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Archived Transcript for 14 December 2001:
Pages 1 to 50
1
1 Friday, 14th December 2001
2 (9.30 am)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
4 Mr Sheldon.
5 MR SHELDON: Good morning sir, thank you. Carol Wilson
6 please.
7 MS CAROL WILSON (sworn)
8 MR SHELDON: Good morning.
9 MS WILSON: Good morning.
10 MR SHELDON: I see you have some notes in front of you.
11 What are they?
12 MS WILSON: I have my first statement, my second statement
13 and I have written some notes. I have some handwritten
14 minor amendments on those statements that I wanted to
15 declare and I have paper for writing on.
16 MR SHELDON: Certainly, thank you. Let us start in that
17 case with your statements. Could you first of all
18 confirm your full name and professional address.
19 MS WILSON: My full name is Mary Carol Margaret Wilson. My
20 professional address is Leyton Municipal Buildings,
21 Waltham Forest.
22 MR SHELDON: Ms Wilson has produced two statements for use
23 by this Inquiry, they are both in volume 3 of the
24 witness bundle, in fact the first is at page 83 and the
25 second at page 118.101. Do you have copies of those two
2
1 statements in front of you?
2 MS WILSON: I do.
3 MR SHELDON: Could you confirm that at the bottom of each of
4 them your signature appears?
5 MS WILSON: I can confirm that.
6 MR SHELDON: Now, I understand that you wish to make some
7 amendments to those, is that right?
8 MS WILSON: Yes, some minor amendments of inaccuracy.
9 MR SHELDON: Perhaps we could start with your first
10 statement.
11 MS WILSON: First statement is page 8, the last line. My
12 understanding now of the industrial action was that it
13 was in December and not in November.
14 MR SHELDON: Thank you.
15 MS WILSON: On page 20 of the same first statement 3.8.5,
16 I understand the competencies pilot was not in September
17 but earlier in the summer. I have been unable to
18 verify. I think it was June or July.
19 In the second statement page 2, number 9, I now
20 understand the pilot was not successful, was reported to
21 the ACPC in June 1999.
22 Page 6 of the second statement, third line, starting
23 "In preparation ...", should be numbered number 4.
24 MR SHELDON: One moment, I am not sure if I have got that.
25 Page 6 of the second statement, the page headed "Case
3
1 Reviews"?
2 MS WILSON: Yes, after number 3 there is a block.
3 MR SHELDON: I see, third line of paragraph 3.
4 MS WILSON: Right.
5 MR SHELDON: And the amendment was?
6 MS WILSON: That it should be number 4, it is the second
7 paragraph, another paragraph rather.
8 MR SHELDON: I see. So to confirm, the sentence that starts
9 "In preparation ..." should be the start of a new
10 paragraph, paragraph 4?
11 MS WILSON: That is right.
12 MR SHELDON: Very well.
13 MS WILSON: Page 10, the last two lines of paragraph 4, my
14 now understanding is that -- I had put that the handbook
15 was not given out to individual social workers.
16 I understand that in fact it was given out to individual
17 social workers in 1997. My familiarity with it was in
18 the team rooms. Page 12, paragraph 5, again refers to
19 competencies pilot and that is the same correction as
20 mentioned before.
21 MR SHELDON: Namely?
22 MS WILSON: That it was in the summer and not in the autumn.
23 Page 23, paragraph beginning the second line, I am
24 informed that this course was put on twice but was
25 cancelled due to non-attendance.
4
1 MR SHELDON: Where do you mean on page 23?
2 MS WILSON: Top of the page after number 7 it says
3 "A compulsory induction course ...". That is the one
4 I am referring to.
5 MR SHELDON: Thank you.
6 MS WILSON: Page 26 -- I must apologise for this but most of
7 this was written from memory. Criticism 10, the first
8 paragraph, the Equalities Officer was also a member of
9 the ACPC. That is an addition. And a voluntary sector
10 representative for children with learning difficulties
11 joined in 1999.
12 And on the second paragraph children with
13 disabilities' interests were met through a separate
14 sub-group from a point in 1999 and I am unable to verify
15 the date.
16 Page 28 paragraph 3 is an error in typing and the
17 sense of which should be that the -- there was a smooth
18 interface between the new guidance of Working Together
19 and the application of the assessment framework.
20 MR SHELDON: There was a what, a smooth?
21 MS WILSON: An interface between the two guidances were
22 linked in terms of future work.
23 MR SHELDON: I am struggling to understand exactly what
24 amendment you want us to make to that paragraph.
25 MS WILSON: At the end of the paragraph where it starts:
5
1 "Health and child protection adviser representatives
2 on the ACPC linked with social services team managers in
3 developing the assessment tools and ensuring a smooth
4 interface."
5 MR SHELDON: I see. Thank you.
6 MS WILSON: Page 30 is the last one. I am sorry, it is just
7 that under "Other Initiatives" there is the second dot,
8 it is in bold and that is not of any significance.
9 MR SHELDON: I see. Thank you very much. Whilst we are on
10 the subject of minor corrections could you have a look
11 at paragraph 1.3.2 of your first statement, please. Are
12 the dates there correct?
13 MS WILSON: The second date, yes, is my leaving date, the
14 first date is correct in terms of my role. I was in
15 Haringey for a considerable time before that.
16 MR SHELDON: So you cease to be Assistant Director of
17 Children's Services tomorrow, do you?
18 MS WILSON: I beg your pardon, no, last year.
19 MR SHELDON: With the exception of those amendments which we
20 have now noted are you happy that the facts and matters
21 in those two statements are true?
22 MS WILSON: I believe --
23 MR SHELDON: To the best of your belief?
24 MS WILSON: To the best of my belief I believe the facts to
25 be true. There are minor typing errors which I am happy
6
1 to address as we go through if they are relevant.
2 MR SHELDON: Can I ask you to have the two statements
3 provided by the Inquiry in front of you. If you do need
4 to refer to anything else during the course of your
5 evidence perhaps you could indicate that to me in
6 advance and you will certainly be allowed to do so.
7 MS WILSON: Yes.
8 MR SHELDON: You say in your first statement that you were
9 party to the preparation of the first Part 8 report into
10 Victoria's case; is that right?
11 MS WILSON: That is right, yes.
12 MR SHELDON: And presumably during the course of that
13 process and subsequently you have become familiar with
14 the facts of Haringey's involvement in her case?
15 MS WILSON: I have.
16 MR SHELDON: Have you had the chance during the course of
17 this Inquiry to look at any of the transcripts of the
18 evidence or the statements of other witnesses from
19 Haringey?
20 MS WILSON: I have dipped in and out of both.
21 MR SHELDON: Certainly. Do you feel that you have seen
22 sufficient material to be able to say whether you agree
23 with the suggestion that Victoria's case was handled in
24 an entirely inadequate manner by Haringey?
25 MS WILSON: I do not think I would yet feel I could come to
7
1 a conclusion.
2 MR SHELDON: That is despite your involvement in the Part 8
3 and what you have read during the course of this
4 Inquiry. You think it might have been adequate?
5 MS WILSON: I do not think I have come to any conclusion.
6 MR SHELDON: I see, which would suggest that you think it
7 might be adequate or it might be inadequate but you
8 cannot tell yet.
9 MS WILSON: I think my answer is as I have given.
10 MR SHELDON: Yes. You are similarly undecided as to whether
11 that inadequacy and incompetence extended to a number of
12 people over a number of months, that is also something
13 about which your mind is currently open?
14 MS WILSON: I have not come to a conclusion as yet.
15 MR SHELDON: I see. So you are unable to assist us with any
16 indication as to whether you might be surprised by the
17 manner in which it would seem that a team for which you
18 were responsible handled this case?
19 MS WILSON: I would stick with my previous answer.
20 MR SHELDON: I see. Could you be shown volume 45A
21 page 150.680. We see there, and this is part of the
22 transcripts or notes of an interview you gave to
23 Mr Monaghan, at the bottom of the page there is
24 a heading "Other management input in this case". You
25 indicate there that:
8
1 "I have huge questions still regarding Rose Kozinos'
2 role. Her dipping in and out on the case does not
3 accord with my picture of the front line. I do not
4 understand, when Rose had the second strategy meeting,
5 why she did not note the absence of supervision notes
6 et cetera. This is not in accord with my knowledge of
7 either Rose Kozinos or Angella Mairs. There are
8 enormous gaps with no answers here."
9 I wondered when I read that whether that might have
10 been an expression of surprise by you of the way in
11 which this case was handled by managers for whom you
12 were responsible, but you tell us today that you are
13 still not in a position to be able to say whether their
14 performance was adequate or inadequate.
15 MS WILSON: I said I had not come to any conclusions. That
16 does not mean that I do not have views on the process of
17 the case.
18 MR SHELDON: Perhaps if I fill you in with some of the more
19 significant details. Victoria was under the care of
20 Haringey Social Services from the 28th July 1999 until
21 she died on 25th February 2000. She was subjected to
22 what we now understand to be something in the order of
23 10 months of torture and physical abuse which eventually
24 killed her. Throughout that period which I indicated
25 her case was being handled by a social worker in one of
9
1 the teams for which you were responsible.
2 Do you think it is possible, and if so perhaps you
3 can explain, how that her case was handled adequately by
4 that social worker and the team with which she was
5 operating?
6 MS WILSON: I have not suggested that the case was handled
7 adequately or inadequately.
8 MR SHELDON: No, I know you have not.
9 MS WILSON: What I have said was that I did not feel I had
10 all of the information to reach a final conclusion.
11 MR SHELDON: I see.
12 MS WILSON: I do not defend and never have defended areas of
13 poor practice.
14 MR SHELDON: What further information do you feel you need
15 in order to be able to form a firm view as to whether
16 the case was handled adequately or inadequately?
17 MS WILSON: I have great confidence and I look to the
18 information coming through in the Inquiry to broaden my
19 knowledge and understanding of the processes at the time
20 that at the moment do not make sense to me.
21 MR SHELDON: I see.
22 MISS LAWSON: I hesitate to rise but this is already
23 a difficult enough Inquiry without Counsel to the
24 Inquiry putting questions to this witness in an
25 inflammatory and inaccurate manner.
10
1 To begin with, as a matter of simple arithmetic
2 Victoria was not what has been described as "under the
3 care" of Haringey for 10 months.
4 MR SHELDON: I did not say that.
5 MISS LAWSON: You did.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Let us not have a debating society.
7 I understand that Victoria was there for seven months of
8 the 10 months or 11 months that she was alive.
9 I actually do not think that anything has been said that
10 is inflammatory Miss Lawson.
11 MISS LAWSON: At the moment there is not any evidence that
12 she was being tortured throughout that time.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, let the Inquiry form a judgment on
14 that. Mr Sheldon, please carry on.
15 MR SHELDON: I just remind myself and my learned friend what
16 I said. I indicated that Victoria was under the care of
17 Haringey Social Services from 28th July 1999 until she
18 died on 25th February, 2000. I then went on to say that
19 she was subjected to what we now understand, and I took
20 this from the transcript of the criminal trial, to be
21 something in the order of 10 months of torture and
22 physical abuse, that was Mr Manning's indication. I did
23 not say, and perhaps it will assist my learned friend,
24 that she was under Haringey's care for 10 months at all.
25 Let us move on Ms Wilson. The way in which
11
1 Ann Graham put it yesterday evening was that there was
2 a big gap between what management thought was going on
3 in the Investigation and Assessment Team in North
4 Tottenham and what was going on on the ground. She
5 refused to say that there was a chasm but she settled on
6 the fact that there was a big gap. Would you agree with
7 her in that assessment?
8 MS WILSON: I think perhaps it would help the Inquiry if
9 I set the context in terms of differing responsibilities
10 in communication that I do think would help in
11 understanding of that. My job had responsibility for
12 nine service managers for nine service areas, one of
13 which was assessment in care management in Tottenham and
14 a third of that was the particular teams that we are
15 talking about.
16 In addition I had responsibility for the strategic
17 direction in that year of the Quality Protects
18 initiative, of Child and Adolescent Mental Health
19 Services and for the development of the Youth Justice
20 Service. I also had responsibility for about -- I think
21 at that time about three and a half thousand asylum
22 seekers, one of the largest services in the country that
23 we were managing, which included about 150 unaccompanied
24 refugee children, about 60 of whom were looked after.
25 In July of that year I took over the second half of
12
1 Children's Services and had an induction process meeting
2 with each of those services going to visit their
3 services, of which there were a wide range, as well as
4 areas like serious budget issues, the restructuring that
5 I am sure will be mentioned and a number of other
6 responsibilities.
7 The level which I was at, and I think it is
8 important to explain it, was that I was reliant on the
9 people who reported to me and on the systems and
10 procedures that were in place. Much as I cared -- and
11 I did care and I am a hands-on person -- about what was
12 happening in the minutiae of offices, there was a level
13 of if you like capacity in my workload or in anyone's
14 workload at an Assistant Director level to accommodate
15 some of that detail.
16 MR SHELDON: Yes, that is helpful. Perhaps if I indicate at
17 the outset Ms Wilson because it may assist us as we go
18 along. You have submitted something in the order of
19 64 pages of written evidence to this Inquiry, of which
20 much is highly detailed and I am sure enormously
21 helpful. All of that evidence has been and will be
22 re-read. It is not necessary, in order to introduce
23 that into evidence, because you did so at the outset
24 when you confirmed that it was true, to repeat the
25 contents of it.
13
1 What I am currently concerned to understand is
2 whether or not you agree with what Mrs Graham said
3 yesterday, that there was a big gap in what management
4 knew at the relevant time and what was actually going on
5 on the ground, and I am not sure we quite got to an
6 answer to that.
7 MS WILSON: I do not accept that there was a gap. I was
8 very involved with all of the services to the limits of
9 my time and resources. I cannot comment on how that was
10 perceived by others because it is my perception we are
11 talking about.
12 MR SHELDON: Certainly, yes, and I was inviting your opinion
13 and your opinion is that there was no gap between what
14 you were aware of and what was going on on the ground.
15 MS WILSON: My opinion is that there was no perceived gap in
16 terms of the plethora of information that was coming to
17 me and the communication that I had with my managers who
18 I saw regularly, with the number of working groups
19 I attended and other information that I got from staff
20 and with the regularity of contact, because Haringey was
21 a very dynamic if you like borough in the sense of
22 communication, and people had no problems in
23 communicating up and down.
24 MR SHELDON: So you are happy that the numerous methods of
25 communication and monitoring which you set out in your
14
1 written evidence that were designed to keep you informed
2 as to what was going on on the ground were adequate?
3 MS WILSON: I am never happy if things go wrong and I am
4 never happy if I have information afterwards that
5 suggests that there were faults in the system. What
6 I am saying is that in good faith at the time I believed
7 that there were a large number of communication links
8 that would provide information on what was going on.
9 MR SHELDON: Yes, I am sure there were a large number but
10 I am still inviting you to express a view as to whether
11 you regarded them as sufficient and adequate.
12 MS WILSON: In the information of the time I believed them
13 to be sufficient.
14 MR SHELDON: Thank you. Have you become aware from your
15 following of this Inquiry so far that at least one
16 social worker, Lisa Arthurworrey in this case, has
17 indicated that she was heavily overworked whilst she was
18 on the Investigation and Assessment Team and carried
19 a case load of up to 19 cases at any one time?
20 MS WILSON: I have been aware that she said she was
21 overworked. I am also aware of the systems that we had
22 in place around cases coming in, references coming in
23 and the regularity with which we looked at them.
24 MR SHELDON: I will come to that. At the moment the simple
25 question I asked was were you aware that she had said
15
1 it. I believe the answer is yes.
2 MS WILSON: I am aware that she said it.
3 MR SHELDON: Were you surprised to hear that?
4 MS WILSON: I was surprised that she said it was, or
5 I believe she said that it was ongoing. I think at any
6 time there are peaks and troughs and people do have
7 a particular number of cases which they then close and
8 have a lesser number of cases. I think that is the
9 nature of bombardment coming into busy London offices.
10 MR SHELDON: Has it come to your attention that a number of
11 staff who have given both oral and written evidence to
12 this Inquiry have said that they felt demoralised and
13 demotivated due to divisions within their team and also
14 the restructuring process?
15 MS WILSON: I have been aware that people have said that,
16 yes.
17 MR SHELDON: Is that something that surprised you?
18 MS WILSON: Yes it did surprise me.
19 MR SHELDON: Have you heard that at least three members of
20 Carole Baptiste's team have said that they were managed
21 by a manager with a very poor attendance record, who
22 gave ineffective supervision even when she was there?
23 MS WILSON: I have been aware of what has been said
24 subsequently, yes.
25 MR SHELDON: Again was that news to you?
16
1 MS WILSON: That was complete news to me.
2 MR SHELDON: Have you heard that the evidence from the
3 social workers, and I think in particular at this stage
4 of Marina Hayes for the first part and then
5 Angella Mairs and Rose Kozinos for the second part of
6 this question, that they said they received no induction
7 when they came on to the team beyond being shown around
8 the office, this is the Investigation and Assessment
9 Team, and that they were completely unaware of the
10 contents of the ACP handbook and guidelines?
11 MS WILSON: I have been aware of what was said. I do not
12 necessarily agree with it.
13 MR SHELDON: No, I see. You were surprised to hear it,
14 I take it?
15 MS WILSON: A lot of information has come out in this
16 Inquiry which has surprised me.
17 MR SHELDON: Yes. For example that case files were not read
18 by managers or supervisors at supervision or case
19 closure, for example.
20 MS WILSON: Indeed.
21 MR SHELDON: That strategy meetings were chaired by senior
22 practitioners who had not read the case file?
23 MS WILSON: Indeed.
24 MR SHELDON: Case recalling guidelines were effectively
25 abandoned as being unrealistic?
17
1 MS WILSON: I have not had that understanding.
2 MR SHELDON: I see. Now, of course it will be a matter for
3 this Inquiry to determine whether that evidence paints
4 an accurate picture of what was going on in the North
5 Tottenham District Office at the time and I do not
6 invite you to form a conclusion on that at this stage.
7 But if that is right and the team was operating in that
8 way, at the time with which we are concerned, do you
9 think that you should have known about it?
10 MS WILSON: If that was happening?
11 MR SHELDON: Yes.
12 MS WILSON: I would certainly expect to have known about it.
13 MR SHELDON: Yes.
14 MS WILSON: And to have had reports at a very different
15 level from the reports I received and to have
16 information from the individuals I knew over a very long
17 time in Haringey and to have had information coming up
18 from something like the whistle blowing policy or have
19 had comments made at the many meetings I attended at
20 which North Tottenham staff were present, or have it
21 come out at the very extensive process mapping that we
22 did in relation to the best value review.
23 MR SHELDON: Have you, as you have become aware of this sort
24 of evidence, to put it colloquially, had a thought along
25 the lines of, "If this was going on why on earth was
18
1 nobody telling me about it"?
2 MS WILSON: If this was going on I think it is astonishing
3 that not only was I not informed of it but very, very
4 many other people who also had contact with North
5 Tottenham at the time were not informed of it, including
6 members who visited, the director who visited,
7 colleagues, partner agencies who visited.
8 MR SHELDON: We will come on to the details of the various
9 mechanisms by which you kept yourself informed of
10 practice on the front line. But will you accept in
11 light of the answers you have just given that if that is
12 right and that is the picture, an accurate picture of
13 what was going on in that office, then whatever systems
14 you had to keep yourself informed, they were inadequate
15 because you should have known about this?
16 MS WILSON: I think there is a lot of supposition in those
17 statements.
18 MR SHELDON: Certainly. Firstly we suppose that the picture
19 is an accurate one and that the office did have these
20 problems. That is the main supposition. But if that
21 supposition is right, or found to be right, then you
22 agree you should have known and we can accept, can we,
23 that whatever mechanisms you have for finding out cannot
24 have been adequate because you did not know?
25 MS WILSON: If the supposition is right, I accept that
19
1 I should have been informed.
2 MR SHELDON: Yes. You set your career history out in brief
3 in your first statement and your qualifications are set
4 out in volume 29 page 107. I do not intend to take you
5 to them now. Did you start out as a social worker?
6 MS WILSON: No, when I came to London I did nurse training.
7 MR SHELDON: I see. When you first arrived in Social
8 Services was that in a social worker role?
9 MS WILSON: It was.
10 MR SHELDON: I see. When did you start your employment with
11 Haringey?
12 MS WILSON: At the end of 1991.
13 MR SHELDON: You tell us in your first statement that on the
14 1st July 1999 you changed jobs and you became the
15 Assistant Director, is that correct?
16 MS WILSON: I was an Assistant Director before July 1999.
17 I changed functional responsibilities.
18 MR SHELDON: Yes, before you were the Assistant Director of
19 Commissioning Access Children and Elders and then
20 in July you became the Assistant Director of Children's
21 Service.
22 MS WILSON: That is right.
23 MR SHELDON: In paragraph 1.4 you set out your job
24 responsibilities or main ones. I take it that they
25 refer to the latter post, the Assistant Director
20
1 Children's Services, is that right?
2 MS WILSON: Yes, I emphasised the areas of responsibility in
3 relation to children, given the Inquiry content.
4 MR SHELDON: Can you assist by explaining what if any
5 responsibility you had for the operation of the district
6 offices and the practice within the district offices in
7 your Assistant Director Commissioning role?
8 MS WILSON: My responsibility in relation to the district
9 offices was through the commissioning managers for the
10 districts which at that time were two, one in the east,
11 one in the west, who also had a quality assurance
12 responsibility as part of their accountability. In
13 addition I also managed the service reporting to me,
14 which became the Child Protection Quality and Review
15 Service, which also had an independent auditing role and
16 an independent role in relation to looked after
17 children, statutory reviews and child protection case
18 conferences.
19 I also had a support service which became the
20 Finance and Performance Unit, which carried an
21 independent auditing role through the management
22 information and administrative support links that we
23 had. There were also a number of other links across in
24 terms of my strategic role.
25 MR SHELDON: I see. You reported to Mary Richardson in your
21
1 second role, the Assistant Director Children's Services,
2 is that right?
3 MS WILSON: I think over that period I reported mainly to
4 Mary Richardson but there was also a period where Dinos
5 Kousoulou was Acting Director.
6 MR SHELDON: You left as we now see it in December 2000.
7 MS WILSON: A year ago.
8 MR SHELDON: That was for a similar position elsewhere, was
9 it?
10 MS WILSON: It was for a more senior position elsewhere.
11 MR SHELDON: So as we now understand the dates, given the
12 amendment within your statement, within the period of
13 about a year the Director of Social Services, her deputy
14 and you, the Assistant Director, had all left Haringey?
15 MS WILSON: That is correct.
16 MR SHELDON: Before we start dealing with the details of the
17 North Tottenham District Office and the districts in
18 general I wonder if I could obtain your assistance on
19 a general overview of the situation during the period
20 for which you were Assistant Director Children's
21 Services. That period, July 1999 to December 2000,
22 would you accept, without necessarily going into the
23 reasons in detail at this stage, that the district
24 offices and the service they provided was in
25 a significantly worse state at the end of that period
22
1 than at the beginning?
2 MS WILSON: Could you give me the last date?
3 MR SHELDON: July 1999 to December 2000, the period you were
4 Assistant Director.
5 MS WILSON: Certainly by December 2000 we were having
6 indications of very significant recruitment retention
7 issues in terms of staffing.
8 MR SHELDON: And the impact on service, service was better
9 or worse?
10 MS WILSON: Service was inevitably more pressurised.
11 MR SHELDON: I wonder if we can trace this through the
12 documents. The first document I would invite you to
13 consider is the Joint Review which is in volume 15A
14 page 28. This is a document I take it that you are
15 reasonably familiar with?
16 MS WILSON: I am reasonably familiar with it but would need
17 to look up specific issues.
18 MR SHELDON: Certainly. At the moment I am seeking your
19 agreement that on the whole -- and we can turn to
20 page 44 for the summary and overall conclusion -- on the
21 whole the report was a positive one?
22 MS WILSON: On the whole I think there were areas of
23 reasonable criticism and areas for further development.
24 MR SHELDON: Certainly. But the first line of the summary,
25 for example, indicates that the residents of Haringey
23
1 and the users of Social Services are generally well
2 served. Of course as probably necessary in your role
3 you identified areas where further work needed to be
4 done, but on the whole you must have been fairly pleased
5 when you got this report?
6 MS WILSON: We were pleased, yes.
7 MR SHELDON: One point I wonder if you could help with
8 before we leave that report for the time being is at
9 page 6 of your second statement, paragraph 3, or what
10 you have now I think amended to be paragraph 4, the
11 sentence that starts:
12 "In preparation for Joint Review Inspection ...
13 I personally read and checked all files being put
14 forward from which the Inspectors would choose those to
15 audit. From memory I believe this was approximately
16 80 files for the Joint Review Inspection ..."
17 I am sure it is not the case but can I give you the
18 opportunity to correct what may be a misapprehension
19 that you deliberately selected the files that went
20 forward to the Joint Review in order to give a good
21 picture?
22 MS WILSON: No, the Joint Review files were randomly
23 selected to a methodology determined by the
24 Joint Review. We had those files and I went to
25 North Tottenham and went through those files to have
24
1 a sense of whether we were going to get a positive or an
2 equivocal review as it were on those particular files.
3 MR SHELDON: So the purpose of you reading them was not in
4 order to weed out the ones that might be unfavourable
5 but simply to give yourself some advance warning of what
6 the inspectors were likely to be saying?
7 MS WILSON: No, I did not have that choice.
8 MR SHELDON: You were therefore reasonably content when you
9 read them, given that the inspectors subsequently found
10 that they were reasonable, that the service was on the
11 whole good?
12 MS WILSON: I did not think they were all perfect. They
13 were not. We had realised through that year I think and
14 beyond it that we had a performance issue in relation to
15 case recording. We realised that we had some staff who
16 although qualified as social workers did not always
17 appear to be -- to achieve that level of literacy on
18 paper, so I would not for a moment suggest that
19 I thought all of these files are wonderful.
20 What I did feel in looking at them was that they
21 told a coherent story that checked against the checklist
22 of SSI standards. They were going in the right
23 direction. I do recall, and I recall clearly because it
24 was one of my personal checklists, that I did see
25 evidence of management decision-making on them. I also
25
1 thought that they were weak on management supervision
2 notes which were not in a certain number of those files
3 and remained not in those files and to which I from
4 memory think the Joint Review picked up as one of the
5 issues they were concerned with.
6 MR SHELDON: But the general impression was going in the
7 right direction and that would seem to be confirmed by
8 the data that you quote in paragraph 3.5.4 of your first
9 statement, which shows for the second half of 1999 the
10 number of unallocated cases in North Tottenham falling
11 fairly dramatically.
12 MS WILSON: Could you give me the reference?
13 MR SHELDON: 3.5.4 on page 13 of your first statement.
14 I draw it to your attention merely to confirm the
15 impression of a service that is in your words going in
16 the right direction.
17 MS WILSON: We gave a very high priority to child protection
18 and looked after children at allocation and received
19 regular information on it.
20 MR SHELDON: Next volume 15, page 106. Now, this is
21 a review, an audit of district cases following
22 Victoria's death and you will see if you turn to
23 page 108 that it was completed on 11th April 2000. Have
24 you seen that document before?
25 MS WILSON: I have seen this document before but not
26
1 recently.
2 MR SHELDON: Certainly. At the moment, before we deal with
3 specifics, if we can stay at a fairly general level, the
4 picture, and it may be that you recall, was in respect
5 of North Tottenham slightly worrying. We see over the
6 page before the heading "Hornsey District Office" a lack
7 of focus and some minor drift indicated but in respect
8 of Hornsey the position was, in the words at least of
9 Petra Kitchman, "appalling." We see in the very last
10 paragraph on page 108 that:
11 "We were concerned and surprised by the quality of
12 work we found in Hornsey District Office. We cannot be
13 sure that the practice is safe."
14 Petra Kitchman even went as far as to say that it
15 was a terrifying picture that they uncovered. Now,
16 before this audit arrived on your desk were you aware
17 that the practice in Hornsey was unsafe?
18 MS WILSON: I was not aware.
19 MR SHELDON: We also have an indication at the top of
20 page 108 that on 21st January 2000 all cases on Duty
21 were closed by instruction and then two senior
22 practitioners went through the cases and decided which
23 ones to open. Were you aware of that happening on
24 21st January 2000 in Hornsey?
25 MS WILSON: I have certainly no recollection of that.
27
1 MR SHELDON: Because it was Petra Kitchman, Day 36,
2 page 103, who said she thought you ordered that.
3 MS WILSON: I certainly have no recollection of it.
4 MR SHELDON: Is that the sort of thing you might have
5 ordered?
6 MS WILSON: No, I do not believe it is. I do recollect that
7 at that time in January I would have been spending
8 almost full-time in preparing the Management Action Plan
9 for submission to the Department of Health so it rings
10 no bells at all.
11 MR SHELDON: So the position is that when this report landed
12 on your desk you were presented with a very worrying
13 picture at least of Hornsey and certainly a picture
14 which you had not got up until then, because you say you
15 were not aware that the service was unsafe?
16 MS WILSON: I was presented with an extremely worrying
17 picture of the referral processes. The cases that
18 I looked at in relation to Hornsey, because these were
19 the front line referral processes and Duty cases, the
20 cases I looked at in relation to the Joint Review and
21 later in relation to the children's inspection were
22 covering the whole of those areas in relation both to
23 Tottenham and to Hornsey.
24 MR SHELDON: Yes, and they did not paint such a worrying
25 picture?
28
1 MS WILSON: No. There certainly was and I could not deny
2 there was very variable quality in the cases in relation
3 to the children's inspection.
4 MR SHELDON: Because next we have the SSI report of
5 June 2000 to which you have just referred which is in
6 volume 42, page 93. Now, if you look at page 99,
7 please, Ms Wilson, you will see a heading "Overall
8 Conclusion" and paragraph 1.3, about three lines down,
9 the fairly measured expression of the SSI puts it as
10 follows:
11 "There was a particular concern about the
12 functioning of the Hornsey Investigation and Assessment
13 Team and we found some of the work with unaccompanied
14 minors to be below acceptable levels."
15 So whilst the first report dealt with Duty cases as
16 you have indicated, the SSI shortly thereafter have
17 found significant particular concern about investigation
18 and assessment as well.
19 MS WILSON: The follow-on of Duty is investigation and
20 assessment so we are quite likely to be talking of the
21 same cases, having followed on from being picked up as
22 a result of the audit into the Investigation and
23 Assessment Teams.
24 MR SHELDON: Yes. But you said in answer to my previous
25 question that the first report or audit that I showed
29
1 you, took you to, indicated to you problems with the
2 referral process. What is clear from the SSI is that it
3 went further down the line than simply the referral
4 process.
5 MS WILSON: I certainly did not mean to imply that it was
6 solely with the referral process. I was thinking of the
7 totality of that system. I am sorry if I was not clear.
8 MR SHELDON: Not at all. Then if we turn to Dave Duncan's
9 report in January 2001 which is in volume 45A, page 142.
10 It may be that you have not seen this before because it
11 is dated January 2001, which was after you left. Is
12 that right?
13 MS WILSON: It does not look familiar.
14 MR SHELDON: Let me take you to the headlines. Paragraph 2
15 on page 142, staffing levels are acutely worrying, and
16 it is worrying he says because of the numbers of very
17 inexperienced temporary staff, the numbers of
18 unallocated cases, the levels of work and low morale.
19 If we turn over the page, we see under the heading
20 "Unallocated" the number of unallocated cases in
21 Tottenham alone is now 100. Then the next short
22 paragraph down:
23 "The situation is extremely worrying in relation to
24 child safety and maintaining the staff that we have. We
25 have to tackle this problem now."
30
1 Without going through the report in exhaustive
2 detail that is probably sufficient to indicate that the
3 picture he is painting is a fairly bleak one. Would you
4 agree with that?
5 MS WILSON: I believe that the situation was extremely
6 pressured and fairly bleak from December 2000 in
7 relation to recruitment and retention of staff. But
8 I also would say that I think Haringey was part of
9 a national situation where over the preceding two to
10 three years we were finding that the calibre and the
11 experience of staff we were appointing was not the same
12 as it had been some years previously.
13 MR SHELDON: I see.
14 MS WILSON: And we were getting and only able to appoint
15 comparatively young social workers because we did not
16 have the stock as it were of more mature applicants we
17 had had in previous years and that is fairly well
18 documented nationally. I do not think that was just
19 a particular problem in Haringey. It was a problem of
20 changes in Government policy around grants and fees.
21 MR SHELDON: I am of course anxious to deal during the
22 course of your evidence today with why you think there
23 was a problem. At this stage I was simply inviting your
24 comment as to whether or not the picture painted by
25 Dave Duncan in January 2001 seemed fairly bleak.
31
1 MS WILSON: It was always bleak when we did not have enough
2 staff to staff the teams.
3 MR SHELDON: And the picture that the documents to which we
4 have looked, have been referred briefly in this line of
5 questioning, seems to indicate a service that was
6 performing reasonably well and going in the right
7 direction towards the end of 1999 to one that is in some
8 measure of crisis by the end of 2000. Would that be an
9 accurate picture?
10 MS WILSON: I think if you have a lot of temporary staff or
11 you cannot cover all of your vacancies, you, however
12 well you manage it, you build up unallocated cases and
13 inevitably you have low morale and staff who feel burned
14 out by the experience.
15 MR SHELDON: Do we get this impression of a service
16 deteriorating and moving towards crisis in your written
17 evidence?
18 MS WILSON: I do not think the service was necessarily
19 moving towards crisis. I think its effective
20 functioning was dependent on the staff that we had at
21 any one point in time.
22 MR SHELDON: Yes, but we have a picture here painted by
23 Dave Duncan about three weeks after you left or so
24 saying that there were 100 unallocated cases in one
25 office alone, the safety of children could not be
32
1 guaranteed. I will take you in a moment to what
2 Ann Graham said about it two months later. She said
3 that it was very dangerous and unsafe. That sounds to
4 me like a service in some crisis. You have got
5 38 per cent of workers, of vacancies in one office
6 alone.
7 MS WILSON: Within my statement I dealt with the time
8 I understood myself to have to address.
9 MR SHELDON: Which was what?
10 MS WILSON: Which was the period of little Victoria's life
11 and the immediate aftermath of her death. I was not
12 aware that I was being asked to make comments on
13 a service a year later. I would of course have done so
14 if I had known that that was expected of me.
15 MR SHELDON: I am sure, but it is important that we
16 understand your written evidence and we should read it
17 in light of the fact that everything you say relates to
18 the period of Victoria's life within this country and
19 not thereafter, is that the position?
20 MS WILSON: That is correct or unless I have addressed it
21 specifically otherwise.
22 MR SHELDON: I see. Against that background of what we seem
23 to see of a deteriorating service over the course of the
24 year 2000, as described by Dave Duncan there, what do
25 you say, and you have indicated one of them already,
33
1 namely inability to recruit, as the principal weaknesses
2 within Children's Services over that period?
3 MS WILSON: I think there were great differences across
4 Children's Services. You are necessarily concentrating
5 on a small part of one service.
6 MR SHELDON: Yes.
7 MS WILSON: There were a wide range of services which were
8 making excellent progress and could be evidenced to do
9 so. I think there were particular issues in front line
10 Children's Services. I think they were particularly
11 acute at the time that we are talking about, in terms
12 of --
13 MR SHELDON: What were they?
14 MS WILSON: I think the main one was the change in staffing.
15 It was difficulties in recruiting but also the people we
16 were recruiting were less experienced, less confident,
17 had a more narrow range of experience in coming to the
18 job than they had in perhaps 1998.
19 MR SHELDON: So the principal difficulty you felt you were
20 facing as Assistant Director in the period with which we
21 are concerned as far as front line Children's Services
22 are concerned was recruiting and retaining staff of
23 sufficient calibre?
24 MS WILSON: I think there were a lot of other problems that
25 led from that but I think the critical point was in
34
1 relation to the staffing.
2 MR SHELDON: You are also operating within the context of
3 constant financial pressure.
4 MS WILSON: There were a lot of financial pressures.
5 MR SHELDON: You start to deal with that at paragraph 3.4 of
6 your first statement, I wonder if you could turn to
7 that. You indicate at paragraph 3.4 that:
8 "Financial pressures on Children's Services were
9 acknowledged departmentally and corporately and
10 considered at successive budget review processes.
11 Nevertheless, budgets were reduced overall."
12 Did you find this frustrating?
13 MS WILSON: One always thinks of oneself as an advocate for
14 one's own service and my priorities to me were paramount
15 in relation to Children's Services. I was also aware
16 that I was a member of a Departmental Management Team
17 who had in their different views equal priorities around
18 very vulnerable adults. I was also aware that Haringey
19 had enormous pressures between a very poor allocation
20 and we were very knocked back by the reduction in SSA
21 for children in I think it was 1998/1999.
22 So while I was conscious of the pressures on my own
23 service and abundantly conscious of them and looked to
24 be creative wherever I could, clearly Quality Protects
25 was of enormous assistance in that I was also conscious
35
1 of the equivalent pressures that my colleagues were
2 having and of the results of pressures on education and
3 the passporting of funds to the schools.
4 MR SHELDON: We will come to Quality Protects in a moment
5 but before we leave 3.4 of your statement I wonder if
6 you could explain how the Council prioritising of
7 Children's Services to which you refer at the top of the
8 second part of the paragraph manifested itself.
9 MS WILSON: If I can go back to -- I am afraid this is from
10 memory, I think it was 1998/1999, I had presented to the
11 Departmental Management Team my concern about the
12 resources in front line Children and Families Teams and
13 with member agreement the DMT re-allocated something
14 like 260,000, perhaps a bit more, of funding from within
15 Social Services into front line teams.
16 Over the next two years we had a rise in pressures
17 on the Looked After Children, private and voluntary
18 placements budget, which caused enormous pressures
19 within Children's Service and equivalent pressures
20 within Social Services because at the autumn of 1999,
21 and it was a star chamber in relation to children's
22 budgets which I attended with members, we were
23 projecting, despite really the most rigorous monitoring
24 of our budgets, we were projecting a 620 overspend on
25 private and voluntary placements.
36
1 That money had to come from within Social Services
2 so the pressure was not just on me and on my services,
3 it was also on my colleagues, and indeed on members if
4 it had to come from some central contingency.
5 So I would say that the pressures were in terms of
6 external pressures but they were also the internal
7 pressures within budgets in Children's Services. Over
8 the three years, really 1998 to 2000, I believe that the
9 Council did prioritise Children's Services in terms of
10 protection.
11 In 1998 we carried out a service exercise analysing
12 our services in terms of mandatory duties, and within
13 that safeguarding of children and our responsibilities
14 as corporate parents right down through a hierarchy of
15 service to family support and universally access
16 services. We used that as an indicator in putting
17 forward where we could any reductions that we had to
18 find. I think that is why if you look at the budgets of
19 1999 you will find that priority reductions as it were
20 are given to areas for instance like under 5's where we
21 felt we could compensate to a great degree through the
22 early years service, but there were pressures and there
23 were areas where I was overruled and perhaps where the
24 department was overruled in the sense of overall
25 priority setting within the Council.
37
1 MR SHELDON: Could you turn to 1.7 of your statement please.
2 You have described there and in the paragraphs
3 immediately following a form of restructuring of the
4 department. We have heard reference to that from other
5 witnesses before and I want to make sure we are dealing
6 with the same restructuring. Is this the one one of the
7 consequences of which was the reduction in team managers
8 from 12 to six? Is that what you are referring to
9 there?
10 MS WILSON: I am referring to the one which was the
11 reduction in team managers and the increase in practice
12 managers.
13 MR SHELDON: I see, yes, but the one with which we have been
14 concerned up to now, and the one -- so that is the one
15 that you describe as a positive force within the
16 division in paragraph 1.7?
17 MS WILSON: I believe the principles of the change in
18 structure was a positive force.
19 MR SHELDON: Was the impact positive?
20 MS WILSON: Any restructuring creates difficulties in
21 achieving it but I would go back to the quotes that were
22 made to the Joint Review inspectors about the
23 restructuring which was --
24 MR SHELDON: I just want your view, that is all. Do you
25 think that it was a positive force and if so do you
38
1 think it had a positive impact? We can read the
2 documents for ourselves, I just want to know what you
3 think.
4 MS WILSON: I think there were positives and negatives.
5 MR SHELDON: Would you not agree then that it was
6 misconceived and flawed from the outset?
7 MS WILSON: I certainly would not agree. We were moving
8 into a different agenda with different accountabilities
9 for managers. I think it was inevitable that there
10 would be resistance to that change and there would be
11 resistance to an emphasis on increased performance and
12 accountability. That was the restructuring had that as
13 a part of it.
14 MR SHELDON: So whereas David Duncan for example expressed
15 the view that you sold it very convincingly to him at
16 the outset and he subsequently came to believe that it
17 was misconceived and flawed from the outset, you would
18 not share his view?
19 MS WILSON: I was surprised at his late view which was not
20 one that was expressed to me in earlier times.
21 MR SHELDON: Let us look at two aspects of the
22 restructuring, firstly the Commissioning Manager's role,
23 whilst we are on the subject of David Duncan. Now, the
24 indication that he gave and that seemed to be reflected
25 by his job description was that the plan within the
39
1 restructuring was that he should fill a temporary two
2 year role as Commissioning Manager for both Hornsey and
3 North Tottenham, at the end of which commissioning
4 managers would disappear and team managers would report
5 directly to the Assistant Director, is that right?
6 MS WILSON: No, it is not right.
7 MR SHELDON: I see. You were always going to keep
8 commissioning managers, were you?
9 MS WILSON: We were going to keep one commissioning manager.
10 There were two commissioning managers in the -- within
11 the first phase of the two year programme. One was
12 appointed, was a person called Joe Heatley and the other
13 was David Duncan. There was a third person who was the
14 Commissioning Manager for Hornsey who was not successful
15 in the restructuring process. In the year -- I have to
16 say I did have different perceptions about those
17 particular posts.
18 MR SHELDON: Was it the plan to get rid of commissioning
19 managers and have team managers reporting direct, no?
20 MS WILSON: I am not aware of that, no.
21 MR SHELDON: So it is a concern if that is what Dave Duncan
22 thought his role was, and we can look at his evidence to
23 find out if he is mistaken about that.
24 MS WILSON: No, his post was originally set up for two
25 years.
40
1 MR SHELDON: Yes.
2 MS WILSON: The other commissioning post was a permanent
3 substantive post. It was not considered to my knowledge
4 that team managers would report to the assistants, it
5 would not have been possible.
6 MR SHELDON: Let us look at the team manager changes. You
7 will need 29A page 5 please. If you flick back to
8 page 4 you will see the heading of this document which
9 may not help, so I will tell you that these are
10 supervision notes prepared by Ann Graham for
11 a supervision she had with Anne Bristow on 21st March
12 2001. If you have a look at page 5 you will see
13 a heading "District Restructuring" and it is stated
14 there by Ms Graham that:
15 "The district teams were restructured at the end of
16 1999. Although there has been support for the model in
17 place I do think we have to review urgently the problems
18 of too few team managers, practice managers who do not
19 appear to be undertaking the intended role and no
20 training and/or time for all managers to implement the
21 change effectively. Action: review management
22 structures urgently."
23 That would seem to indicate that fairly shortly
24 after the implementation of this restructuring and
25 fairly shortly after you left your successor was
41
1 thinking it had to be radically rethought.
2 MS WILSON: My understanding from this paragraph is that she
3 also relates it to the unstable staffing situation which
4 I do not think could have been anticipated at the time
5 of the restructuring's inception. She also mentions
6 that there was no training and I would like to correct
7 that. I agreed a programme in the -- in January I think
8 to about July of modular training for the new managers,
9 an internal programme, January to July 2000, so that is
10 not quite correct.
11 MR SHELDON: But the clear indication given by Ann Graham
12 regardless of the reasons for the moment is that the
13 model was not working.
14 MS WILSON: There are comments made, her comments made on
15 the model at that time.
16 MR SHELDON: She is saying "we have to review it urgently".
17 MS WILSON: I am afraid I do not know what happened
18 subsequently as I had left Haringey.
19 MR SHELDON: I know you do not and I am sorry if I was not
20 clear. I am not expecting you to know in detail what
21 was going on in 2001. I am simply inviting your
22 agreement to the proposition that Ms Graham seems to
23 indicate that the model needed to be reviewed urgently
24 and that seems to be what she says.
25 MS WILSON: I read it as the review was in the light of the
42
1 staffing situation.
2 MR SHELDON: Yes, so it would seem to be that your answer
3 comes to this: The model was all right but the staffing
4 difficulties have put it into difficulty.
5 MS WILSON: Yes, that is right, from my reading of this
6 which is not a report I am familiar with.
7 MR SHELDON: No. You identify dotted around your statement
8 a number of reasons why this restructuring was
9 considered necessary at the beginning of 1999. I will
10 summarise them briefly and you can tell me whether
11 I have got them all. The first is the modernising
12 agenda of the Government and the Quality Protects three
13 year programme. The second is about empowering front
14 line managers whilst clarifying their lines of
15 accountability. The third is the devolving of
16 responsibilities down and the fourth is meeting savings
17 targets. Is that an accurate reflection of the main
18 reasons why the Council went through this process?
19 MS WILSON: Yes, I believe it is.
20 MR SHELDON: If I was to suggest to you that it was really
21 about and most fundamentally about saving money, would
22 you agree with that?
23 MS WILSON: Saving was an element, I would not disagree that
24 saving was an element and always was in any changes in
25 Haringey because we were a very lean service. I would
43
1 disagree with you fundamentally that the national agenda
2 was not influencing our change around structures.
3 MR SHELDON: Could you have 45A page 150.680. Halfway down
4 that page, this is your Monaghan interview again,
5 halfway down is a paragraph starting:
6 "We had a layer of weak managers ..."
7 The next sentence:
8 "The redirecting model had high principles but was
9 underpinned by an assumption of the Director of
10 Corporate Services that there was money to be saved."
11 That seems to indicate that the high principles
12 which I have listed and which we can classify as
13 Government initiatives and pressures were all very well
14 but at the bottom this was about saving money.
15 MS WILSON: What I would say is that in any change in
16 Haringey there was always an assumption that one should
17 look at potential savings. We were also very mindful
18 that every year we had a sort of euphemistically called
19 "efficiency savings" to be recorded and returned to the
20 Department of Health, so in any change we had to look at
21 how we would achieve those efficiency savings. Money
22 was a factor. Savings were a factor. I certainly would
23 not deny it. But I think it would be short-changing the
24 whole process and the whole national agenda around
25 modernising and around performance and about
44
1 accountability to hang it as it were on one area.
2 MR SHELDON: But we should look at this restructuring
3 process against the background of the savings targets
4 which were imposed upon you by the budgets for 1999/2000
5 and 2000/2001.
6 MS WILSON: I think it should be looked at against all the
7 factors.
8 MR SHELDON: But that is one of them.
9 MS WILSON: Absolutely.
10 MR SHELDON: It was going to save you, was it not, about
11 £80,000 in the first year and then £120,000 a year
12 thereafter?
13 MS WILSON: I believe so.
14 MR SHELDON: You also seem to give the indication, and this
15 was not one of the list of factors that I invited your
16 comment on earlier, that it was also about getting rid
17 of some managers in whom you had lost confidence.
18 MS WILSON: We recognised that we had a performance issue at
19 team manager level. I think that was becoming more
20 obvious as our management information systems improved
21 and as direct information was coming up to me. In any
22 restructuring or in any change one has to make, I think
23 the assumption that within an equalities process for
24 reselection, that the best candidates will be the most
25 competent candidates.
45
1 MR SHELDON: Yes, but this was one of, what you describe in
2 3.2.5 of your first statement, one of the drivers for
3 change was long-standing concerns regarding some front
4 line management practice.
5 MS WILSON: In any area of change that I made in Children's
6 Services high performance and changing the culture of
7 the division was a factor.
8 MR SHELDON: You were responsible for the consultation
9 process with the unions regarding this restructuring,
10 were you not?
11 MS WILSON: Not entirely but yes, I did have
12 a responsibility and I am not trying to deny it, but ...
13 MR SHELDON: You seem to have been a point of contact with
14 Peter Lewington for example of Unison.
15 MS WILSON: I regularly met with the unions, more or less
16 every month, so in any change I would be meeting with
17 the unions but not exclusively.
18 MR SHELDON: You agreed and accepted earlier on that it is
19 always going to be difficult doing this sort of thing in
20 terms of the impact it is likely to have on staff.
21 MS WILSON: Yes.
22 MR SHELDON: And the key thing I would suggest to you and
23 you may wish to disagree with but the key thing is to
24 ensure so far as is possible they are kept clearly
25 informed, regularly updated, so they know exactly what
46
1 it is that is likely to be happening to them.
2 MS WILSON: Yes.
3 MR SHELDON: In your view did you consult adequately with
4 the unions and the staff and did you do that with
5 a genuinely open mind?
6 MS WILSON: I believe I did consult with both, sometimes on
7 my own, sometimes through others, because that was the
8 structure of consultation and change. I believe in the
9 flexibility that I showed in terms of changes through
10 the negotiation through the period of consultation that
11 that is evidenced. I also would refer you, I think it
12 is to -- because one of our checks was around other
13 information coming through, my memory is of the
14 Tottenham management minutes of July 1999, where it is
15 minuted that the staff acknowledge and recognise that
16 they had been consulted and that they are in dispute
17 with the union on that.
18 MR SHELDON: Could you have 28A page 178.517. This is
19 a memo, if you turn back to 516 it is a memo written on
20 24th June from all staff at North Tottenham to
21 Mary Richardson and copied to you. What we see on 517
22 in the last paragraph is the following:
23 "We would very much welcome an opportunity to
24 discuss these proposals with you directly and therefore
25 be given the opportunity for a true consultation rather
47
1 than receive information which has already been decided
2 upon."
3 You would disagree I take it in the light of your
4 previous answer with the impression indicated in that
5 memo that staff were not being properly consulted and
6 not being consulted with an open mind?
7 MS WILSON: The original structure in terms of the
8 restructuring consultation was that the critical post
9 holders were the commissioning managers, the third tier
10 managers, because they were the managers who had local
11 knowledge and local -- and staff had local access to
12 them and we saw them as it were as the champions for
13 change and that was supported, and I am sure others have
14 told you, by a very wide process of consultation and
15 dissemination of information.
16 During the summer, in terms of the consultation,
17 I had met with Peter Lewington, I cannot remember
18 whether it was anyone else, at a union meeting. I think
19 at the end of June I also met with Dave Duncan in a PDR
20 supervision session within a few days of that and at
21 that time there were concerns being expressed about the
22 summer period. In response to that I agreed to defer
23 any movement on the changes until September to allow for
24 people's absence on holiday and setting in train -- and
25 I was also on leave in part during that period -- I set
48
1 in train a number of processes and I have to say I am
2 talking from memory here but my memory is that over the
3 next period in September and October I met three times
4 with staff at their request.
5 MR SHELDON: I am sure that is right and I am recognising
6 a large proportion of what you say from your written
7 evidence and in particular your response to the
8 criticism that you did not adequately consult, and as
9 I hope I indicated at the outset, that has been read and
10 has been noted and certainly the chronology that you are
11 repeating is one with which I am familiar.
12 The key point here though surely is this, is it not:
13 when you are engaged in a process of consultation in
14 relation to a plan which you know will have
15 a detrimental impact on staff morale, the key thing is
16 not the chronology of what you do but the effect of what
17 you do on the morale of staff and the way in which your
18 consultation is perceived, because what you are about is
19 minimising the bad feeling that this is going to create.
20 That is right, is it not?
21 MS WILSON: I disagree with your implication that that did
22 not happen.
23 MR SHELDON: Let us look at what the staff seem to think.
24 We have got the memo that you have just seen saying that
25 they think that they are not being properly consulted
49
1 and that they are being given information that has
2 already been decided upon, and then if we turn back in
3 that volume to page 169, they copy you in on another
4 memo to Mary Richardson a couple of weeks later saying
5 exactly the same thing, if we look at 170:
6 "... given the opportunity for the consultation
7 rather than being informed what has already been decided
8 upon."
9 The other key point that is raised there above that
10 paragraph is the list of seven absolutely fundamental
11 pieces of information which they say they still did not
12 have, so the perception of staff would seem to be at
13 variance with your recollection of exactly how good and
14 how thorough and how well received this process was,
15 would it not?
16 MS WILSON: I believe that there was clear and adequate
17 information on the changes to team managers which -- and
18 again I am talking from memory -- I believe I issued in
19 about mid-June. The issue around senior practitioners
20 was the next stage in the process. It is reasonable
21 that they would not have known. I am not suggesting
22 that everyone was happy with the changes. In any change
23 you will have people who are not happy.
24 MR SHELDON: This is not just about senior practitioners.
25 This is signed by team managers as well.
50
1 MS WILSON: I believe it was clear information for team
2 managers that went out to them in June.
3 MR SHELDON: I am sure you do but that is not the point, is
4 it? The point is that the team managers themselves, the
5 people whose morale you are concerned with in this
6 process do not believe that they were getting clear
7 information because they are writing to Mary Richardson
8 and you on 7th July expressing their dismay and distress
9 and asking for clarification of fundamental matters
10 relating to their future.
11 MS WILSON: This was a process of consultation and part of
12 consultation is that the cut and thrust of it and the
13 change, I believe that if you look through the process
14 of the consultation there is other evidence that
15 suggests there was good consultation, there was good
16 communication. Not that everybody was happy, they were
17 not all happy and I would not pretend they were, but
18 I think if you look at the whole process you will see
19 a process of consultation emerging that does get
20 a recognition from all parties, (i) that the
21 consultation is real, (ii) that we are changing or were
22 changing in response to the anxieties that staff were
23 bringing up and that in fact the final design was very
24 much more their design as a result of the changes
25 through consultation.
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