Archived Transcript for 18 December 2001: Pages 201 to 229

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1 to race equality. I say that not only as

2 Chief Executive of Haringey when I was its

3 Chief Executive, but also I can now reflect back and say

4 that in my view, my professional judgment now, that

5 actually matters of race were being dealt with in the

6 way in which I think public institutions, private

7 institutions should be dealing with race. There is no

8 question about that in my mind about that at all.

9 Indeed, if you look at the number of external

10 agencies that have looked at Haringey as opposed to

11 racial equality, all those reviews, government have

12 commended the work which Haringey has done on race. The

13 IDA who recently looked at the question of race

14 commended it, and indeed there are Department of Health

15 publications which support very much the approach that

16 Haringey took.

17 And then approach was just shifted away from the

18 position which existed in Haringey, which was about

19 engaging in rhetoric and nice fine words and having

20 officers that were policing activities, just shifting

21 away from that to mainstreaming race, making managers

22 responsible for the delivery of equality objectives.

23 That approach of mainstreaming is something which is

24 accepted by all agencies now, Government included. The

25 Department of Health most certainly accepts the

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1 philosophy of that. Indeed, it is -- and I think that

2 if you look at the documentation which Haringey produced

3 around the principles of mainstreaming I think that you

4 will find that that is the right approach and the

5 evidence is actually there for that.

6 That is all -- I do not want to say any more.

7 MISS LAWSON: That is the document that I think the Inquiry

8 has in bundle 24A starting at page 1.

9 MR SINGH: One of the first things I did was to dismantle,

10 believe it or not, the equality of structures within

11 Haringey because I felt that they were inappropriate

12 because I think that essentially the structures we had

13 were there as bodies over here, policing the mainstream

14 of the organisation. That is not the way to approach

15 equality matters and therefore very quickly we

16 dismantled that and we adopted the philosophy of

17 mainstreaming which I think is set out very clearly in

18 the documentation you have.

19 MISS LAWSON: Yes. I think we also have specifically

20 Mr Singh a report from you, bundle 15A please, page 133.

21 This was a report going from you to the Policy and

22 Strategy Committee on 22nd December 1999 presenting the

23 Race Equality Review to that committee and the summary

24 of the recommendations which the members were asked to

25 accept and in consequence. And the report continues

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1 through to page 180. I am not going to take you or

2 anybody else to all of it but it is there.

3 Were the principles set out in your recommendations

4 adopted by the Council at that time?

5 MR SINGH: Yes, they were. This particular report clearly

6 follows on from William MacPherson's work, following on

7 from that particular public inquiry. I felt it was

8 vitally important that the Council looked at its own

9 position, vis-a-vis the recommendations made by that

10 public inquiry, to see whether we fulfilled expectations

11 that were set out within that public inquiry. I have to

12 say that this was a report, a very serious look at our

13 response to it.

14 Indeed there were some shortcomings and I think

15 those are reflected here, but generally I felt that it

16 was a positive response against William MacPherson's

17 report.

18 MISS LAWSON: Thank you, Mr Singh.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Miss Lawson.

20 Mr Singh, I just need to be absolutely clear that

21 I have understood some of your evidence today, so let me

22 begin with a couple of practical questions if I may,

23 please.

24 First of all, if I remember rightly, this morning

25 you said somewhat vehemently to Mr Garnham that there

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1 was no financial benefit to a local authority for

2 a stock transfer of housing. I of course do not know

3 the details of Haringey's stock transfer but it is my

4 understanding from other experiences in this field that

5 actually there is considerable financial benefit to a

6 local authority of a major stock transfer, not least

7 being the local authority who did not have to finance

8 the upgrading and maintenance of the property they are

9 transferring?

10 MR SINGH: Sure, yes, but I do not think that that comes

11 into the revenue budget of the Authority.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: Well no --

13 MR SINGH: Yes, I mean you may actually end up with

14 a substantial capital receipt and that will go -- that

15 will have to be offset against the debts that you have,

16 but I do not think -- well, most certainly into the

17 revenue budget -- it is my understanding and I may have

18 this wrong Lord Laming but most certainly it was my

19 understanding that the principal beneficiaries of stock

20 transfer would be the tenants themselves because that

21 would then enable capital investment to go to those

22 properties.

23 THE CHAIRMAN: It may be. I am not denying there may be

24 a benefit to the tenants but it is equally the case that

25 the less capital -- the less debt a local authority has

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1 to service, the more that money is saved from the

2 revenue budget?

3 MR SINGH: Yes, if the stock itself is valued as an asset.

4 It does not necessarily have to follow that actually the

5 stock itself would be deemed to be a major asset.

6 THE CHAIRMAN: No, but it is stock transfer in the middle of

7 London I would have thought would carry a very

8 considerable asset.

9 MR SINGH: I think there was a valuation done where I think

10 that would actually question it.

11 THE CHAIRMAN: Well I will not trade with you on that except

12 to say that there must be a dual motivation or a dual

13 benefit, some to the tenants, that I am prepared to

14 agree, but some to the local authority, in a stock

15 transfer.

16 MR SINGH: I think the generality is that the politicians

17 were reluctant to do it because they could not actually

18 see a massive benefit other than that which went to --

19 which accrued to tenants as a result of capital

20 investment. Now I may have it wrong. I am not

21 a financial expert, and I am not also an expert on stock

22 transfers, but that was my understanding. But you may

23 be right.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: All right, well I will not trade local

25 government finance with you. Suffice to say that there

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1 is the possibility at any rate that there is a net

2 financial gain possible to a local authority in a stock

3 transfer.

4 MR SINGH: If you are right, that is absolutely the case.

5 And I fully accept -- I am not an expert at this and you

6 may be right.

7 THE CHAIRMAN: The last thing I claim is to be an expert on

8 these matters so we will perhaps settle for agreeing to

9 differ.

10 MR SINGH: Right.

11 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me ask you a different but equally

12 practical point. When you were asked this morning about

13 the changing conditions of service for staff in Haringey

14 that led to considerable disquiet -- let us put it

15 nicely -- amongst the staff, did that affect your

16 conditions of service and salary?

17 MR SINGH: The occasion when it did -- the previous

18 three years when it was done, then yes. But given that

19 we did not take any cuts on terms and conditions,

20 clearly then that would not have applied.

21 THE CHAIRMAN: I was not asking about the previous

22 three years, I was asking was the deal that was being

23 considered that would have affected the salary and

24 conditions of service of some of the lowly paid staff in

25 the organisation, would that, had it been implemented,

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1 have affected your position?

2 MR SINGH: That would have affected every single employee of

3 the Authority from the Chief Executive down. Clearly it

4 would depend upon the nature of the terms and

5 conditions, clearly things like maternity leave would

6 only affect woman but it would not be restricted to

7 people at the bottom end of the organisation, it would

8 apply equally throughout the whole of the organisation.

9 THE CHAIRMAN: I hesitate because from what I understand of

10 it I do not quite see, leaving aside maternity leave,

11 how it would have affected the Chief Executive's salary

12 and conditions of service.

13 MR SINGH: If you reduce the number of days on annual leave

14 that equally applies to a Chief Executive. If you

15 reduce sickness entitlement that would equally apply to

16 Chief Executive. It was those sorts of conditions we

17 were actually talking about.

18 THE CHAIRMAN: Tell me what risk was there to you personally

19 about reducing your annual leave, from what to what?

20 MR SINGH: I cannot actually remember. I am not even sure

21 that I took the level of annual leave that I was

22 entitled to. It would -- I am depending upon the nature

23 of the proposals. It would equally apply from --

24 I think I was on 30-something days. Clearly in terms of

25 that arrangement it would not apply pro rata and that

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1 point I accept because it is a reality, whether we like

2 it or not, that the higher up the organisation you

3 are -- I am not justifying it, but yes you are right,

4 but I am also right.

5 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, that is a happy situation for us to get

6 to, is it not?

7 MR SINGH: Well, I hope so.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me ask you a different question. You

9 were Chief Executive for nearly 11 years. In

10 a nutshell, and not a long lecture if I may about

11 holistic stuff and the rest of it, but a simple, what is

12 the raison d'etre of a local authority?

13 MR SINGH: It is essentially to deliver high quality

14 services to its residents in the most efficient way, at

15 least cost. Sorry, and the people in greatest need.

16 Sorry, I missed that, but absolutely right. To respond

17 to the needs of those people, those citizens of Haringey

18 with the greatest need.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: High quality services. You relied very

20 heavily this morning in your evidence on these policy

21 procedures and these systems that were in place, and yet

22 if I understand the situation right, and correct me if

23 I am wrong, your Authority received a dreadful report by

24 OFSTED on its education services before you left.

25 MR SINGH: I think I attempted to make that point to

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1 Mr Garnham.

2 THE CHAIRMAN: And you received a dreadful report from the

3 SSI and some time after that your Authority was placed

4 on special measures from the Government for its

5 Social Services. If the raison d'etre produced good

6 quality services to the public and to vulnerable people,

7 how is it the two main services of the local authority

8 ended up by being either on special measures or

9 threatened having the services removed?

10 MR SINGH: I have been very clear about Education Service.

11 There were some real and fundamental problems within

12 Education but that is not to actually say that all of

13 Education was a disaster. I mean, it is amply clear if

14 you go back to OFSTED that in relation to primary

15 education there were some very good and positive things

16 said about private education. It is actually within the

17 secondary sector that we had those major problems. It

18 also, as far as I am concerned, whilst there was

19 a scathing, appalling SSI report around Children's

20 Services, it is not my understanding that actually there

21 was condemnation of the totality of Social Services.

22 THE CHAIRMAN: I accept that.

23 MR SINGH: That we cannot also -- whilst children are hugely

24 important, we cannot also ignore people, adults with

25 learning difficulties, people with mental health where

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1 we were actually as far as I can see providing some

2 reasonable services. That is my understanding.

3 I cannot say much more than that.

4 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Singh I am not suggesting for a moment

5 that there was not good to be found anywhere in

6 Haringey. What I am suggesting is two of the main

7 services provided by Haringey were education and social

8 care services to children. Could it not and should it

9 not have been foreseen that these services were

10 deteriorating to a point where two -- to use your

11 words -- scathing reports were received?

12 MR SINGH: Sure and we were attempting desperately to change

13 Education to try and improve performance with Education.

14 The whole focus for the last two or three years had

15 actually been about that. The drive to protect its

16 budgets was part of that. Clearly we did not succeed in

17 relation to what people at OFSTED had actually said.

18 Now --

19 THE CHAIRMAN: So whatever efforts were made over two or

20 three years they were not successful?

21 MR SINGH: That is the end conclusion --

22 THE CHAIRMAN: Is it not a conclusion that you shared?

23 MR SINGH: It is not as a result of a lack of effort.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: No, no --

25 MR SINGH: Considerable effort actually went in to try and

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1 turn the thing around, and there was evidence that we

2 were beginning to see educational attainment improving

3 within Haringey. It was the case that some of the

4 individual OFSTED inspections of our schools came out

5 with glowing positive reports. So there is a mixed

6 picture and we should not actually ignore that, nor

7 should we ignore that in a social services context.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: I am not suggesting there was not a lot of

9 effort. What I am questioning is whether or not the

10 effort achieved the desirable results.

11 MR SINGH: And I am actually saying that in my view some of

12 that effort was actually successful, in other areas it

13 clearly was not. If you look at -- you talk about

14 Education. Sure Start presumably is still part of

15 Education. There were tremendous glowing comments about

16 the way in which the Authority was approaching Sure

17 Start and the things that we were delivering in that

18 particular area. There were other areas of council

19 service which were very well highly thought of but at

20 the end of the day OFSTED came and concluded certain

21 things and we will now see what an alternative model for

22 public education can now deliver.

23 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Singh, you will understand that I feel,

24 however unreasonable this may be, I know just a little

25 bit about inspection. I am sure that if you looked at

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1 150 authorities around the country you would find good

2 and bad practice, but how many authorities have received

3 both a report of the style of OFSTED report and a report

4 of the style of the SSI report and Children's Services,

5 and how many authorities are on special measures at the

6 present time? You know this.

7 MR SINGH: I suspect that there are not many --

8 THE CHAIRMAN: Exactly.

9 MR SINGH: -- where both situations apply. But I have to

10 also say you cannot simply ignore the positive stuff

11 which came out of the Joint Review as if that also has

12 no bearing on the matter. Yes, there was

13 a condemnation, a clear condemnation arising out of the

14 children's inspection but literally a year prior to that

15 there was a glowing response on Social Services

16 generally. Now that just cannot be disregarded as if it

17 did not happen. That was also a statement about the

18 quality of services which Haringey was providing in the

19 social care area.

20 THE CHAIRMAN: I am not disregarding that, indeed I ask the

21 questions I ask you because you in fact understandably

22 have relied fairly heavily on the Joint Review and not

23 on the other documents, so it is not unreasonable for me

24 to mention the other documents.

25 MR SINGH: Surely.

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1 THE CHAIRMAN: What was the relationship like in your Chief

2 Officer's Management Team?

3 MR SINGH: Generally a positive one, although clearly

4 inevitably in a local authority where resources are

5 tight there is competition for resources and that --

6 people clearly seeing their budgets cut and other

7 budgets not being cut, there is always difficulties.

8 Whilst -- I mean the whole philosophy of the Authority

9 has been to manage its affairs the way corporate

10 management groups and directors are meant to be

11 operating corporately. They also have service

12 interests, they are advocates of that service and that

13 will lead to some difficulties and tensions. But I do

14 not think it was in any way out of line with that which

15 you would expect, given those circumstances.

16 THE CHAIRMAN: So other people who were in the team at that

17 time, if they were asked the same question, would all

18 say exactly what you said?

19 MR SINGH: Well, I hope so. I hope so but I cannot confirm

20 that, obviously.

21 THE CHAIRMAN: No, I am sure. You have looked at some of

22 the evidence that has come before the Inquiry and

23 I suspect you may have seen that you are not the first

24 manager from Haringey who, when questions have been put

25 to them about problems within the organisation of

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1 Haringey, has said that "I was not aware of that".

2 MR SINGH: Presumably you are referring to Carol Wilson and

3 Dinos Kousoulou's evidence.

4 THE CHAIRMAN: Amongst, but particularly those. There are

5 others who have said, "It is a matter of concern to me"

6 so I would like you to try and reassure me if you can as

7 to why it is that so many people in a management

8 position in Haringey when these points have been put to

9 them, including yourself, have said, "Well, I was not

10 aware of that".

11 MR SINGH: I can only give you my view as to how

12 I understood things at the time. I was aware of the

13 general difficulties which arise in an organisation that

14 is strapped for cash -- there are some real financial

15 difficulties -- which is attempting to deliver services

16 in a slightly -- often in a difficult political

17 environment, that inevitably there are tensions and

18 pressures within that sort of environment, where there

19 are communities whose needs are dramatic.

20 50 per cent of the British population are drawn from

21 minority communities. 10 per cent of the people are

22 refugees, asylum seekers. Homelessness, as Miss Lawson

23 flagged up earlier on, are one of the highest in London.

24 Tremendous stresses, tremendous pressures, inevitably

25 there are tensions and conflicts within that. But

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1 I have to say to you on oath that actually I was not

2 aware of the scale of the difficulties which appear to

3 exist that Mr Garnham outlined earlier on. I was

4 surprised, to say the least, to read and listen to --

5 not listen to, read the evidence of people lower down in

6 the organisation.

7 My only regret -- and I say this -- my only regret

8 is I wish I had known, that I wish somehow there had

9 been arrangements that I could have put in place which

10 would have enabled me to understand the scale of those

11 problems because I would have then done something about

12 it.

13 THE CHAIRMAN: I do not deny all of those tensions and it is

14 precisely because those tensions exist that the issues

15 have to be well managed and the staff have to be helped

16 to be led forward through these changes. How often in

17 the last two years that you were Chief Executive did you

18 visit the North Tottenham office?

19 MR SINGH: I visited every single public sector outlet

20 within Haringey at least once a year. It was a routine

21 objective.

22 THE CHAIRMAN: So give me an idea. Before you left when was

23 the last time that you visited --

24 MR SINGH: I cannot remember. I managed to do -- the reason

25 why I say I visit each office once a year is I used to

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1 do an inspection of the state of each physical building,

2 the reception area and the sort of services that were --

3 and I would do that on an annual basis just to get

4 a sense of what was actually -- I recall going to

5 Tottenham to enable that to happen.

6 THE CHAIRMAN: That is very helpful. Tell me what your

7 assessment was of the Tottenham office.

8 MR SINGH: The assessment was more about the physical

9 fabric, the reception point itself. It was less clearly

10 about the actual nature of the service delivery there,

11 it was more about ... and I have to say that one of my

12 concerns was it was an uninviting office.

13 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

14 MR SINGH: It was an office which did not welcome you.

15 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

16 MR SINGH: It was for that reason that I insisted that

17 capital resources be found to try to address that

18 problem and those resources were actually found to try

19 and change it.

20 THE CHAIRMAN: But it did not become an unwelcoming and

21 uninviting office overnight. I mean being blunt about

22 it you had been Chief Executive for ten years by then.

23 MR SINGH: Yes, but it was only more latterly that our

24 financial resources on the capital side allowed us to do

25 something about it. And in a sense we began to inspect

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1 our public outlets I think probably about 1996/1997,

2 when it became an annual process. Indeed, we used to

3 celebrate those which were the most successful, to try

4 and engender some notion of pride within the workforce.

5 But capital resources were also scarce and therefore

6 when they were available we began to use them.

7 THE CHAIRMAN: You will know because you -- I hope that you

8 followed this Inquiry sufficiently to know that for

9 seven of the 11 months that Victoria was alive in this

10 country her safety, if I can put it that way, her

11 protection, was the responsibility of Haringey. Clearly

12 it did not work.

13 MR SINGH: Yes.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: Why do you think it did not?

15 MR SINGH: I think Lord Laming I can only -- as I tried to

16 say this morning -- agree with the conclusions of the

17 Part 8 Review which actually said there were some

18 serious failures. I think that those serious failures

19 appear to me to be focused principally around an

20 individual social worker. I do not accept that that is

21 right. I do think that there are -- it is my view that

22 there were serious collective failings.

23 I do think that systems which were in place which

24 should have been -- it should have been operating,

25 clearly if I accept the evidence that I have seen and

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1 which I accept unreservedly, clearly there were major,

2 major failures.

3 Now where you draw the line on accountability is

4 a matter for you to adjudicate on but I do think that

5 there is considerable failure which the Authority

6 I think has acknowledged. Or at least that is my

7 understanding, that it has actually acknowledged.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: Just help me then where I draw the line. As

9 the Chief Executive, where should I draw the line?

10 MR SINGH: It is difficult for me to actually say. As

11 Chief Executive it was my view that as the person that

12 was driving the corporate agenda for the Authority that

13 we were installing through my leadership systems and

14 processes throughout the organisation, performance

15 appraisal, performance management, the evolution of

16 budgets, proper training budgets for all the staff,

17 management development programmes initiated from the

18 centre enabling senior managers to really become

19 talented leaders to manage the organisation, that there

20 was a framework for all of these things. Now it is

21 clear that some of these frameworks did not actually

22 work and ultimately as Chief Executive I must carry some

23 responsibility for those failures.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: What I am struggling with, and this is why

25 I want your help, is -- I want to put it not from what

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1 I think at this stage because I am genuinely struggling

2 with this. I want to describe it as the sort of person

3 on the upper deck of the Clapham omnibus. Looking at

4 the reports and at what happened to Victoria and looking

5 at what has happened since, we will see that a number of

6 the senior officers, including yourself, have left on

7 promotion to take bigger jobs and the most junior staff

8 are currently suspended.

9 MR SINGH: But I did not leave because of this.

10 THE CHAIRMAN: What I want to know is what in your view

11 organisational and managerial accountability actually

12 means when push comes to shove.

13 MR SINGH: Well it means that you are actually account -- as

14 Chief Executive you are actually accountable. The

15 question that you have to then ask is, actually in the

16 particular circumstances that we are talking about, was

17 there anything that I as Chief Executive could have done

18 to intervene? Because that is the only way that I could

19 have made a difference. Were there any mechanisms or

20 were there ways in which I could have intervened which

21 would actually ameliorate the position and not lead to

22 Victoria's death if the link is made there?

23 So I accept the principles of accountability but you

24 have to also say, well, as Chief Executive, as the

25 corporate manager of the organisation, as the strategic

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1 manager of the organisation, can I ultimately influence

2 what is actually happening seven levels down the

3 organisation?

4 Now the answer to that is I think you can to some

5 extent because you are there to ensure that there are

6 systems and practices in place. There are other people

7 then who are also charged with ensuring that those

8 systems and processes are actually working. Now

9 I cannot -- in a sense I cannot directly ensure that

10 those systems, those seven levels down the organisation

11 are actually effectively working.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: Do you want me to judge accountability on the

13 basis of the policies and systems or do you want me to

14 judge accountability on the quality of the service and

15 effectiveness of the service delivered?

16 MR SINGH: Is it not different judgments depending upon who

17 you are judging? That, I mean, clearly your judgment

18 about me must be about those corporate systems and

19 whether the policy framework is actually in place,

20 whether there was a sufficient direction about what the

21 Council's priorities were, whether -- you know, at that

22 corporate centre. But then you have to judge others in

23 relation to their managerial responsibilities.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: Then let me ask you just a few more aspects

25 of this issue of accountability. The first one is you

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1 are in danger, so please do help me if I have this

2 wrong, you are in danger of being one of the first

3 persons to persuade me the Government is overgenerous in

4 how it calculates the SSA for the Children's Services

5 and particularly for an area of high deprivation like

6 Haringey. It is clearly not a direction on how the

7 money should be spent but are you saying that the

8 Government's calculation of SSA for Haringey was as

9 overgenerous as to justify spending millions below?

10 MR SINGH: I am not saying that. I am actually saying that

11 the SSA is merely a technical formula for the

12 distribution of a national cake. How you determine what

13 is required is based upon local circumstances and

14 understanding of the historic spend and the pressures

15 that exist locally. That must actually be the case

16 because if it was the case that the Government felt that

17 this is what you had to spend to deliver decent

18 Children's Services, why on earth would it then cut that

19 budget by 6.4 million at a stroke one year on?

20 THE CHAIRMAN: But Haringey's position seems to me to be

21 entirely contradictory and therefore this is why I need

22 your help because first of all a great amount has been

23 made of your statement, and others, about the areas of

24 deprivation, social deprivation in Haringey which I am

25 not in any way wanting to dispute. On the other hand,

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1 a very considerable defence about spending on Children's

2 Services, for families and children, not just lower than

3 the Government thought would provide a reasonable

4 service, but bearing in mind that a huge number of local

5 authorities in the country actually spend more on their

6 Children's Services than the SSA. So Haringey's

7 position stands somewhat in contrast with many other

8 authorities on what it spends.

9 MR SINGH: Haringey's position is absolutely clear that in

10 a difficult, difficult financial environment for the

11 Authority, that is what we could actually afford. There

12 is no way of getting around that; that Haringey's

13 position was desperately difficult, severe major

14 problems around its budgets, major difficulties as

15 I said already about overhanging debt and the rest of

16 it, major pressures around homelessness which Government

17 was not actually funding, all those pressures have to be

18 funded somehow and the politicians took a view that they

19 were not going to fund it through a massive hike in the

20 council tax which, even if they had have done, would not

21 have led to any additional resources.

22 Now it is a question of working out the maths on it,

23 what could we actually afford, and that is what we

24 actually did do.

25 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, I understand all that and I am sure it

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1 is not your position to say that Haringey is the only

2 local authority in the country that has difficult

3 financial problems. I am sure it is not your position

4 to say that. The question is, as to whether or not

5 a proper risk assessment was undertaken, is the

6 implications of running social services for children in

7 an area of serious deprivation at a level significantly

8 lower than the SSA?

9 MR SINGH: I think that -- in my humble view that that is

10 a question more relevant to the statutory officer who

11 you will subsequently see.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: Wait a minute. Who was the Chief Executive?

13 The Chief Executive has to look across the whole of the

14 services and advise the elected members on a balanced

15 approach, bearing in mind your earlier comment to me,

16 with which I entirely agree, that chief officers from

17 service departments are bound to put their best foot

18 forward and perhaps overegg the pudding. So at the end

19 of the day it is you that has to say to elected members,

20 "Look, this is what I advise you".

21 MR SINGH: But the reality is that members clearly in

22 looking at a difficult budget position would seek the

23 views of all officers and say, "What are the

24 implications of these sorts of cuts?" The way in which

25 budgets were set in Haringey was essentially that once

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1 members had set notional targets, that there was

2 a devolution of the consideration as to how those

3 targets would then be achieved into services, and the

4 detailed work would be done there. It is when they came

5 back that members would say: "And what are the

6 implications if we were to decide A, B or C?" Now that

7 is the way that the thing worked and that is why I make

8 the point that --

9 THE CHAIRMAN: So what I am asking you is, did you advise

10 the members that if they ran Children's Social Services

11 at this level of expenditure they were running the kind

12 of risks that Mr Turton told the Inquiry this morning?

13 MR SINGH: Nobody was actually informing me that those were

14 the risks that the Authority was running, therefore

15 I could not advise members appropriately and I actually

16 find it difficult to reconcile what Craig Turton

17 actually said with what I understand -- the views that

18 officers had at that time.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: I need to put something else to you because

20 in answer to Mr Garnham about the restructuring you said

21 it only affected a handful of staff. You made reference

22 to the sitting in the comfort of this room. I have to

23 say it has not been a very comfortable exercise so far,

24 but what I would like to say to you is sitting in the

25 comfort of your room in Haringey no doubt it seemed like

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1 a handful of staff but for those individuals a comment

2 like that must have come across as somewhat insensitive

3 and cavalier.

4 MR SINGH: I mean, one, I was not making the comment in an

5 insensitive way or a cavalier way, and apologies if that

6 is the way it actually came across. The point that

7 I was trying to make was that in the scale of the

8 restructurings that we had been involved in in the past,

9 in the scale of the reductions that we had to achieve in

10 the past, in the context of the major changes that the

11 Authority had seen witnessed over the last decade this

12 was actually not at the same scale. I was not

13 suggesting for one moment that the impact on the

14 individual is dramatic. It does not matter whether it

15 is three jobs that go, the impact on those individuals

16 is dramatic. It is extremely painful and if I have

17 misled you about my view, that is -- please accept my

18 apology about that.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Let me just mention two other points.

20 You will no doubt have seen that one of the features of

21 this Inquiry is that we have had -- and I will put this

22 mildly and gently -- immense problem in getting the full

23 documentation from Haringey. Amongst the many reasons

24 that Haringey have advanced as to are why we have had

25 those difficulties has been that the documents have been

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1 in the wrong place, that there has been a fair degree of

2 confusion about where to find the documents. Do you

3 accept that the organisation that you left behind in the

4 social care service, there was organisational confusion

5 in relation to the management of documents?

6 MR SINGH: I cannot actually comment on that. I have no

7 idea how Haringey have ended up in the position it has

8 ended up as, presenting you with information in the way

9 it has. I have not got sufficient knowledge about the

10 problems which Haringey have experienced in furnishing

11 you with information to make comment.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: I did not ask you about that, I asked you

13 when you left Haringey were you of the view that there

14 was an organisational mess in the management of

15 documents?

16 MR SINGH: No there was not. My view was that when I left

17 Haringey, yes there were certain problems within the

18 Authority, but actually it was -- I mean dare I say it

19 a better organisation than that which I started working

20 in all those many, many years ago and that actually it

21 was moving in the right direction and that there was not

22 this motion of organisational chaos which could then

23 lead to documents either being in the wrong place or

24 then found subsequently. I have no idea Lord Laming how

25 that has actually happened.

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1 THE CHAIRMAN: One of the things that was necessary after

2 Victoria died was to secure the case file. Not of

3 itself an organisationally demanding task.

4 MR SINGH: No.

5 THE CHAIRMAN: I would have thought a fairly --

6 MR SINGH: Straightforward task. Absolutely.

7 THE CHAIRMAN: Why did it not happen?

8 MR SINGH: I do not know. Sorry -- this is an omission on

9 my part. I had not realised that there were major

10 problems with that individual case file. I simply did

11 not know. This is absolute -- on oath and everything

12 else, this is the first time hearing that. Now that may

13 well be because I have not had sufficient time to read

14 everything on the website or indeed followed the case in

15 sufficient detail, although I have tried to spend a fair

16 amount of time looking at the evidence. I had not

17 realised that a simple matter about case file recovery

18 had caused a problem.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: So finally, it is your view -- and tell me if

20 this is right or wrong -- that when you left Haringey it

21 was in a well managed, well-run condition?

22 MR SINGH: Well-managed, well-run may be overstating it.

23 I think there were some departments that were extremely

24 well-run and well-managed. There were others that were

25 not. Most certainly the extent to which there appears

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1 this apparent mismanagement of Social Services is

2 something very much new to me. I did not have that

3 perception at the time.

4 I thought, whilst there may well be problems, that

5 management were actually on top of it, that the

6 department was actually being well-led, and that

7 increasingly we were putting in place proper systems and

8 processes, including the use of information technology

9 to be able to generate all the things that we previously

10 had been missing.

11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr Singh. Mr Garnham.

12 MR GARNHAM: Sir no further questions from me, thank you

13 very much.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Singh for your evidence today.

15 MR GARNHAM: Sir that completes our business for today. We

16 have just one witness for tomorrow, Mary Richardson.

17 I would ask you to adjourn until tomorrow morning.

18 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, indeed.

19 MS BOYE: Sir, sorry to keep you further. Can I just ask

20 that Mr and Mrs Climbie be excused tomorrow. We have

21 childcare difficulties, the children have broken up from

22 school, and also that I be excused for part of tomorrow

23 afternoon.

24 THE CHAIRMAN: I agree with both of those requests, of

25 course. And I hope that you will convey to Mr and

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1 Mrs Climbie that I understand the issues around

2 childcare.

3 MS BOYE: Thank you sir.

4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed. Ladies and

5 gentlemen we will adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow

6 morning. Thank you very much indeed.

7 (4.55 pm)

8 (Hearing adjourned until 10 am the following day)

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