be considered in a less pressurised situation and

19 we had the personnel who were engaged to act

20 independently, to chair conferences really, to receive

21 the experience of practitioners plus social workers and

22 other agencies and deliberate on that on a case by case

23 basis, meeting with the operational managers.

24 It was difficult because the operational managers

25 were very busy and often in discussion it would be the

35



1 practice of their staff that was being queried but what

2 was possible was to raise issues in a face to face way,

3 which one might not put down in writing, and put to

4 a manager, you know, where one had a worry about the way

5 in which work was being managed or perhaps in a case

6 where a worker was clearly struggling, or a manager was

7 struggling.

8 MS GIBSON: When you went to those meetings back in the

9 early 1990s did you find that if you raised concerns

10 about an issue or a particular worker that the

11 operational manager would do something to put the

12 situation right so when that person came in front of

13 a conference the next time the problem had been

14 addressed?

15 MR PEATFIELD: Yes. I mean if it was a specific issue

16 probably so, but I am thinking a lot about performance

17 which would not necessarily be resolved by saying, "If

18 this person does this then that will be satisfactory" or

19 you know, making a connection with what I said about if

20 team managers were not present at case conferences,

21 I mean there could be good reasons why team managers

22 were not present at case conferences, because they were

23 pulled into other duties and priorities, but if

24 a pattern appeared to be emerging that we did not see

25 that manager as often as we felt we should, you were

36



1 able to raise that and I would expect then the

2 operational managers to take that up in their

3 supervision of their staff.

4 It made me feel more confident that I could share

5 things appropriately but again I think I have said here

6 that if there was a major fault one would raise it and

7 one would generally get a response to that.

8 MS GIBSON: But is what you are saying really that after the

9 demise of those meetings you did not have the

10 opportunity or your ability to work with teams of social

11 workers within Haringey declined so that your concerns

12 were not getting through as effectively?

13 MR PEATFIELD: I think it was much more difficult, you know,

14 comparing that sort of group process with the individual

15 meetings that one might have. The value of group

16 process is that you could check out whether what you

17 were concerned about was experienced by others or not

18 and I greatly regretted that opportunity because I think

19 one is very aware that some of the dynamics that I could

20 hear being reflected in the statements that were made

21 before I gave evidence this morning about who is

22 responsible for what, managers, practitioners, one is

23 aware of those dynamics being extremely complicated, and

24 one is sensitive to making criticisms that might be used

25 to blame people in the process. One wants to actually

37



1 make a contribution that can be used wisely and

2 thoughtfully.

3 MS GIBSON: Did you bring up the issue of these meetings

4 stopping with anybody in Haringey management?

5 MR PEATFIELD: Whenever we had gatherings, I mean I would

6 always express my regret that these opportunities had

7 been lost.

8 MS GIBSON: Who would you raise that with? Would it be with

9 Ann Graham or with others?

10 MR PEATFIELD: With Ann Graham and her predecessor when we

11 met and again this was in a group context.

12 MS GIBSON: And what response did you receive when you

13 expressed this view? Was it that it was going to be

14 looked into or just a negative response?

15 MR PEATFIELD: I do not know, I do not think that -- I mean

16 I do not think there was a negative response in not

17 being interested in what I had to say. I think that

18 people within the system like Ann are far more closely

19 engaged with that than me. I am an independent person

20 at something of a distance. I have always felt very

21 strongly about the value of that sort of process.

22 Clearly the people who came to a conclusion, this is

23 before Ann, that those meetings were not necessary did

24 not share my opinion.

25 MS GIBSON: So did you ever do anything --

38



1 MR PEATFIELD: It is actually a very subtle but I think very

2 important issue about this type of work that technically

3 you can describe how it should be done but actually it

4 is done face to face and so is the consideration,

5 supervisory and managerial levels about doing it better

6 or dealing with things when it becomes difficult. So

7 you know I do not think what I saw as being the right

8 way to do it and something that I valued was necessarily

9 shared, that view, as being the way to do it.

10 MS GIBSON: Did you ever take your concern, because clearly

11 it is an issue you felt quite strongly about, the

12 importance of these meetings, did you ever consider

13 taking it beyond Ann Graham, writing to someone within

14 the management of Haringey, the Director, and saying,

15 "These meetings were extremely valuable, I feel practice

16 has deteriorated as a result, what can we do about

17 this"?

18 MR PEATFIELD: I thought quite a lot about what I might do,

19 but I did not, I got on with it, and you know that is

20 partly my failing really that as an independent person

21 that is an option to sort of continue doing what you

22 can, and you know I know people who stopped chairing and

23 feeling, well, actually this has relieved me of that

24 sense of am I doing enough?

25 MS GIBSON: You say when there were case conferences often

39



1 recommendation would not be implemented properly from

2 previous conferences because workers had only been

3 allocated shortly before. Is that something again that

4 occurred more towards the end of the 1990s?

5 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, I say again it was a proportion and it

6 was not by any means all cases. It is quite difficult

7 to -- I mean in preparation for today I was looking back

8 at my diaries and notes to try and recall some of the

9 flavour. It is quite difficult to discriminate between

10 cases where not all the recommendations had been

11 fulfilled but some had and the work was moving ahead,

12 but there was certainly a series of cases, and I am sure

13 other chairs would agree, where a case had been dealt

14 with perhaps in the Intake -- the Intake and Assessment

15 Team, child being placed on a register and then gone

16 forward for allocation in the longer term teams and had

17 not been allocated until shortly before the first review

18 conference.

19 So what the social worker had been able to do really

20 was to check what the current position was but the

21 further work which had been identified had not been

22 done.

23 MS GIBSON: Was that situation something that you were still

24 experiencing when you left Haringey this summer?

25 MR PEATFIELD: It was still a problem. I mean some new

40



1 staff had been brought in, Haringey had taken some

2 measure to try and deal with some of the unmet need that

3 was there. It is quite difficult to distinguish but

4 I mean I know that there was a phase of time where this

5 situation had become quite chronic and one was not

6 surprised to arrive at a case conference -- I think

7 I should say that as an independent chair you arrive at

8 a case conference without briefing on the situation, you

9 have some basic information but to protect your

10 independence you are not au fait with what has happened,

11 so it was not unusual to be arriving at case conferences

12 and having to find the social worker and perhaps find

13 that the social worker had only recently been allocated

14 the work.

15 MS GIBSON: Can I ask you now about the individual

16 performance of social workers. You say that a lot of

17 practitioners were operating at a fairly moderate level.

18 Do you mean that their practice was starting to

19 deteriorate to a level where you felt that it was

20 unsafe, or had it not hit that point?

21 MR PEATFIELD: I think what I was meaning to convey there

22 was that the -- I mean any workforce seems to me to be

23 likely to comprise people who are very good and can

24 operate with a limited amount of supervision and support

25 and some workers who are not very good at all and need

41



1 a lot of management supervision and guidance but quite

2 a lot of people in the middle, and my impression was

3 that during this period of time when management time

4 supervision appeared to get more and more stretched,

5 that that group of people in the middle were not

6 receiving the guidance, encouragement and backing that

7 they needed. It might crop up in a conference where

8 a worker was suggesting a course of action which really

9 was not very well thought through and you really wanted

10 to refer them back, you did refer them back to their

11 supervisor to think about this again.

12 MS GIBSON: Did you notice this problem more so following

13 the restructuring in 1999?

14 MR PEATFIELD: I think probably so, yes.

15 MS GIBSON: We know that Haringey has recruited a lot of

16 agency workers. What was your experience of their work

17 on cases?

18 MR PEATFIELD: Variable but clearly quite different from the

19 work of the sort of people they might be replacing who

20 knew Haringey, knew Tottenham, knew the borough. I mean

21 a lot of agency staff, I mean not just in Haringey, you

22 will be well aware coming into London boroughs who have

23 trained outside the UK and I mean I think that is a big

24 problem because they have got skills and abilities but

25 they have not got any experience in leaving the office

42



1 and going out into Tottenham and visiting a home in an

2 area which might be quite frightening and dangerous, so

3 there is lots of real problems about agency staff. Some

4 of them are common to any organisation that has to rely

5 on a lot on agency staff but there are particular

6 features I think in relation to doing this type of work.

7 MS GIBSON: I want to ask you because you have said that you

8 do some work within other boroughs and you have spoken

9 of the recruitment problem for social workers across

10 London but are you able to comment on whether this

11 problem seem to you to be worse in Haringey than in

12 other boroughs where you worked?

13 MR PEATFIELD: I do not think it was worse in Haringey than

14 in some boroughs that I worked. I think it was exactly

15 the same. I will not mention those boroughs but I think

16 people would not be surprised at the names, the boroughs

17 where there is huge need, very difficult places to work

18 in. Some of the places I have worked in as an employee,

19 very difficult places to work in, and you know we need

20 to pay people far more and value their work far more

21 highly to encourage them to train and I was lucky enough

22 to train at a time when people were very keen to become

23 social workers and that has changed massively.

24 MS GIBSON: You mention in your statement the glowing SSI

25 report that was received in 1999 and that workers

43



1 commented to you that they were rather amazed by this at

2 a time when cases were unallocated. Were you aware of

3 the procedure that the Social Services Inspectorate went

4 through in forming or in writing that report?

5 MR PEATFIELD: Not really. I must tell you that I learned

6 about that report because I bought the local newspaper

7 and I think there was a headline something along the

8 lines of "Haringey's Children Services Get Good Report".

9 That was how I heard this.

10 MS GIBSON: What was your reaction?

11 MR PEATFIELD: I thought it just was not consistent with the

12 service to families and children that one felt was being

13 delivered, which was patchy and at times not

14 satisfactory, and one knew the staff were struggling,

15 one knew there were unallocated cases so it really

16 appeared to be one of these sort of dislocations that

17 did not make any sense.

18 MS GIBSON: What did you understand from workers, what was

19 their view about why this had happened, why they had got

20 this glowing report?

21 MR PEATFIELD: I mean, workers would give me their

22 impressions, and this is not a scientific sample.

23 I think workers were anxious that the department was

24 presenting a picture of managing its task which was

25 not -- did not feel to them to be real in terms of their

44



1 struggle in performing the task.

2 MS GIBSON: Did they say anything to you about any

3 preparation that was done for the Social Services

4 Inspectorate coming?

5 MR PEATFIELD: I cannot think specifically and again I have

6 to say that a lot of this impression is gained when I am

7 going into an office to chair a conference and this may

8 be referred to, but my task there is to try and chair

9 a conference. I do not want to engage in a lengthy

10 discussion. Those were the feelings that people had.

11 MS GIBSON: In your statement you describe the situation as

12 still being stressed and strained when you left this

13 summer. Would you say that the situation is any better

14 or worse than it was in 1999 at the time of the

15 restructuring?

16 MR PEATFIELD: Well I think it got worse in the aftermath of

17 the trial. A number of people left, a number of

18 experienced practitioners left and I think there were

19 certain staff who expressed to me their feeling of

20 greater insecurity and I mean it has to be remembered

21 that to do this work people need to be quite confident

22 and sure that they -- both they know their material in

23 terms of the case but that they are supported in the

24 work. So the experiences in the Tottenham office of the

25 way people were behaving towards them as employees of

45



1 Haringey was quite appalling and upsetting and I think

2 staff were anxious that they may make a mistake and

3 would be unfairly criticised for it.

4 MS GIBSON: Mr Peatfield thank you very much.

5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much Ms Gibson. Mr Peatfield

6 may I begin by thanking you very much for taking the

7 initiative to write to the Inquiry. I appreciate that

8 very much indeed. A couple of points for clarification

9 if I may.

10 First of all, if I could just take you to the last

11 page of your letter, your statement, under the section

12 which is headed "Ownership and Leadership", the first

13 two paragraphs. I wondered whether you could just be

14 clear with me, please, what is the period of time you

15 are talking about when you say, for example, that the

16 difficulties were not owned by the senior management,

17 basic grade staff did not appear to have a sense of

18 direction, and the second paragraph, that you had been

19 appalled at a review that you chaired, and then that

20 leads to a final sentence:

21 "I was always left wondering whether the Director

22 actually understood ..."

23 What period of time are you talking about?

24 MR PEATFIELD: I think it has to be said that I think

25 throughout the period, throughout my career

46



1 practitioners have felt that managers have not owned the

2 stress that they were facing. I mean I think the

3 situation, my experience in Haringey was that that was

4 a gradual process and I have to go back to the

5 investment in the late 1980s/early 1990s in relation to

6 the Children Act. That boosted confidence and morale.

7 The letter I wrote was in 1998, and it was not long

8 after the then Director had arrived in Haringey. It was

9 not a child protection matter, it was a looked after

10 review and I think I wrote that letter because I felt

11 somewhat defeated at trying to raise issues gently which

12 is something I think I tend to do, and was very

13 worried -- and I was very worried about this particular

14 case because an incredibly vulnerable young person was

15 being left in the middle of service division between

16 adults and children and both sides saying their

17 responsibility ended, and it was ludicrous.

18 So I wrote to the Director and it is the only time

19 I have ever had to say, "This is terrible." That matter

20 was resolved, the issue was resolved for the young

21 person and plans were made. But that was around about

22 the time, I cannot be exactly sure but it was around the

23 time of the inspection that did appear to present things

24 as different from what they found. So I mean the

25 counsel's questions to me about that period of the late

47



1 1990s I think are pretty accurate really in terms of

2 when things began to fall apart seriously.

3 THE CHAIRMAN: That is very helpful. Thank you. Our

4 concern of course is as you will appreciate about

5 Victoria and the time that she was alive and Haringey

6 had responsibilities for her safety. Is there any

7 observation that you have not made that you would like

8 us to make born out of your experience? Is there any

9 message you would like to leave ringing in our ears as

10 it were?

11 MR PEATFIELD: I think it is about perceptions. A lot of

12 this is my perception and I have not got the full facts,

13 a lot of this. But I mean I met Lisa Arthurworrey and

14 Carol Baptiste and Angella Mairs and Dave Duncan, those

15 people in the course of my work, and they certainly

16 never presented to me as mad, bad or incompetent.

17 I have strong memories, I mean I think I chaired Lisa's

18 first conference in Haringey and I recall her as quite

19 anxious and nervous but that was not unusual because

20 that is what it is like.

21 I saw them in case conferences where undoubtedly

22 they should be trying hard to present well but they were

23 all staff who were struggling with a hard job and

24 working well. I mean Angella Mairs I knew very well

25 because she was a team manager in Tottenham for a lot of

48



1 that period and she was nearly always at case

2 conferences and she was someone I could rely on to

3 counterbalance the view that I may express in summing up

4 real issues of risk. If I was perhaps being a bit

5 overcautious she might query that and vice versa, she

6 could be very cautious. So I find it very sad that you

7 know these events have taken place and that there have

8 been failings but that is my perception and I think it

9 is important to express it.

10 THE CHAIRMAN: If I get it right, your perception is these

11 were basically good staff working in a difficult

12 situation?

13 MR PEATFIELD: Yes, and I mean I have to say I heard other

14 things said about those staff from practitioners, you

15 know, that they did not get enough supervision or

16 whatever, and one can only do so much about that, so

17 others' perception is also undoubtedly true.

18 THE CHAIRMAN: Final point of clarification. You ceased

19 working far Haringey you said in August, if I remember

20 rightly. Was that your decision or was that Haringey's

21 decision?

22 MR PEATFIELD: It was my decision. What I said to Haringey

23 is I would like to take a break. It was really because

24 of other work and I am currently doing some -- I have

25 never done -- I would like to work in Haringey -- for

49



1 obvious reasons of conflicts of interest. I am now

2 doing some work for the Cavcas Organisation. Whilst

3 doing that I thought it wisest not to be chairing

4 Haringey conferences but whether they will want me back

5 or not I do not know.

6 THE CHAIRMAN: That is not something that I would wish to

7 comment on. I just want to be sure and you have

8 explained.

9 MR PEATFIELD: I would still be doing it if --

10 THE CHAIRMAN: That is fine.

11 MS GIBSON: Thank you. I have no further questions.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: We are very grateful to you. Thank you for

13 your help.

14 Ladies and gentlemen I think it might be as well if

15 we carry on for a little while longer. I will look to

16 Mr Garnham.

17 MR GARNHAM: We can carry on a little longer. Ms Graham

18 please.

19 MS ANN GRAHAM (affirmed)

20 MR GARNHAM: Would you give the Inquiry your full name

21 please.

22 MS GRAHAM: My name is Ann Graham.

23 MR GARNHAM: Your professional address.

24 MS GRAHAM: I work at the Town Hall annex known as

25 The Broadway, Hornsey N8.

50



1 MR GARNHAM: You have made two statements for this Inquiry.

2 The first is volume 2, page 159 and the second at

3 page 172.401. Could you have copies of those statements

4 put in front of you please or are they there? They are

5 there. I think I think it is right that you signed them

6 both?

7 MS GRAHAM: Yes.

8 MR GARNHAM: Are you content that they are factually

9 accurate?

10 MS GRAHAM: Yes.

11 MR GARNHAM: At the time of the first statement I think it

12 is right that you were Acting Assistant Director,

13 Children's Services in Haringey?

14 MS GRAHAM: That is right.

15 MR GARNHAM: And at the time of the second you were

16 Commissioning Manager Child Protection, Quality and

17 Review?

18 MS GRAHAM: That is right.

19 MR GARNHAM: We do not have your c.v but you describe in

20 paragraph 9 of your first statement something of your

21 history. You qualified I think as a social worker in

22 1988.

23 MS GRAHAM: That is true, in 1988.

24 MR GARNHAM: You began work that year as a social worker in

25 Islington?