Archived Transcript for 18 December 2001: Pages 151 to 200

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1 cetera et cetera.

2 MR GARNHAM: So you would point, as grounds for

3 commendation, to Haringey for joined up thinking between

4 it and external agencies? I am suggesting to you if

5 that is true there is a lack of joined up thinking

6 inside of Haringey.

7 MR SINGH: We clearly have a difference of view on this

8 particular matter. You know, I think it was without --

9 at the risk of repeating myself that I think that both

10 separate -- both those initiatives were appropriate, the

11 job review itself had actually commended the overall

12 philosophy and direction of the restructuring process

13 within Housing and Social Services. It commended it --

14 MR GARNHAM: Although the increments split of Housing and

15 Social Services?

16 MR SINGH: Yes, but do not forget this review is

17 fundamentally about Social Services and that in that

18 particular context it had commended the way in which the

19 Authority was approaching the restructuring, and the

20 overall philosophy, underpinning the redirecting work,

21 it did make the point that the process needed to be

22 effectively managed and I note that point but I was led

23 to believe it was being effectively managed.

24 MR GARNHAM: It is right, is it not, that it did become an

25 expensive exercise for your Council to try and recruit

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1 and retain staff after this series of events?

2 MR SINGH: Absolutely. Again, to use your language it is

3 not rocket science to work out the sums.

4 MR GARNHAM: And the figure we have got from the papers, and

5 I can take you to it if necessary, is £695,000 worst

6 case scenario, to use the words. Perhaps I should show

7 you that, volume 42, please. It is the same report,

8 volume 42, page 420.

9 MR SINGH: This is the cost of the retention and recruitment

10 package.

11 MR GARNHAM: You need to go back to 417 to see where the

12 section starts. It is the recruitment and retention

13 package, paragraph 14.0: "Recruitment and Retention

14 Package" and it is then discussed and then at 4.19 there

15 is costings. 15.1: we get an initial costing for

16 2000/2001 of 250-odd thousand. Then 15.2: for a full

17 year worst case scenario, potential total of 695.

18 MR SINGH: But as it transpires, the reality is that given

19 the social worker crisis across London, it was highly

20 likely the Authority would have had to have put in place

21 either enhancement of salary or these sorts of

22 initiatives anyway.

23 MR GARNHAM: I do not suggest that the whole of the 695 can

24 be related directly to the decisions we have been

25 discussing but what I do suggest is that it was made

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1 worse by those because you had to try harder and spend

2 more to try and retain your staff.

3 MR SINGH: Okay, well -- yes but there is no quantum on

4 that.

5 MR GARNHAM: No, I agree.

6 MR SINGH: We have no quantum on what the 695 --

7 MR GARNHAM: Is related to this. I suspect it is an

8 impossible sum.

9 MR SINGH: It is. But I would have thought given that

10 Haringey -- because of often the way Haringey was

11 perceived we would have had to have put in this sort of

12 money anyway.

13 MR GARNHAM: Can I turn then to funding?

14 MR SINGH: Yes.

15 MR GARNHAM: Let us draw breath and then turn to funding.

16 Finance. Paragraph 12 of your statement you refer to

17 the Joint Review Position Statement which was prepared

18 by Haringey for the purpose of the Joint Review. You

19 note, amongst other things, that your borough has a high

20 number of children in need.

21 MR SINGH: Yes.

22 MR GARNHAM: That being so, presumably it would be your view

23 that so far as it is possible as much of the SSA as can

24 be is devoted to the purpose for which it was

25 ear-marked?

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1 MR SINGH: This is going to be an area that we also will

2 probably differ on. I mean, clearly the view that

3 Haringey has taken and the view that many of us would

4 take is that the SSA is not an instruction to spend at

5 that level. It is a technical formula for the

6 distribution of the national total spend, and that

7 ultimately it is up to local politicians to determine

8 local priorities on the basis of clearly considering

9 need, on the basis of looking at historic spend, looking

10 at service pressures et cetera et cetera. That point

11 surely has to be accepted, given that surely it cannot

12 be anything else, given the way in which the Government

13 then reduce the SSA children sub-block.

14 MR GARNHAM: I am not going to suggest to you, as I have not

15 to anybody else, that the children's sub-block of the

16 SSA is assigned unalterably to the particular category

17 it is put under.

18 MR SINGH: Yes.

19 MR GARNHAM: You tell us again in your statement at

20 paragraph 14 that the Council had been under

21 considerable financial pressure resulting in what you

22 call year on year reductions.

23 MR SINGH: Yes.

24 MR GARNHAM: Do you mean literally every year there were

25 reductions in spends or is that a figure of speech?

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1 MR SINGH: I go back to 1988 -- I suspect that there may

2 well have been within that sort of 11-year window that

3 I was Chief Executive probably two or three years when

4 there were not reductions.

5 MR GARNHAM: Those aside, were there reductions in real sums

6 or was it less than inflation?

7 MR SINGH: No, this was serious reductions. I mean, it does

8 not give me any pleasure to -- there was

9 a 40 million-pound reduction in the first year in 1988.

10 There was a 25 million reduction in I think it was 1991,

11 there was a further reduction in subsequent years.

12 These were real substantial reductions.

13 If I may just emphasise that particular point. When

14 I became Chief Executive the organisation employed

15 16,000 people. When I left the organisation it employed

16 just under 10. So that during the lifetime of my tenure

17 as Chief Executive, the organisation was dramatically

18 reduced not through externalisation of services but to

19 actual cuts. I think that that is symptomatic,

20 a reflection of the real financial difficulties that the

21 Authority had.

22 MR GARNHAM: You tell us the setting of a budget each year

23 was a major corporate exercise involving you.

24 MR SINGH: Yes.

25 MR GARNHAM: What was your involvement?

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1 MR SINGH: My involvement essentially was at both the front

2 end -- at the front and the end of the process if you

3 like. First of all to ensure that the Director of

4 Finance produced an appropriate report for discussion

5 with myself and senior management colleagues and the

6 Corporate Management Group was able then to look at

7 essentially the likely resources available to the

8 Authority, the extent to which having added on service

9 pressures the likely requirement of resources were to

10 the Authority, the level of the gap and trying then to

11 suggest it is part of the strategy what politicians

12 could prioritise and each year the priority would be to

13 try and protect frontline services. So that would be

14 one level of involvement.

15 The second level of involvement would be to try and

16 ensure that the political process worked reasonably

17 well, and there were all sorts of difficulties.

18 MR GARNHAM: Can I just ask you about the first step of that

19 process? So you are effectively offering up the

20 choices?

21 MR SINGH: No, it is actually saying to the politicians --

22 and this would all be a process that would commence in

23 June/July, saying to politicians: "Look, this is the

24 likely resource that will be available." Now often

25 local government is not aware of how much money it will

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1 actually get until the December. So we would start the

2 process in July, we would look at the likelihood, the

3 level of resources that would be available through

4 government support.

5 We would look at, having looked through directors,

6 look at service pressures that were emerging --

7 homelessness, asylum seekers were very obvious -- and

8 then identify the gap. We would then actually recommend

9 a process for members which actually, frankly, became

10 routinised if you like, it became an annual process.

11 The reason why we had to set budgets annually -- because

12 you could say why do you not take a three year strategy,

13 and that was principally because government essentially

14 only funded on a year to year base and it was always

15 difficult to plan. That obviously has changed since the

16 comprehensive review in 1998 which allowed for a three

17 year planning process.

18 MR GARNHAM: You say that the aim was always to preserve

19 frontline services, but that could not happen; is that

20 right? Frontline services did take a hit?

21 MR SINGH: Of course, but the issue there would actually be

22 the levels of protection afforded to particular areas.

23 So that eventually the politicians arrived at sort of

24 high, medium, low priorities where they would actually

25 say, if it was a high priority, then that would either

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1 be -- it was highest for cut, and if it was low

2 priority, that is where you maximised protection.

3 So the start of that budget process I would ensure

4 with the Director of Finance appropriate reports which

5 would go into the main arena. Clearly it is the Director

6 of Finance's responsibility to present a budget to the

7 Council but clearly given the corporate nature of the

8 Authority, or at least that which we were trying to

9 develop a corporate nature, then clearly I had an

10 important role to play in that.

11 MR GARNHAM: But the final choice is made by politicians?

12 MR SINGH: Absolutely.

13 MR GARNHAM: From that you are offering them choices in

14 a framework you regard as acceptable?

15 MR SINGH: That is the way it must be although often it

16 began to feel that frankly the reality of budgets were

17 such that there were no choices. You were really

18 shaving things off, you were really cutting. I am not

19 sure whether there was a real exercise of political

20 choice.

21 MR GARNHAM: I wanted to ask you about that. You appreciate

22 the direction I am going here?

23 MR SINGH: Yes, Education.

24 MR GARNHAM: Education as against Children's Services. The

25 reality is that your Council spent substantially less

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1 than a sum "allocated" in the SSA on Children's Services

2 throughout the period 1997 to 2000, did it not?

3 MR SINGH: Yes, but converging.

4 MR GARNHAM: We saw the table this morning on the screen.

5 MR SINGH: I think it was a genuine convergence although

6 clearly the convergence was helped by the

7 government's --

8 MR GARNHAM: Cutting the SSA for children?

9 MR SINGH: Yes, it was but --

10 MR GARNHAM: In a rather perverse way it was helped.

11 MR SINGH: To be less cynical about it I think there was

12 a genuine attempt to put some money into Children's

13 Services. It was not much but there was an attempt to

14 do so.

15 MR GARNHAM: We have been trying to explore this question of

16 the divergence between the SSA "allocation" on the one

17 hand and actual spending on the other. We have had

18 a number of different figures from Haringey but I think

19 that the most accurate are those that are contained in

20 a statement of Andrew Travers and I wonder if you could

21 have a look at that statement, volume 3 of the green

22 bundles, page 75.401.

23 Go on to page 404. These are the figures that we

24 looked at this morning and this is the basis for your

25 observation about convergence.

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1 MR SINGH: Yes.

2 MR GARNHAM: 1997/1998, difference between SSA and actual

3 spend: 8 and a half million. 1988/1989: 10.1, 10.2.

4 1999/2000: 2.7. So, an up and a down but generally

5 heading over the whole of the period that Mr Travers

6 talks about towards a smaller difference?

7 MR SINGH: Yes.

8 MR GARNHAM: Those differences are even more noticeable or

9 significant I should say if one considers the amount

10 spent by Haringey per head of population on Children and

11 Families compared with other councils. Can I get you to

12 keep open that page but also look at volume 15A, please.

13 Page 76. So you are aware what we are talking about,

14 this is another part of the Joint Review report. If you

15 look at the second paragraph down on that page "Children

16 and Families":

17 "The Authority [that is you] spends less per head of

18 population on children and families than most others in

19 its comparative group: £82-odd per head in 1997/1998

20 compared to an average of £103. The figure is

21 identified because it is the biggest gap across all user

22 groups in Haringey between spend per head of population

23 and the average for the comparative groups as a whole."

24 Why is it that Haringey are spending not only less

25 than their SSA but less per head of population than

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1 similar London boroughs?

2 MR SINGH: Because of the financial position that Haringey

3 Council has faced. If you have got expenditure which

4 falls outside the SSA that obviously has to be funded

5 somehow.

6 MR GARNHAM: This is debt and Alexander Palace, is it?

7 MR SINGH: It is overhanging debt to the tune of 14 million,

8 it is clearly increasing problems of homelessness and

9 the homelessness budget was escalating in terms of

10 overspending dramatically with -- I mean Haringey --

11 10 per cent of Haringey's total population is actually

12 refugees and asylum seekers arrived over the last decade

13 or so. So it is a combination of the overhanging debt

14 which clearly would eventually go away and we would end

15 up with a 14 million quid --

16 MR GARNHAM: Not needing to spend that to service the debts.

17 MR SINGH: That is right. And once you paid off the

18 Alexander Palace debt -- but there were clear issues

19 about homelessness, the asylum seekers, unaccompanied

20 minors which was a growing problem. There were other

21 things like pensions provision.

22 MR GARNHAM: Was Haringey unique in these sort of factors?

23 You certainly were not the only London borough with

24 homelessness and refugees and debt problems.

25 MR SINGH: Yes and no. To some extent it depends on the

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1 extent to which the authorities engaged in greater

2 accounting in the 1980s. You know, the more successful

3 you were in using techniques of greater accounting in

4 the 1980s and therefore you secured money to spend, then

5 eventually you have to pay that money back and the

6 reality is that that is where -- and Haringey was you

7 know quite successful.

8 MR GARNHAM: Another word in inverted commas perhaps.

9 MR SINGH: That is actually in quotes because I mean the

10 reality is that eventually the chickens came home to

11 roost and you have to pay for that which you have

12 actually spent.

13 MR GARNHAM: Standing back from the obvious difficulties

14 that Haringey was in and the ones you have described,

15 were you satisfied that you were able to provide a level

16 of service for children in Haringey that adequately

17 promoted their welfare and protected them?

18 MR SINGH: Clearly, I am not a Social Services expert. The

19 statutory responsibility around -- so this, for Social

20 Services, is clearly a matter for the Director. There

21 were essentially three Directors during the time that

22 I was Chief Executive there and there was not one

23 occasion when any of those three said to me, "Look we

24 believe that there is risk in relation to statutory

25 service".

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1 MR GARNHAM: The ways in which the Social Services

2 Department dealt with this decrease in funding were

3 probably numerous but one of them that we have had

4 identified to us by Carol Wilson was to alter the

5 eligibility criteria which is a posh way of saying that

6 fewer children get the benefit of services from

7 Haringey.

8 MR SINGH: Yes.

9 MR GARNHAM: You knew about that?

10 MR SINGH: Yes.

11 MR GARNHAM: Were you content that eligibility criteria

12 could be raised and still protect and ensure that

13 statutory obligations were met?

14 MR SINGH: If the professional advice coming out the

15 department was that, that is what I accepted.

16 MR GARNHAM: So you felt able to advise members, did you,

17 that you could provide an adequate service on the sort

18 of money that was being budgeted for?

19 MR SINGH: The reality is that the budget process

20 essentially went down the route of officers from within

21 each of the respective departments working closely with

22 members from within their own specialist area, so it

23 would be Social Services Committee members with senior

24 Social Services staff looking at a notional target which

25 the majority -- the leaders' conference, the majority

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1 group leaders' conference -- had actually said and they

2 would look at whether statutory Social Services were

3 a threat or not and it would be that sort of process and

4 the debate would end up with officers having full

5 opportunity to raise with members any concerns they had

6 about that budget.

7 If they felt that there were areas where statutory

8 responsibility was at risk -- and it was not just about

9 Children's Services, it was about a whole range of

10 areas -- then Directors and their staff had full

11 opportunity to express that view. There were not

12 occasions when that actually happened.

13 MR GARNHAM: The trouble with raising eligibility criteria

14 is it is not as if there is a black and white line, is

15 there, when you can say with confidence that this child

16 is within the category where we had to provide

17 protection and this child is not? Often Social Services

18 have to proceed on the basis of assumptions and then

19 test them by assessment. The danger of raising

20 eligibility criteria is that you cut off the flow of

21 cases coming in through the front door so they do not

22 even reach the criteria of assessment, and does that not

23 at least pose the risk that children who in fact there

24 was a statutory obligation to assist do not get past

25 first base?

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1 MR SINGH: I go back to my earlier comment. Clearly as

2 Chief Executive I am not a social worker and I am not

3 managing a social services department. The reality is

4 that the professional advice around those sorts of

5 issues -- it is quite right and proper to expect the

6 professional qualified staff to actually indicate.

7 MR GARNHAM: What you were getting from Mary Richardson was

8 advice to the effect that despite that reduced budget

9 she could still provide a service that met statutory

10 obligations, was it?

11 MR SINGH: Clearly she will say what she will say tomorrow,

12 but the point that -- I mean my understanding of what

13 Mary was saying is look, budgets are tight, and budgets

14 were actually tight but actually nobody was saying these

15 budgets are insufficient to enable us to discharge that

16 statutory responsibility. I mean that given the

17 totality of the Council's finance, given the

18 difficulties across the whole of the Council's budgets,

19 that that was a principal concern. Whether we ran the

20 risk of falling foul of statutory responsibility, that

21 clearly could not be entertained.

22 MR GARNHAM: You were here when Craig Turton gave evidence.

23 He was Vice Chair and then Chair of the Social Services

24 Committee between 1995 and 1995. He says in his

25 statement and repeats this morning that councillors were

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1 consistently advised by senior Housing and

2 Social Services Department staff that the financial

3 allocation made to Children's Services and to Child

4 Protection was barely adequate and unless significant

5 year on year increases were made the quality of service

6 provided will inevitably suffer a serious deterioration.

7 So he says that that is what members were being told.

8 MR SINGH: I mean, he says that. And I think it will be

9 interesting to hear the views of other members who are

10 still here and who were clearly around at the time when

11 Mr Turton was. I am under oath. I am not aware of any

12 of the individuals that he cited this morning as ever

13 having said to me that services were at risk.

14 Dinos Kousoulou, Carol Wilson never raised with me

15 issues of services being at risk. The tragic loss of

16 Andy Ludlow the previous Director, never indicated to me

17 that services were at risk.

18 So I have to reject what Mr Turton said this

19 morning, that whilst there may have been all sorts of

20 debates which took place behind closed doors within the

21 Labour Group, and I think you need to understand and get

22 a sense of the flavour, what would normally actually

23 happen within the leaders conference is that officers

24 would come, present reports and would answer questions

25 about proposals and then effectively officers would then

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1 be invited to leave.

2 Then there would be a political debate about -- now

3 what actually happened in those discussions when

4 officers were excluded I have no idea. But most

5 certainly I have to say to you as far as -- and I do not

6 think Wilson's evidence or Kousoulou's evidence in any

7 way supports that they said those things. Most

8 certainly it was not raised to -- brought to my

9 attention that that was the case.

10 MR GARNHAM: Can I ask you to look at the SSI report for

11 2000 please, volume 42 page 123. Go to page 93 to start

12 with, please. So that we identify the document, this is

13 the inspection of June 2000, so, after you had left?

14 MR SINGH: I have not read this.

15 MR GARNHAM: No, I understand that. Can I just get you to

16 go on to look at page 123. The reason I am taking you

17 to this is to explore the question of whether the

18 raising of eligibility criteria affected the meeting of

19 statutory obligation. 6.16:

20 "Overall, [the inspectors write] we found thresholds

21 of intervention to be high in Haringey. There was

22 a danger of cases not being dealt with appropriately.

23 A number of factors appear to hamper appropriate action

24 including high levels of demand, high vacancy rates and

25 gaps in resources. Some social workers expressed the

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1 view that there was little opportunity to engage in

2 preventative work."

3 Now I appreciate that this is after you have left

4 but it is looking back on a period when you were there.

5 MR SINGH: Sure.

6 MR GARNHAM: What I have to suggest to you is that the

7 approach that Haringey took to funding of

8 Social Services had that sort of consequence whereby

9 threshold criteria were raised to the point where there

10 started to be an impact on proper discharge of statutory

11 financings and proper meeting of children's needs.

12 MR SINGH: This may sound terribly feeble but I honestly

13 cannot comment on that. As Chief Executive I am

14 dependent upon the professional staff and without boring

15 you, I am repeating the point again, that I am dependent

16 upon people to actually advise. That advice was not

17 forthcoming in these sorts of terms. Now that is not to

18 say there were not expressions of concern about the

19 general tightness of budgets. That is not --

20 MR GARNHAM: They did not reach this level.

21 MR SINGH: But I do not think -- it was never drawn to my

22 attention that actually if we proceeded down this route

23 that this would be the consequence. Because I am

24 absolutely convinced that if that was there, then there

25 would have been some interventions.

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1 MR GARNHAM: Let me put it at a lower level. Carol Wilson

2 says in her statement -- for your note it is volume 3,

3 page 93 -- that it was necessary to target areas of

4 highest need within a low spending budget. I think you

5 would probably agree with that, would you not?

6 MR SINGH: Yes I would.

7 MR GARNHAM: This she said created service pressures and had

8 a negative impact on overall staff morale and division;

9 agree?

10 MR SINGH: Yes.

11 MR GARNHAM: At the root of the problem with finance,

12 Mr Singh, lies a political decision, does it not, namely

13 to impose a limit on council tax?

14 MR SINGH: Yes.

15 MR GARNHAM: Can I ask you to look at another committee

16 report, please. Volume 12A page 205. This is the

17 Policy and Strategy Committee meeting on 20th July 1999.

18 Your report, I think, Community Plan. Your report?

19 MR SINGH: My report.

20 MR GARNHAM: Go on to the next page, 206, please.

21 Paragraph 5.4 -- I suppose I should remind you of

22 paragraph 5.3 first of all. In order to prepare this

23 community plan it is right, is it not, that Haringey

24 commissioned a MORI poll with the intention of getting

25 the opinion of service users and residents and I think

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1 there were also approaches made to some of your partner

2 organisations to get their views in drawing up this

3 plan?

4 MR SINGH: Yes.

5 MR GARNHAM: You then identify six priorities in

6 paragraph 5.3 as to the direction in which Haringey

7 should move. 5.4 sets out the concerns and conclusions

8 that the Council had come to as to the priorities it

9 ought to adopt.

10 MR SINGH: Yes.

11 MR GARNHAM: Then the last line of 5.4 identifies this as

12 a priority:

13 "A pledge not to increase council tax rates above

14 the rate of inflation for the lifetime of this Council."

15 At root, that is where the difficulties, if there be

16 any, in funding for Children's Services comes from, does

17 it not, because where there are issues about how you

18 divide up the cake, the size of the cake is dictated by

19 that decision, yes?

20 MR SINGH: Yes you are right. I mean, in theory the council

21 tax can actually be raised, although you have to also

22 accept --

23 MR GARNHAM: But there is a capping point.

24 MR SINGH: There is a capping point and under the previous

25 government there was a clear capping point which was

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1 based on year on year expenditure.

2 MR GARNHAM: It was not at the time that we are concerned

3 with.

4 MR SINGH: But -- no, there was not a formal capping thing

5 but government was extremely unhappy and I think that

6 the intention was that if your council tax was excessive

7 you would be called in.

8 MR GARNHAM: Quite so but two points. First of all there

9 was not a formal capping at that stage and secondly this

10 political promise of limiting it to inflation was not

11 the maximum point to which a council could go if it had

12 the political will.

13 MR SINGH: Yes, you are absolutely right. In theory the

14 Council could have increased its council tax. There was

15 this pledge which the Authority had actually given.

16 I think it was also part of the manifesto pledge for the

17 1998 election, if I remember right. But the other point

18 is that whilst you are absolutely right in theory, the

19 council tax could have been raised and that that is

20 a political judgment, the reality also is that Haringey

21 council tax was already one of the highest in London.

22 I think on a number of occasions it was the highest and

23 I think throughout the whole of my life in Haringey it

24 was either 1, 2 or 3.

25 MR GARNHAM: I think the political promise, the manifesto

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1 promise was to limit it to the average of the London

2 boroughs. Now that may make attractive electioneering

3 but it does have the consequence of restricting the size

4 of the cake, does it not?

5 MR SINGH: I accept that point.

6 MR GARNHAM: Just while we are dealing with this community

7 plan I do not know whether you can help me with this or

8 not but nowhere as far as I can see is child protection

9 mentioned in the community plan.

10 MR SINGH: Making Haringey safer. Was that ...?

11 MR GARNHAM: I wonder whether that might be intended to

12 cover it.

13 MR SINGH: No it does not, actually. Because I think that

14 was more about community safety.

15 MR GARNHAM: I think it is about crime and disorder.

16 MR SINGH: Youth offending team's activities.

17 MR GARNHAM: But it does not look as if child protection

18 scores very highly on the Council's list of priorities

19 looking through this plan.

20 MR SINGH: And indeed in the public's mind.

21 MR GARNHAM: True but the public was not the only source of

22 prioritisation, they also looked at some of their --

23 your partner organisations. But this appears to be

24 true, does it not?

25 MR SINGH: Yes.

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1 MR GARNHAM: From your stance as Chief Executive, did you

2 find that councillors were making child protection

3 a particularly high priority?

4 MR SINGH: Clearly there were concerns about child

5 protection. Those concerns would be both at member and

6 indeed officer level. Obviously that did not manifest

7 itself in any formal way within the priority settings

8 here. That is a fair and reasonable point. But

9 Social Services Committee clearly would be concerned

10 about that.

11 MR GARNHAM: Yes, of course. I wonder whether it helps you:

12 the absence from this plan and from similar documents

13 helps explain why it is that Children's Services seems

14 somewhat of a poor relation and why perhaps they come

15 off worse when the SSA is divided up?

16 MR SINGH: I think there is not much doubt that

17 Social Services per se -- no, it is right. Children's

18 Services when compared with the whole issue of

19 Education, came at a second level.

20 MR GARNHAM: And part of that is because Education has

21 a greater electoral clout.

22 MR SINGH: Well yes and no. I mean yes in the sense that

23 the schools within Haringey, particularly secondary

24 schools were doing extremely badly. In terms of the

25 national data there was a fair number of parents who

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1 were opting to send their kids outside which led to

2 recruitment problems which eventually led to other

3 financial difficulties.

4 MR GARNHAM: Sounds familiar.

5 MR SINGH: Absolutely. So education was a matter of

6 concern. But I think that what Craig Turton did say

7 this morning about a national government agenda around

8 education was actually quite key. There were pressures

9 to ensure that the budgets to schools was actually

10 increased, and indeed government set percentages, and we

11 were at the lower end and therefore we had to do

12 something there.

13 There were also issues around passporting budgets

14 directly to schools. I think there was pressure to

15 resolve the problems within Education. There is no

16 doubt about that. There were severe problems as

17 I mentioned earlier on. Major organisational problems

18 within the Education Service. They had to be resolved

19 and inevitably because that became a number one priority

20 other areas become lesser priorities.

21 MR GARNHAM: Yes. Sir, I do not know about Mr Singh but

22 speaking for myself I could do with a short break if

23 that was convenient to you now.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: Certainly. That will be convenient. We will

25 break for 10 minutes and Mr Singh you know the

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1 arrangements. So we will be back, reassemble at

2 3.25 pm.

3 (3.15 pm)

4 (A short break)

5 (3.25 pm)

6 MR GARNHAM: You will be sorry to know Mr Singh that I have

7 just one more issue on finance. I know you were

8 enjoying the debate and would have preferred to have

9 gone on for the rest of the evening. One more question

10 relating to finance before we move to my last topic of

11 the reviews. Could you be given volume 26,

12 page 175.4501.

13 This one is a report to the Policy and Strategy

14 Committee from Andrew Travis, Head of Corporate Finance,

15 during the period of your tenure, December 1998. In the

16 course of this paper he discusses at some length the

17 local government finance settlement at that time and

18 I would like you if you would be so kind to turn to

19 page 512, to the section headed "Initial Reductions",

20 175.512. "Initial Reductions", can I ask to you glance

21 through that because I wanted to understand what it is

22 talking about, first of all.

23 Am I right in thinking that what is being proposed

24 there is reductions on actual spend for the forecasted

25 period? So this is not a reference to SSA, this is

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1 a talking about reductions on actual spend year on year.

2 MR SINGH: Yes. I am not an accountant but yes -- and

3 I have not read this obviously recently.

4 MR GARNHAM: I understand that.

5 MR SINGH: But yes, that is year on year reductions

6 distributed across the five critical organisational

7 groups.

8 MR GARNHAM: That neither you nor I are accountants is not

9 going to matter for the purpose of this question because

10 my interest is at a higher or perhaps lower level than

11 that. On the face of it, this appears to identify where

12 savings are to be made against these five different

13 areas.

14 MR SINGH: Yes.

15 MR GARNHAM: And whereas for example with Education we see

16 savings of 286,000, 65,000 and 32,000 in successive

17 years, for Housing and Social Services we find savings

18 of 2.25 million, 1.6 million, 2.5 million. If you

19 compare the totals at the end, Housing and

20 Social Services is greater than the sum of all the other

21 parts.

22 MR SINGH: Sure.

23 MR GARNHAM: Now am I right in reading that as illustrating

24 a proposal that in order to balance the budget sums

25 should be cut from these various areas and that it

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1 should be Housing and Social Services that bear the

2 greater portion of the burden?

3 MR SINGH: I must say that is what that tells you but --

4 perhaps I should not say this but it also reflects the

5 Education priority.

6 MR GARNHAM: Yes. It seems to provide further demonstration

7 of the decision in Haringey Council to do all it could

8 to protect Education, even though one of the

9 consequences of that was that Housing and

10 Social Services took a greater hit.

11 MR SINGH: That is clearly what that says and there is no

12 doubt about that.

13 MR GARNHAM: That is consistent, is it, with your

14 understanding of the way in which the matter was dealt

15 with during the last two or three years of your tenure?

16 MR SINGH: Yes, but can I just say one thing which is about

17 that Education line. I am not actually sure what scope

18 the Authority actually had in reducing that Education

19 budget, because precisely at this stage the whole issue

20 of the amount of Education resource which had to be

21 directly delegated to schools which therefore

22 effectively meant that you could not touch; the fact

23 that there were clear instructions from David Blunkett,

24 then as Education Secretary, to passport monies through,

25 which I thought actually meant that even if the

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1 Authority wished to cut education it could not

2 significantly do so -- and I just throw that in as an

3 additional point -- but most certainly your point about

4 Education and Social Services being protected

5 disproportionately.

6 Then I suppose the other point that comes from this

7 is that the reality is that once you net Education off

8 as 50 per cent of the council's budget you have not got

9 much scope. Well, you have; you have the rest of the 50

10 per cent, but Social Services is a major significant

11 proportion of that remaining 50 per cent.

12 MR GARNHAM: But a consequence is that once you make the

13 decision to protect Education, Social Services take the

14 hit.

15 MR SINGH: Yes.

16 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. Can I turn then to my last topic,

17 joint reviews. Reviews joint, single and anything else

18 that comes to mind. Volume 15, please. The first

19 review I want to take you to is the 1998 SSI report,

20 a few months before you arrived. Page 341. June 1998,

21 so you were at the time Director of Housing at Haringey?

22 MR SINGH: Yes.

23 MR GARNHAM: You were shortly thereafter to take up post as

24 Chief Executive the following May, 10 or 11 months

25 later.

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1 MR SINGH: Yes.

2 MR GARNHAM: Presumably this would have been something you

3 were at least briefed on when you took up the post?

4 MR SINGH: I have to admit, no. Sadly, this is the first

5 time I am actually seeing this and most certainly is the

6 first time that I was aware that this was here.

7 MR GARNHAM: I am a little surprised about that, given that

8 it is a damning report on Haringey's Social Services

9 written in the 12 months before you arrived.

10 MR SINGH: I have to admit two things: one that I was not

11 aware of this document as a member of the then Officer

12 Advisory Group, which was the chief officer group, that

13 I was not aware of that.

14 MR GARNHAM: You would have been aware as Director of

15 Housing?

16 MR SINGH: That is right. Certainly when I took up the

17 position as Chief Executive I do not actually recall in

18 any way being debriefed by -- Haringey had a rather

19 strange acting structure in the interim between the

20 Chief Executive leaving, who left about a year/15 months

21 prior to my taking up. They had essentially three

22 people that acted up, a triumvirate of three people

23 centrally based. I do not recall at all being briefed

24 about this and nor do I recall being briefed by the then

25 Director of Social Services. That may be a fundamental

180



1 omission on my part but certainly I do not recall this

2 document.

3 MR GARNHAM: It is sufficiently long enough ago for me not

4 to enquire about the whys and wherefores of that. What

5 I want to ask you to look at and comment on is the tenor

6 and feel of this report because what I want to suggest

7 to you, and what is quite remarkable, I would suggest,

8 is that this report could have been written in June

9 2000. Go, please, to 15/346. This is the conclusion

10 section.

11 There was a time when -- it is only the typeface

12 that led me to realise this is a 1998 report and not

13 a 2000 report. It is obviously a typewriter or an

14 old-fashioned WP that it is being written on. Look at

15 the conclusions. Number 5:

16 "5. Senior management had been decimated with

17 a 100% turnover in the space of a year from May 1987 to

18 April 1998 leaving only a new Director and one new

19 Assistant Director. Management time was totally

20 absorbed in budgetary activities.

21 "6. The overall result of all these changes was a

22 department which did not have adequate staff to maintain

23 services in some places. The skill and experience base

24 of the department was torn out leaving staff who were

25 uncertain about their futures, demoralised, angry that

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1 they would have to carry the work caused by all the

2 vacancies until more staff could be recruited, and

3 essentially without the leadership of a strong senior

4 management team.

5 "7. The Social Services Department was in a crisis

6 situation at the time of the inspection. The sharpest

7 decline had taken place over the previous 6 - 9 months

8 which meant that there appeared to be a failure to

9 recognise that the decline had reached a crisis ...

10 "9. There has been a sharp increase in the number

11 of children on the Child Protection Register of over

12 20%. This represented the second sharpest increase in

13 London ... The result of all these changes meant that

14 by the time of the inspection Haringey had the highest

15 percentage of cases of children on the register who were

16 not allocated to a social worker. The lack of

17 protection these children were receiving was exacerbated

18 by union action which meant that the department could

19 not guarantee their basic statutory responsibility to

20 investigate referrals of risk on these cases ...

21 "10. The inspectors felt that there was likely to

22 be a continuing problems in providing a service within

23 available resources."

24 Now I do not suggest it is an exact replica of 2000

25 but there are some similar expressions of concern and

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1 one gets the same sort of feel.

2 MR SINGH: Yes. There is a feel there which does resonate,

3 but there was one big fundamental difference and that

4 was that the scale of the problems which were facing

5 Haringey then -- that was the year when the £40 million

6 scope had to be achieved which effectively meant the way

7 in which that restructuring was effectively handled

8 meant that we lost 2,000 employees within that space,

9 18 months that we are referring to. So there were real

10 problems there.

11 In a sense, I do recall some of the aftermath of

12 this because one of the issues that clearly surfaced as

13 a consequence of this was the unallocated cases and I do

14 recall that then a strategy was put in place to deal

15 with that, and it was principally about

16 recruitment/retention, actually raising salaries for

17 social workers and engaging in a serious recruitment

18 exercise.

19 MR GARNHAM: All of it familiar?

20 MR SINGH: All of it familiar.

21 MR GARNHAM: It is apparent from what we know about this

22 case that over the next decade things must have improved

23 in Haringey Social Services.

24 MR SINGH: They did.

25 MR GARNHAM: And we have the SSI report, the Joint Review

183



1 that we have looked at already which, although it has

2 points of criticism, is largely positive. You tell

3 us -- if I can ask you please just to glance back at

4 your statement at paragraph 18 -- you tell us that the

5 overall conclusions of the Joint Review came to your

6 attention. I was a bit curious about that expression.

7 Does that mean you were briefed on it and did not read

8 it or --

9 MR SINGH: Sorry, that is a problem of wording. No, no,

10 the --

11 MR GARNHAM: You would have read the conclusions, would you?

12 MR SINGH: More than that, I was actually part of the very

13 front end of the review in the sense when the inspection

14 team came in I was initially briefed by them as to the

15 approach that the review team would actually adopt.

16 Then I was briefed again as to progress by them and

17 eventually I was briefed as to the conclusion. So I was

18 involved in that process.

19 MR GARNHAM: Yes. It is right, and we can look at it if

20 necessary but we have already looked at most of it, but

21 there are a number of positive assertions about the way

22 Social Services were being managed at that time.

23 MR SINGH: Yes.

24 MR GARNHAM: Yet by the end of 1999 I have to suggest to you

25 that Children's Services have been blown seriously off

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1 course again. Strikes in December, a haemorrhage of

2 staff, Victoria's case itself and perhaps most

3 importantly of all the audit of Haringey cases which was

4 conducted at the instruction of the Leader after

5 Victoria's death.

6 MR SINGH: Yes.

7 MR GARNHAM: Volume 15 please, page 106. It is the same

8 volume as you have. This was compiled a few days after

9 you had officially left, although listening to what you

10 said this morning, probably rather longer than you

11 actually left.

12 MR SINGH: Yes.

13 MR GARNHAM: Have you ever seen this before?

14 MR SINGH: No, I have not. I have not seen this before.

15 MR GARNHAM: It was an audit conducted following Victoria's

16 death on the instructions of the Leader of the Council

17 who essentially wanted to know whether Victoria's case

18 was an isolated disaster or whether there was something

19 more systematic at fault. It reported on both

20 North Tottenham and Hornsey. We have looked at it

21 several times in the course of this Inquiry but you will

22 not be familiar with it. It discovered worrying matters

23 in North Tottenham, inadequately completed files and the

24 like.

25 But then in respect of Hornsey it found something

185



1 far worse. It found, if you look at the first line of

2 the audit under "Hornsey":

3 "The condition of many files was confusing ... not

4 always clear where things were filed ... initial

5 assessment forms almost never used."

6 Bottom of the page:

7 "... evidence of Child Protection files that had

8 little or no work for very long periods of time, in some

9 cases, over a year."

10 Top of the next page:

11 "On 21st January [2000], all cases on duty, pending

12 or waiting for appointments, were closed by instruction

13 ... Two senior practitioners then went through the cases

14 and decided which ones to open. We wondered about the

15 cases that remained closed. Now there is very little

16 work pending.

17 "Procedures are often not followed, timescales do

18 not appear to exist, formal investigations are

19 occasionally not recorded ... Like North Tottenham,

20 there is a lack of clarity about Family Support work..."

21 Then a series of examples of the work they saw which

22 are -- it takes only a moment to look at them.

23 Extremely unhappy, and ends up with these words:

24 "We were concerned and surprised by the quality of

25 work we found in Hornsey District Office. We cannot be

186



1 sure that the practice is safe."

2 Now we have put that document to a number of

3 witnesses. I have suggested that one could fairly

4 substitute the words "concerned and surprised" by

5 "appalled" and one witness after another has agreed with

6 me that in fact what was found in Hornsey was quite

7 appalling.

8 What I am trying to understand is how we get from

9 a stage where when you arrive Social Services are in

10 a mess, where over the next decade things improve and

11 where over the year or two thereafter we get back to

12 this state. Can you help me?

13 MR SINGH: I am not absolutely sure that there is a direct

14 correlation between my taking up post and the apparent

15 and if I understand that the reality of a disaster, it

16 improving and then it deteriorating, and that somehow

17 there is a relationship between that and me coming and

18 staying and going.

19 MR GARNHAM: I am not suggesting that.

20 MR SINGH: Well, I hope not.

21 MR GARNHAM: No. I am clearly not. What I am suggesting is

22 that during the course of your tenure of your Chief

23 Executive's post we went from a situation in 1988 when

24 it was dire to an improved situation during the 1990s

25 and then thereafter deterioration into this state and

187



1 I am wondering if you can help us as to how that came

2 about?

3 MR SINGH: I think it is absolutely clear that for whatever

4 reason social workers left Haringey and clearly you have

5 a view and I have tried to challenge that view, perhaps

6 unsuccessfully, but --

7 MR GARNHAM: It is supposed to work the other way around.

8 You are meant to have a view and I am meant to challenge

9 you.

10 MR SINGH: Well could I withdraw that statement then. You

11 have now made me lose what I was going to say.

12 MR GARNHAM: I am so sorry.

13 MR SINGH: The essential point is that a proposition has

14 been put which I have in a sense disagreed with but it

15 does not really matter about the proposition. The

16 reality is that social workers left and that because

17 social workers left we ended up in a crisis. Now, that

18 is a fact, I have tried to say earlier on, and the sorts

19 of steps that I as Chief Executive attempted to put in

20 place to try ... clearly things were put in place during

21 the early 1990s because there was a significant

22 improvement across the whole of the Council and the way

23 it was actually doing things. There was a major

24 improvement, a greater focus on service delivery.

25 I mean, in a sense when I first started in Haringey

188



1 it was very much an organisation that was internally

2 focused, it was riven with industrial relations

3 difficulties. Some real serious problems, massive

4 budgets out of control. Suddenly a budget goes

5 60 million quid overspent. It was those sorts of

6 appalling days.

7 Now, there was a serious improvement in the way the

8 Authority functioned, it put in place better planning

9 systems, focused around -- all of those things. Other

10 than to simply say to you the disaster that we end up

11 in, if it is a disaster, and all the evidence does point

12 to a real crisis, that that is principally due to the

13 number of people that actually left the organisation,

14 because if you do not have social workers then you are

15 going to get into that massive difficulty. But the

16 reason for that is something which we have rehearsed

17 before and -- you know. That is as far as I take it.

18 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. The last document I want you to

19 look at, please, volume 2, page 232. This is a report

20 for the Chief Executive on Victoria's death. It was

21 prepared by Carol Wilson on 29th February 2000. You

22 were still in post but did this come to you?

23 MR SINGH: Yes. I cannot actually recall whether it was

24 over the weekend that I received a phone call about

25 Victoria's very tragic death or whether it was actually

189



1 the first point on Monday morning but I received a phone

2 call from the Police Commander either at the weekend or

3 on the Monday. I therefore called for this as a matter

4 of priority.

5 MR GARNHAM: I see. You must have been appalled when you

6 read this.

7 MR SINGH: Yes.

8 MR GARNHAM: And I imagine rather sad that that was how you

9 were leaving Social Services as you left to go to a new

10 job, leaving it to your successor?

11 MR SINGH: I had resigned a couple of weeks beforehand and

12 I just -- I mean in a funny sort of way -- it is not

13 a funny way at all. I mean I think that many a local

14 authority chief executive, many a director of

15 Social Services dreads the day when this sort of thing

16 hits them and it was precisely that that I felt

17 completely shattered by, quite frankly, that this was

18 what actually had happened.

19 MR GARNHAM: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Singh.

20 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr Garnham. Mr Singh, you are now

21 to be questioned by Miss Lawson for up to 30 minutes.

22 MISS LAWSON: Mr Singh, could I take you back first of all

23 to a matter you were being asked by Mr Garnham about

24 a few minutes ago. That is the report in bundle 26,

25 please, at page 175.501. You will remember, Mr Singh,

190



1 this was the report presented to the Policy and Strategy

2 Committee in December of 1998.

3 MR SINGH: Yes.

4 MISS LAWSON: That was after there had been the substantial

5 reduction in the SSA. You were asked by Mr Garnham

6 about the figures for the cuts throughout the Council.

7 Do you remember the figures that were on page 512?

8 MR SINGH: Yes.

9 MISS LAWSON: You were asked about the discrepancy between

10 the Education cuts compared with those in Housing and

11 Social Services.

12 MR SINGH: Yes.

13 MISS LAWSON: Can I just take you back, please, to

14 page 175.503.

15 MR SINGH: Yes.

16 MISS LAWSON: Paragraph 6.3. If we look at what actually

17 happened with the SSA -- accepting of course that the

18 two things are not necessarily in parallel -- we appear

19 to see quite a contrast between what was happening with

20 the SSA so far as Education is concerned, and what was

21 happening in relation to the Social Services and Housing

22 budget. Have I understood that correctly.

23 MR SINGH: Surely, yes. That clearly Education SSA has gone

24 up by 5.9 per cent but the Social Services SSA has gone

25 down by 9.8.

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1 MISS LAWSON: Almost 6,000.

2 MR SINGH: 6 million. And that, I think, is the reduction

3 specifically within the children's SSA -- the children's

4 sub-block of the SSA.

5 MISS LAWSON: Partly because there was a change in

6 methodology, I think. But there are two other aspects

7 to that that I would like just to ask you about. The

8 first is this. It is easy to talk as though the

9 children who benefit from the Children's Services are

10 not also children who benefit from improved spending on

11 Education.

12 MR SINGH: Sure.

13 MISS LAWSON: Perhaps disproportionately since the children

14 in poor families are not those who have a choice about

15 getting education somewhere else.

16 MR SINGH: Yes.

17 MISS LAWSON: I would like to ask you particularly about the

18 education of the under 5s during this period. Is that

19 something you could help me about or should I ask

20 somebody else?

21 MR SINGH: I think it is probably a combination of asking me

22 something but others as well.

23 MISS LAWSON: Right. There was substantial spending, was

24 there not, of under 5s during this period?

25 MR SINGH: Yes, I think the critical point as I understand

192



1 it is that if you were to break down the Education SSA

2 you would actually find that the sub-block which relates

3 to under 5s was significantly above -- the actual spend

4 was significantly above and I suspect that a fair

5 proportion, although it was not quantified as such in

6 these papers, a fair proportion of the users of those

7 under 5s would be Social Services clients. And now

8 nobody as far as I understand within the Authority has

9 actually done an analysis of the breakdown but that,

10 I think, is fact.

11 MISS LAWSON: Yes. Can I take you in the same report to

12 a different passage, and that is on page 175.504. You

13 were being asked by Mr Garnham about the effect of

14 capping, and if you look at paragraph 6.7 in this

15 report, please.

16 MR SINGH: Yes.

17 MISS LAWSON: The proposal was to introduce it with effect

18 from the next budget year.

19 MR SINGH: Yes.

20 MISS LAWSON: And the way in which it was going to work is

21 we see set out in that particular paragraph.

22 MR SINGH: Yes.

23 MISS LAWSON: And the impact that it would have on spending.

24 MR SINGH: I mean, it is my understanding that -- and this

25 is what I meant by the threshold; that if you went above

193



1 a certain threshold you would actually lose grant and

2 I think that that essentially is what that paragraph

3 is --

4 MISS LAWSON: That is essentially what is happening, that

5 you lose money substantially during a band immediately

6 above putting your council tax up beyond --

7 MR SINGH: I think you lose a greater amount of grant when

8 compared with the amount of money you may actually

9 secure.

10 MISS LAWSON: That is right. And that is probably the

11 intention.

12 MR SINGH: It was meant to be an actual deterrent, a clear

13 deterrent to stop councils setting council taxes above

14 a particular threshold.

15 MISS LAWSON: You were asked a number of questions about the

16 decision not to increase council tax. Again, can I ask

17 you whether the impact of increasing council tax by

18 a pound or two impacts greater on those on low incomes?

19 MR SINGH: Yes. As a borough, deprivation, poverty and all

20 that is a massive factor. I mean, two things actually:

21 one, that if you disproportionately put up the council

22 tax there was a major problem then of collection; people

23 were simply not paying.

24 Secondly, that the consequence would actually be

25 that it would hit dramatically those people who were

194



1 above the poverty line, in work, because those below

2 that would actually get their council tax paid for. But

3 it was the people above who were working who would be

4 most adversely hit.

5 MISS LAWSON: Some of those likely to be children with

6 families -- families with children.

7 MR SINGH: Without doubt.

8 MISS LAWSON: Was that believed to have an impact on those

9 families?

10 MR SINGH: I think the Council was actually conscious of the

11 need to constrain both rent increases -- which is

12 another form of generating money -- of council tenants

13 because of the disproportionate number of people who

14 were in poverty in public sector housing, but also

15 equally concerned -- as well as the wider concern about

16 raising council taxes that would be generally

17 politically unacceptable to residents of the borough.

18 But there was a view that it would disproportionately

19 impact on vulnerable sections of the community.

20 MISS LAWSON: Just stay in that bundle for a moment, if you.

21 Going forward to a different topic because you were

22 asked about the question of asylum seekers and

23 homelessness and so on and the other social problems

24 which Haringey has.

25 If you go forward to 175.522, please, these appear

195



1 to be some statistics collated by the Local Government

2 Association and the Home Office in relation to asylum

3 seekers in November of 1998. I am asking you about them

4 only because they happen to be conveniently located,

5 accepting that the picture is rather different now

6 compared with what it was then.

7 If we look at those columns there we see Haringey in

8 the middle and if my arithmetic is correct a total of

9 3,284 asylum seekers at that time. If we look at the

10 other boroughs that this Inquiry has heard about who

11 have also described their problems with asylum seekers,

12 we see that Brent has a total of 1,118 and Ealing 822,

13 so that even at that stage Haringey had more asylum

14 seekers than those two boroughs put together.

15 MR SINGH: I think there is no doubt whatsoever that

16 Haringey was disproportionately impacted upon both in

17 relation to homelessness and indeed asylum seekers and

18 I suspect also unaccompanied minors. It was a major,

19 major problem for the Authority when the Authority was

20 eventually forced into placing people as far away as

21 Eastbourne to discharge its responsibility. So it was

22 a major problem for the Authority and it was a major

23 resource problem for the Authority.

24 MISS LAWSON: Was it also a problem in respect of which you

25 did not receive (inaudible) funding?

196



1 MR SINGH: Most certainly in terms of the homelessness of it

2 there is no grant provision. Asylum seekers; there are

3 some, but not all. Most certainly the additional

4 pressures placed on services are not covered at all.

5 MISS LAWSON: Can I ask you then about another matter that

6 Mr Garnham dealt with. In your witness statement it is

7 page 44, paragraph 6.

8 MR SINGH: Yes.

9 MISS LAWSON: The last sentence of that paragraph. This is

10 back at the vexed question of the restructuring. You

11 refer to that restructuring programme being over

12 three years.

13 MR SINGH: Yes.

14 MISS LAWSON: With a view to the separation of the two

15 directorates by 2001.

16 MR SINGH: Yes.

17 MISS LAWSON: So does it follow that at the stage that the

18 restructuring exercise was being undertaken, that was

19 being undertaken within the context of it remaining

20 a single department? At that stage?

21 MR SINGH: That is right, at that stage, yes.

22 MISS LAWSON: Indeed, if you will stay in bundle 26 but go

23 back to page 36, you find there a copy of

24 Mary Richardson's report to the Social Services

25 Committee on 25th March of 1999.

197



1 MR SINGH: Yes.

2 MISS LAWSON: Which describes the new structure which was

3 being put in place in some detail. If we go forward in

4 that to the tables at page 41 we see a restructuring

5 within the joint department rather than a restructuring

6 within two departments, do we not?

7 MR SINGH: Yes, that is absolutely right.

8 MISS LAWSON: That was your understanding at that stage?

9 MR SINGH: Absolutely. At that stage it was a joint

10 department.

11 MISS LAWSON: That was still the position I think at the

12 time that you left?

13 MR SINGH: Without doubt.

14 MISS LAWSON: Yes, because I think -- I am not sure that

15 I need to take you to it but others may be interested to

16 look. We actually find the decision to separate the two

17 departments being taken at the end of October of 2000

18 after you had left.

19 MR SINGH: After I had left.

20 MISS LAWSON: Sir, for your note that is in bundle 45D,

21 starting at page 1, the report which deals with that,

22 the committee which considered it.

23 MR SINGH: That is right. According to -- I am just

24 therefore somewhat bamboozled and Mr Garnham is looking

25 at me equally bamboozled as to why I would have in my

198



1 statement that by 2001 --

2 MISS LAWSON: Something in Haringey appears to have happened

3 rather more quickly than you envisaged?

4 MR SINGH: Yes -- sorry, apologies, I was trying to

5 reconcile in my head --

6 MISS LAWSON: What the thinking was in 1999 when it appears

7 not to have actually come into effect for some time, are

8 you able to help us about that?

9 MR SINGH: Other than to simply say that there was the

10 intention to separate out, as I previously said, but

11 that that was planned over a period of time. It would

12 happen at the end of the process, towards 2001. I mean

13 that is all I can actually say.

14 MISS LAWSON: Fine.

15 MR SINGH: I am slightly now confused, if I may say so.

16 MISS LAWSON: Well if you wish to take this opportunity to

17 unconfuse yourself, please do.

18 MR SINGH: I will try. I cannot actually add any more at

19 this stage, I do not think. I am only digging a hole

20 bigger for myself actually. I really have not got any

21 more recollection than I thought that there was the

22 intention to separate out the two departments and that

23 that was actually taken earlier on in principle but then

24 it comes back subsequently to effectively implement.

25 But it was always the case, as far as I can see, that it

199



1 would be on a planned basis over time.

2 Now I think that is my recollection and I do not

3 think I can actually help any further on that.

4 MISS LAWSON: A different topic then, Mr Singh, if I may.

5 You were asked a number of questions about the reasons

6 that staff were leaving --

7 MR SINGH: Yes.

8 MISS LAWSON: -- in early 2000. You were concerned to say

9 that you thought there were a number of different

10 factors and you were asked some questions about the

11 report which was prepared in May of 2000, in relation to

12 that. Could you have volume 28, page 379.

13 MR SINGH: Paragraph?

14 MISS LAWSON: This is paragraph 6.3.3. We did not quite get

15 that far when Mr Garnham was taking you to it because

16 this is what the nine staff who have actually given exit

17 interviews gave as their various reasons for doing so.

18 We find a total there of I think seven different reasons

19 and I just wondered whether you had had an opportunity

20 to look at those and whether that either confirmed your

21 impression or you wished to change it at all?

22 MR SINGH: I have to say that I was in a sense beginning to

23 get persuaded by the force of Neil Garnham's comments.

24 But actually given -- I mean I had actually missed the

25 point and we were talking about nine staff out of

200



1 a total of twenty-whatever. And I mean how valid is it

2 a conclusion that that could be on the basis of those

3 nine staff? And to begin to conclude that these were

4 principally the reasons I think must reinforce my view

5 that perhaps the strength of the argument that was being

6 put was not as strong as it could actually be, that we

7 are not absolutely clear as to what the reasons are,

8 although having said that I accepted the general spirit

9 of what was being said earlier on; that all these

10 matters have contributed to the problems that clearly

11 exist.

12 MISS LAWSON: Mr Singh, one final matter which does not

13 really arise out of the questioning that you have

14 undertaken so far but is a matter that has been raised

15 in the opening to this Inquiry. That is the question of

16 whether or not there is a possible significance of race

17 in the handling of Victoria's case. Now I appreciate

18 that you are not able to tell us in relation to the

19 facts of that particular case what the position is.

20 I do not think there is anyone in Haringey who is better

21 placed to tell us about the policies that were in place

22 to deal with this and the ethos and philosophy of the

23 borough.

24 MR SINGH: I think it needs to be understood by the Inquiry

25 that Haringey had a very sensible businesslike approach