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Archived Transcript for 23 January 2002: Pages
1 to 50
1
1 Wednesday, 23rd January 2002
2 (10.00 am)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
4 Ms Gibson.
5 MS GIBSON: If I could call Jenny Goodall back to give her
6 evidence.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.
8 MS JENNY GOODALL (continued)
9 MS GIBSON: Thank you. Good morning Ms Goodall. Obviously
10 you are still under oath. If I could begin where we
11 left off yesterday evening, you were mentioning figures
12 or I had asked you about figures in relation to children
13 in need. I do not know if you have been able to
14 establish --
15 MS GOODALL: I have not overnight. I am very happy to
16 provide what information we have to the Inquiry.
17 MS GIBSON: Thank you. It may be helpful if you could do
18 that. I want you to look now at bundle 45H page 238.
19 I think you have that now. This is in relation to
20 spending on Children's Services within Brent and it
21 seems, from looking at these tables, that Brent as it
22 says here has a good SSA in relation to comparator outer
23 London authorities, but Brent shares many features of
24 inner London authorities. Would you agree with that
25 analysis?
2
1 MS GOODALL: I would agree.
2 MS GIBSON: Yes. Looking here really the report makes the
3 point that because of the fact that Brent has these
4 features of an inner London authority, given the
5 spending is relatively low compared to comparator
6 authorities, and is below SSA, that that is something
7 which must be of concern.
8 MS GOODALL: Yes, there is no doubt that our expenditure is
9 low compared to other similar authorities and in
10 comparison with our SSA.
11 MS GIBSON: Is that a matter that you consider, do you use
12 a comparison between SSA and what you are actually
13 spending?
14 MS GOODALL: I think the comparison with SSA is probably
15 less useful than comparisons with how similar -- other
16 similar authorities are spending per head of child
17 populace. I think there are other more useful
18 comparators.
19 MS GIBSON: We see there in the bottom chart, chart 2, that
20 Brent is the third lowest within that grouping of
21 similar authorities in respect of spending on Children's
22 Services. That is in the year 1999-2000. And then over
23 the page to 239, an analysis of spending on children in
24 need and again that spending figure is relatively low
25 and this is a comparison between a group of I think what
3
1 would be termed outer London authorities rather than
2 inner London authorities.
3 MS GOODALL: Yes.
4 MS GIBSON: So, given what it says earlier in this report
5 about the features within Brent suggesting that there
6 were inner London problems, this analysis of spending is
7 worrying.
8 MS GOODALL: The spending, the amount of money that we have
9 traditionally been spending on Children's Services is
10 worrying and that is why we have been trying to --
11 I have been trying to put that right over the last two
12 years.
13 MS GIBSON: How does spending now compare with SSA?
14 MS GOODALL: Our expenditure for -- our anticipated
15 expenditure for next year will bring us almost up to
16 SSA, within one per cent of spending against SSA.
17 MS GIBSON: Do you in fact think that in order to deliver
18 the necessary service you may need to spend above SSA?
19 MS GOODALL: I have no doubt. We have agreement with the
20 politicians that we have to have a medium term financial
21 strategy which is increasing year on year our
22 expenditure on all Social Services but on Children's
23 Services in particular.
24 MS GIBSON: You within Brent have been able to find a way to
25 do that within the budget. How have you been able to
4
1 find this additional money for Children's Services?
2 MS GOODALL: If I could give an example of just this year in
3 response to the SSI report in July, inspection report
4 in July, that as a result of that report members
5 released from balance -- immediately from balance an
6 amount of money, almost £120,000 immediately, to recruit
7 more staff and agreed there would be an increase to
8 Social Services' cash limit of half a million pounds in
9 the full year costs for the following year.
10 So the way that it is being addressed in Brent is
11 that members are giving Children's Social Services and
12 Social Services in general a higher priority for growth
13 than other Council departments, so we in fact are
14 expecting a significant amount of growth next year once
15 the budget is finalised.
16 MS GIBSON: Do you think looking generally in terms of
17 lessons that any authority across the country where
18 there is a significant underspend compared to SSA should
19 be asking itself questions about why that is the case
20 and looking at comparator authorities and considering
21 indeed whether they are spending enough money?
22 MS GOODALL: I think you have to make a comparison on
23 a whole range of different comparators to see whether
24 and what particular needs are of any authority and what
25 expenditure is needed to meet those needs.
5
1 MS GIBSON: How do you go about that process of analysis?
2 MS GOODALL: I think we are looking at the comparator with
3 boroughs that we feel are similar to ours, particularly
4 expenditure per head of child populace, looking at
5 levels of spend on particular services, staffing
6 numbers, a range of different things which would see how
7 we were performing compared to other boroughs who we
8 would expect to have a similar sort of activity and need
9 level.
10 It is quite hard to be absolutely scientific about
11 translating populace need into actual expenditure but
12 I mean clearly using other authorities is a very useful
13 way of doing that.
14 MS GIBSON: Is anything being done to examine the way that
15 eligibility criteria work and the effectiveness of that?
16 MS GOODALL: We have just introduced eligibility criteria.
17 The SSI commended in the 2001 inspection but we will
18 be -- we will be reviewing it because clearly it is new
19 and we want to make sure that the thresholds are right
20 in terms of not being either too high or too low.
21 MS GIBSON: I think it is right that sometimes in looking at
22 how successful policy is in relation to sorting out
23 difficulties in relation to children in need and child
24 protection, analysis is made of the number of children
25 on the Child Protection Register and success to an
6
1 extent measured on whether that number is decreased. Do
2 you think that can sometimes be unhelpful in that there
3 is too much emphasis in getting children's names off the
4 register where it may be entirely appropriate for there
5 to be that number of children on the register?
6 MS GOODALL: I do not think necessarily a low number of
7 children on the Child Protection Register is an
8 indication of good practice. I think it is too
9 simplistic to see simple numbers in itself as indicating
10 whether that is the right or the wrong level. Again it
11 is useful to use comparators, often benchmarking is the
12 best way of judging one's performance, but one does have
13 to be looking at such factors as the ratio of children
14 on the Child Protection Register to investigations to
15 numbers of children referred. So I think it is overly
16 simplistic just to look at say low numbers good, high
17 numbers bad. Obviously if you had huge numbers of
18 children on the Child Protection Register compared to
19 another authority then one might be asking some
20 questions about that.
21 MS GIBSON: Looking specifically at the table on 239 and the
22 spending on children in need, I just wonder what
23 attention is being paid to that particular aspect.
24 Clearly that is key in identifying at an early stage
25 where there are problems and having early intervention
7
1 in cases before they might turn into child protection
2 cases.
3 MS GOODALL: The increase in budget in Children's Services
4 is not just for child protection but is for services
5 across the board and that would include children in
6 need.
7 MS GIBSON: Can I ask you now about the information that is
8 relayed to councillors and you say within your statement
9 that councillors should receive regular information on
10 budgets and performance indicator to enable them to
11 carry out their corporate parenting role. What
12 information do you currently supply councillors with?
13 MS GOODALL: Councillors through the committee process
14 receive quarterly reports on budgets and budget
15 expenditure. The administration receives detailed
16 information about budgets as part of the member --
17 ongoing member chief officer groupings. We meet once
18 a month with lead members and budgets are reported to
19 them. We also have budget planning awaydays twice
20 a year.
21 In terms of performance indicators we report on
22 a whole range of indicators, specifically in relation to
23 children we report on the Quality Protects Management
24 Action Plan. We report on that both to members through
25 the Scrutiny -- through Scrutiny and the Deciding
8
1 Committee, Social Services. We also report to the Chief
2 Executive's Quality Protects Management Group, again on
3 the outcomes against the objectives in the Quality
4 Protects plan. We report to members on the SSI action
5 plans arising out of the inspections. We report on the
6 performance indicators. We report on the performance
7 assessment framework, the indicators from the Department
8 of Health.
9 MS GIBSON: I think one of your actions -- I forget now
10 which action plan it was within, to be completed
11 by February 2002 -- was to look at reaching an agreement
12 with a leader about providing information to enable
13 members to fulfil their corporate role. Is that still
14 work in progress or is that what you have --
15 MS GOODALL: Yes, it is still work in progress. That will
16 be in addition to the processes that I have just
17 described. As you will know, the Council's
18 decision-making processes will all be changed
19 after March and we are in the process of negotiating
20 a specific committee, sub-committee that will be
21 responsible for scrutinising Children's Services.
22 Under the new decision-making arrangements there
23 will no longer be a Social Services Committee and what
24 we are proposing is that there would be a standing
25 committee in relation to Children's Services which will
9
1 be where we will be able to report in the detail of
2 these, of all of those indicators, performance
3 indicators and that would then -- that group would then
4 have a route back in through the Council Scrutiny
5 Committee and that will be a way of setting up a formal
6 scrutinising role for Children's Services within the new
7 structure.
8 MS GIBSON: Can I ask you to look at page 209 within the
9 same bundle. That is a report by you to the Scrutiny
10 Committee following the July 2001 inspection, is that
11 right?
12 MS GOODALL: That is right.
13 MS GIBSON: Looking through that report, there is no real
14 sense of the magnitude of the problems that appear in
15 the 2001 report.
16 MS GOODALL: I do not think I would agree with that.
17 I think we in this report tried to convey the range of
18 concerns and also where our work had been endorsed and
19 this report was in fact -- is in fact presented by the
20 inspectors responsible for the inspection. So it is not
21 just the report that members had, they had the direct
22 opportunity to hear from and question the inspectors.
23 MS GIBSON: It is just that looking through that document we
24 do not see references to some of the concerns that
25 I have touched on both during the course of your
10
1 evidence and that of Mimi Konigsberg about staff feeling
2 unsafe through lack of supervision, the problems in
3 tracking cases. One does not really get a sense of that
4 and I just want to ask you about how you ensure that
5 members are given the complete picture and how it is
6 underlined to them when there are serious issues that
7 need to be addressed within Children's Services.
8 MS GOODALL: Well, I do not necessarily agree and certainly
9 the tenor of the discussion both at Cabinet when this
10 report was presented and at the Scrutiny Committee was
11 a frank summary of the report and I had already briefed
12 the senior members, the Leader, the Deputy Leader and
13 the Lead Member immediately after the SSI report and was
14 very frank and full with them about the concerns that
15 the SSI had raised about practice at that time.
16 MS GIBSON: In that report you refer to background
17 information, the two reports, but those were not -- it
18 is left to the members to (Inaudible) those reports or
19 were they actually --
20 MS GOODALL: Sorry, all the members had a copy of the report
21 so they would have had that, they would have had the
22 direct material.
23 MS GIBSON: Are you satisfied from your discussion with
24 members that they understand the issues involved?
25 MS GOODALL: Yes, I have no doubt they understood the issues
11
1 involved. I mentioned the additional money that had
2 been allocated to Social Services and that was in direct
3 response to their understanding of how serious the
4 situation was.
5 MS GIBSON: Looking at the length of time it took at
6 a corporate level to respond to the issue of recruitment
7 in terms of agreeing the salary increase in October
8 2001, there does seem to be a very lengthy period of
9 time before effective measures were taken and we have
10 heard that part of the reason was the need to look at
11 this corporate level and agree the salary, so it was not
12 out of sync with other arrangements within the Council.
13 Do you think that that was too slow a response by the
14 corporate centre?
15 MS GOODALL: I think as I said yesterday that process should
16 have been quicker. I do not think it was simply
17 a matter of the corporate centre not responding quickly
18 enough. I take responsibility for not having hurried it
19 through the system as quickly as it should have been.
20 It should have been concluded more quickly than it was
21 and I think I did say that yesterday.
22 MS GIBSON: Yes. I just want to ask you now about
23 monitoring. What systems do you have in place, and
24 I appreciate that you are at a much higher and remoter
25 level by necessity in your role, but what do you do to
12
1 look at practice at the front line or do you rely on
2 intermediaries to assure you about that?
3 MS GOODALL: Well there has to be some reliance on
4 intermediaries. I have to -- in Children's Services
5 I have to rely on the assistant director to inform me
6 and by having a very experienced assistant director
7 clearly I can have some reliance on what she would be
8 telling me about what is happening. I do get -- I also
9 get the performance data in terms of such things as how
10 we are doing in relation to completing reviews or
11 allocated cases, so there are indicators that I can take
12 from the written information.
13 I also take the opportunity I was asked yesterday
14 about whether I visit the front line. I take
15 opportunities to visit front line services and see how
16 they are looking and have an opportunity to talk to
17 staff and, you know, I am alert to comments from other
18 agencies, to taking note of any complaints that come
19 through or any incidents that come through in terms of
20 how cases or families have been handled.
21 So it is a combination of written information that
22 I can see whether the things have gone wrong or how
23 things are going, direct contact, but also hearing on
24 a regular basis how the assistant director is monitoring
25 the performance of her team.
13
1 MS GIBSON: Do you ever dip sample any case files just to
2 check for yourself?
3 MS GOODALL: No, I have not done that.
4 MS GIBSON: Do you think that that might be valuable?
5 MS GOODALL: It could be of value. I think it is -- you
6 know, I would have to think about that. It would be
7 a lot of people, if really the assistant director and
8 the service unit managers and team managers are all
9 carrying out those sorts of immediate checks, for the
10 director to be doing it as well I am not sure how much
11 that would add. I think I need to see the results of
12 case audits and certainly the processes we have put in
13 place to see how, when somebody has actually done a full
14 and thorough audit of case files, I mean that provides
15 me with much more of a reliable indicator than it would
16 if I just pulled one or two files, but it is useful
17 to -- as I did a couple of weeks ago -- to go and spend
18 time in the duty room and just look at the sorts of
19 things that are physically coming across people's desks.
20 MS GIBSON: I think that a workload management model was due
21 to be introduced by Brent in the new year. How
22 effective do you think that will be in dealing with
23 workload?
24 MS GOODALL: I think workload, from experience as a direct
25 manager myself, that workload management systems are
14
1 always a struggle but I think we do need to have one.
2 I think quite rightly just simply counting the number of
3 cases does not give a flavour as to the complexity and
4 the weight behind someone's workload, so some system
5 whereby work is weighted and then compared to other
6 workloads I think will help staff. It will not be the
7 answer to everything, I think it still means that
8 stresses and pressures of work have to be managed
9 through the supervision process.
10 MS GIBSON: Are you close to introducing that system?
11 MS GOODALL: My understanding is that there were one or two
12 systems that were being tried out. Obviously what we
13 wanted is to have systems that actually the staff and
14 the managers felt comfortable with and owned, because if
15 we introduce a system that staff and managers do not
16 like it simply will not work and those different methods
17 were being evaluated.
18 MS GIBSON: Do you think how soon it will be before --
19 MS GOODALL: I do not exactly. I would expect if it is --
20 if it has not happened already it is imminent.
21 MS GIBSON: Can I ask you finally about the use of police
22 protection orders, a slightly different subject but one
23 I would like to cover. We know in this case that police
24 protection was used really largely as a result of the
25 timing of when the referral came through. Has anything
15
1 been done to look at the use of police protection?
2 MS GOODALL: Well, the new child protection procedures are
3 quite clear about that, that police protection should
4 not be used without consulting with the manager, that it
5 is only in the exception that it should not happen
6 without legal advice being sought. So the Child
7 Protection Procedures are actually much more
8 prescriptive about the use of police protection and that
9 emergency protection orders are the norm rather than the
10 other way around.
11 MS GIBSON: Has anything been done to monitor the degree to
12 which police protection is being used and whether there
13 has been a fall off after this measure has been
14 implemented?
15 MS GOODALL: The ACPC would have responsibility for
16 monitoring that.
17 MS GIBSON: Has there been greater emphasis on the role of
18 the Emergency Duty Team consequently, if police
19 protection is to be less used and emergency protection
20 more, if you have a situation arising outside normal
21 office hours is that something the Emergency Duty Team
22 will deal with?
23 MS GOODALL: I do not think there would ever have been
24 a problem. We have a very high calibre Emergency Duty
25 Team and although the rule is, the protocol is that
16
1 generally work that started before 5 o'clock is carried
2 on by the team that started it, the Emergency Duty Team
3 are always ready to take on work after 5 o'clock, so
4 there would be no issue about the Emergency Team having
5 the capacity to take on, applying for emergency
6 protection orders.
7 Clearly there are always issues about timing and the
8 later it gets in the evening the more urgent the action
9 is needed and therefore the more use of police
10 protection. But I do not think that there would be an
11 issue in relation to the Emergency Duty Team.
12 MS GIBSON: Thank you very much. I have no more questions.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Ms Gibson. Mr Turner please.
14 MR TURNER: Three points very briefly if I may Ms Goodall.
15 The first is what practical difference do you think that
16 the establishment in March of a Children's Standing
17 Committee will make to councillors' understanding of
18 what is happening in Children's Services, the strengths,
19 weaknesses et cetera?
20 MS GOODALL: I do not know that it will necessarily improve
21 on what we have now. It will be a dedicated group of
22 councillors who will have an interest and develop some
23 expertise in children's issues but I think at the moment
24 we certainly give councillors a lot of information. It
25 will be formalised under the new structure and therefore
17
1 will be an opportunity for more scrutiny but I do not
2 see -- I think at the moment councillors are very well
3 informed of what is happening in Children's Services.
4 MR TURNER: Is the committee entirely comprised of
5 councillors, served by officers, or is it a mixture?
6 What is the constitution --
7 MS GOODALL: I have to say that we have not finalised the
8 agreement for this because the decision-making processes
9 are still being finalised for implementation in May, but
10 what I envisage and what I am proposing is that it would
11 be a normal councillor/member committee. The Lead
12 Member for Social Services would not be a member of that
13 committee but would be called on to be scrutinised by it
14 and give evidence to it and members would be -- officers
15 would be there in support.
16 MR TURNER: The second point is the question of supervision,
17 staff supervision. One of the issues which emerges very
18 clearly from the November update from the Social
19 Services Inspectorate relates to communication with
20 staff and the whole question of staff feeling supported
21 and helped forward. What confidence have you that the
22 new supervision procedures will improve that dimension?
23 MS GOODALL: Well, the new procedures are very exact in
24 terms of standards, they are very exact in terms of what
25 has to be recorded and they also bring with them audit
18
1 and monitoring so that the situation whereby supervision
2 falls by the wayside could not, just could not happen
3 again because that would be picked up both by managers
4 and by independent audit, and clearly supervision is
5 very important not just to the frontline staff but to
6 the managers, and our supervision policy is clear about
7 the supervision that will be given to staff at all
8 levels from the frontline staff to senior and middle
9 managers and will make -- and it will make a difference
10 because it will be guaranteed.
11 I think also from staff recruitment point of view to
12 be able to point to the fact that we do have good
13 standards of supervision, that often is something that
14 is of considerable importance to staff.
15 MR TURNER: Thirdly, police protection orders you have just
16 been asked about. The ACPC Child Protection Procedures
17 have been substantially rewritten and the Inquiry has
18 all those. Am I right in assuming that significant
19 sections of those procedures relating to police
20 protection orders have been specifically rewritten?
21 MS GOODALL: Yes, the section relating, the whole of the
22 ACPC procedures have been rewritten but specifically
23 about police protection.
24 MR TURNER: And have events surrounding Victoria's death had
25 any influence on that rewriting exercise?
19
1 MS GOODALL: What came out of the Part 8 review in relation
2 to Victoria's death really was the sort of leading
3 influence on the areas that we were changing in the ACPC
4 procedures and certainly the use, the custom and
5 practice of using police protection was something that
6 we addressed in the ACPC procedures.
7 MR TURNER: Thank you.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Turner. Ms Goodall, could I ask
9 you a couple of questions in relation to your evidence
10 yesterday first please. You said, and if I may say so
11 I think rightly, that although pay is important it is
12 not the only factor which enables an authority not just
13 to recruit but also to retain staff. As staffing is
14 such an important matter in the Children's Services in
15 Brent, what are the other factors that you are
16 specifically giving thought to?
17 MS GOODALL: In terms of retaining staff?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
19 MS GOODALL: Well, I think the training programme, we
20 have -- we now have a very extensive training programme.
21 We have opportunity, we have a development programme for
22 staff in terms of post qualifying training to make
23 opportunities for people to develop their careers.
24 Through our equalities action plan we have specific
25 programmes addressed to our staff, a substantial number
20
1 of our staff who come from ethnic minorities.
2 We have talked about supervision and improving
3 supervision. We have developed the planning process
4 that we are about to adopt for the department and it is
5 called EFQM; it used to be the Business Excellence
6 Model, now called the European Framework for Quality
7 Management. That is the planning mechanism which
8 involves staff at all levels, really directing those
9 changes to making staff feel involved and engaged and
10 that they have some control not just over their own
11 working lives but over what happens in the department as
12 a whole.
13 We do now have a communication strategy. We accept
14 that staff do need to feel connected. We have
15 a communications officer, that is new. We are
16 developing ways with staff of asking staff how they feel
17 that communications can be improved. We have looked at
18 such things as the physical environment that our staff
19 work in. I think the physical environment was poor, it
20 had been neglected. We have made some considerable
21 improvements to that.
22 So I think there is a range of areas really trying
23 to make Brent a better place to be. I mean, we have
24 talked about staff turnover. We do actually have quite
25 a high number of very loyal staff to Brent, Brent is
21
1 somewhere that people get very attached to, and we also
2 want to encourage those staff to feel good about their
3 continuing working with Brent.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thanks, that is very helpful. I am sure that
5 you have put an enormous amount of effort into these
6 matters since you went to Brent. I do not have doubt
7 about that. If I could just read you a section of the
8 SSI report that I am sure you are familiar with and
9 I can take you to the page if you want to.
10 MS GOODALL: It is engraved on my heart.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Absolutely, I understand. Let me read this
12 section, I would like to ask you about it. The
13 inspectors say:
14 "We found the same concerns were raised repeatedly
15 by staff at operational level. They were presented
16 thoughtfully and were clearly communicated. Those
17 working in the Long Term Teams consistently felt the
18 standards of service they could provide the children and
19 their families had got worse in significant respects and
20 we detail that in the report. They express very serious
21 concerns about their ability to provide services that
22 they consider safe or that they could defend if
23 challenged in respect of their assessments of risk in
24 the quality of work."
25 It goes on to say:
22
1 "We concluded that practice standards were still
2 a cause for serious concern."
3 It is alarming that after all that we have heard
4 about what happened to Victoria when it happened, that
5 not only are the inspectors saying what they are saying
6 but actually the staff are reporting that in their view
7 the position is worse.
8 MS GOODALL: Well, it is difficult to -- I find it difficult
9 to understand what they mean by "worse" and I do not
10 want to devalue the views of staff because if that is
11 how they say they feel I do not want to contradict what
12 they are saying, but if one looks at some of the hard
13 evidence, for example the massive improvement we have
14 made in carrying out reviews of looked after children,
15 now the percentage is over 85 per cent, we started
16 I think from a base of about 35 per cent. Now, that
17 suggests to me that we have made an improvement in the
18 quality of work with children.
19 The same is true for children on the Child
20 Protection Register, the percentage of reviews carried
21 out on time with children on the Child Protection
22 Register has increased enormously. We do have
23 mechanisms in place for example through our reviewing
24 officers of having feedback about the quality of work
25 and we have not had -- we have not had from them
23
1 evidence that the quality of work is declining, there
2 are areas of concern about some of the work quite
3 clearly but we have not had evidence from them that work
4 is declining.
5 So I think what happened with the SSI report, and as
6 I say it sounds as though -- I do not want to sound as
7 though I am denying what the staff are saying, but they
8 did get staff feeling demoralised. There has been a lot
9 of change, but I am not sure that if we had looked at
10 actual factual evidence in terms of the work that was
11 done overall, that necessarily we would have seen that
12 there had been a deterioration. There clearly had not
13 been the improvement in practice that we would have
14 wanted and we were disappointed that that had happened.
15 I think I would want to say again that the new
16 referral and assessment teams for example had only been
17 set up six weeks before the SSI came and we are talking
18 about a very major change turnaround in Children's
19 Services and that does take time. Perhaps we had been
20 overly optimistic after the first SSI report in May 2000
21 as to the speed with which we could bring those changes
22 about when we were trying to change things on so many
23 other fronts.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: My concern is this, that Brent is not the
25 only organisation that has come to give evidence to the
24
1 Inquiry where there has been a huge disparity in
2 perception between the senior managers and the front
3 line staff about what is happening, and here we have
4 a situation where you and the assistant director are
5 saying that there has been a huge improvement. At the
6 same time we have got the staff saying that actually
7 things have got worse and the reviewing officers
8 consider the quality of practice had deteriorated and
9 the inspectors say that there are still grounds for not
10 just concern but for serious concern. How is it that
11 within an organisation there is such a big difference of
12 perception about where the reality actually lies?
13 MS GOODALL: Well I am not sure that the difference in
14 perception is as great as you are describing. I have
15 just said that there is an enormous change programme to
16 go to carry out, and the first objective in our
17 departmental strategy for change is about improving
18 service standards. We are in no doubt that that is the
19 area where we have to put the most effort in. We have
20 been putting in place the framework, the infrastructure
21 to support those improvements because without that we
22 just cannot bring the improvements about.
23 So I do not think there is -- maybe we are being
24 overly optimistic, that is because I believe very
25 sincerely that those changes are happening and will
25
1 happen. Perhaps I was, as I just said, overly
2 optimistic about the time that it would take to make
3 these changes.
4 I think we do have to and we have agreed now we do
5 have to have a major injection of new resources into
6 Children's Services and part of it is -- you know,
7 people are working very hard and that can get
8 dispiriting. We are talking about staff working in
9 Children's Services in a difficult borough with
10 pressures from workloads, and I believe that one of the
11 things that I heard from many of the staff who gave
12 evidence to this Inquiry was that they were
13 acknowledging that things were improving and that things
14 were getting better. So I do not think it is
15 a universally black picture from the staff's point of
16 view and I do not think that the staff are and ourselves
17 as senior managers are really that far apart.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Fine, then nothing that I want to say I hope
19 will be taken as in any way wanting to dent your
20 enthusiasm or indeed your commitment to get things
21 right, but what I do want to understand is more about
22 the process, and if I can follow up on a question
23 Ms Gibson asked you, am I right in thinking that when
24 the SSI report was presented to the committee that the
25 SSI presented their report and what you did was to
26
1 present a report with an action plan?
2 MS GOODALL: Yes, the process was that we wrote a committee
3 report and that we had already agreed an action plan
4 with the inspectors, so there was a covering report
5 which is the one that has just been referred to and the
6 report was presented to members and the action plan was
7 presented to members at that time. There were two
8 occasions the report in its entirety was presented to
9 Cabinet and those papers go to all members in the
10 Council, so that would include the report. The report
11 was presented again at Scrutiny and again a copy of the
12 report would have gone with that.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: The reason I ask this is that as you may
14 know, some of your members came and gave evidence to
15 this Inquiry and left a considerable impression on me.
16 You said that there was a very full and frank discussion
17 about the SSI report. The difficulty is that that full
18 and frank discussion by members is not recorded in
19 a full and frank way when what we have is the SSI report
20 and the report, the covering report you refer to which
21 perhaps does not capture the level of concern that
22 I think I took when I read the SSI report.
23 MS GOODALL: Members also, not on the same occasion but
24 earlier, at the end of last year, members also had
25 a report on the proposals to increase staffing in
27
1 Children's Services and that did make it clear to
2 members that we were increasing staffing in order to
3 improve standards, service standards and that that
4 was -- that had been prompted by the SSI report, that
5 the full and frank discussion that we had with the
6 senior members of the administration was really to gain
7 their approval to additional funding before we put that
8 into the public arena.
9 Clearly they would have to have a view about that
10 before we were able to put that as a proposal to
11 members.
12 I mean, if I could say that I have to apologise for
13 overenthusiasm if that is what I am being accused of,
14 but there was no question of not being full and frank
15 with members about the SSI report, and the inspectors
16 who had the opportunity to present their report very
17 fully to members certainly did not pull any punches.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me be clear, I do not accuse anybody of
19 anything, I just try to understand, and if I convey
20 anything beyond that then I apologise for that, it is
21 not intended and certainly the last thing I want to do
22 is to question your enthusiasm. On the contrary, I want
23 to support it in every way possible. But I do need to
24 understand in respect of the lessons that are to be
25 learned by Brent and perhaps by other local authorities
28
1 exactly what kind of confidence can be drawn from this
2 Inquiry about local authorities' ability to protect
3 children.
4 Put in a nutshell, Victoria was in contact with four
5 local authorities in 11 months and she suffered
6 dreadfully in ways that I find difficult to describe and
7 in the end she was murdered. Now, do you think that in
8 respect of your local authority these issues have been
9 taken sufficiently seriously, but more than that, do you
10 think that the protection of children can be safely
11 entrusted to your local authority?
12 MS GOODALL: I would not want to underestimate the impact
13 that Victoria's death had on us in Brent and, you know,
14 I know that issues about apologies have been raised in
15 other contexts but we have not in Brent had the
16 opportunity or have not taken the opportunity of saying
17 to Mr and Mrs Climbie about how very sorry we are for
18 what happened to Victoria, and the fact that there were
19 opportunities to help Victoria that in that short time
20 that she was in Brent were not taken.
21 I think that they will always be -- in the best run
22 authorities there will always be opportunities for
23 things to go wrong. I think what I have to say about
24 Brent, and I cannot speak for the other authorities, is
25 that protection of children is taken as the highest
29
1 priority and the fact that we are -- we have undergone
2 such an enormous period of change, all of that change
3 has been directed to improving the standards of service
4 in Brent and, you know, I cannot account for what has
5 happened in the past in Brent, I can only account for
6 what is happening now, but I know that what Brent has
7 now, it has me, with absolute commitment to professional
8 and service standards; it has excellent assistant
9 directors, I have an excellent Management Team. We have
10 really the highest calibre of managers at third tier
11 level and the commitment of all of those is about
12 improving service standards.
13 In Brent there is a very high level of political
14 commitment to getting things right and I have been
15 supported throughout politically and by the Chief
16 Executive in doing whatever is necessary to get the
17 services to the standard. The members want those
18 services to be at that standard. I have no doubt that
19 properly run social services departments are
20 perfectly -- are the place for protecting children and
21 that is what I am committed to delivering.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: You see, I meant to look this up overnight
23 and I am afraid I failed to do so, but my memory is
24 Brent have produced a strategic plan, a business plan,
25 where children were not even referred to.
30
1 MS GOODALL: The corporate objectives?
2 THE CHAIRMAN: That is the one.
3 MS GOODALL: I think there was a period when Social Services
4 somehow slipped below the horizon I would have to say in
5 Brent, and that is not where they are now. They are
6 absolutely at the forefront of everybody's ideas and
7 I do not want to lay the blame at anybody for that but
8 the needs and the requirements of Social Services were
9 not as at the forefront as they should have been.
10 That is not the case at the moment and when the next
11 corporate strategy is produced, Social Services will be
12 right up there and there is -- I have not seen what is
13 likely to be produced in relation to the manifestos for
14 the elections, but I know that children's issues and
15 social services issues generally are going to be very
16 much at the forefront of what members are going to be
17 putting forward.
18 So there has been a huge -- I have to say there has
19 been a huge change in those four years since the
20 corporate strategy was produced.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: You refer to Mr and Mrs Climbie. Yesterday
22 I asked about Mrs Ackah who made a phone call and I got
23 what I can best describe as an enigmatic response. Is
24 there any light you can shed on that?
25 MS GOODALL: I think when we found, you know it came out at
31
1 the trial as you recall that she had made the referral,
2 and that up to then I did not know that there was any
3 suggestion that there had been another referral and we
4 could not find at that stage -- we could not locate
5 a referral, and I sort of looked back, that I certainly
6 know that myself I was very careful particularly in
7 press statements not to say there had not been
8 a previous referral but that we could not -- it could
9 not be located.
10 I think at that stage when we did locate it, in
11 retrospect that was the moment to have written to
12 Mrs Ackah and say we have found it, we are sorry that
13 there was an implication it was not found.
14 You know, I have to say that I did not have that
15 thought until this Inquiry started and I did not want to
16 give an apology to Mrs Ackah while the Inquiry was going
17 on because I think to be frank that I did not want to
18 run the risk of people feeling that that was a cynical
19 act in order to put things right while the Inquiry was
20 happening. I think it is something that I would want to
21 best do quietly out of the glare of any publicity once
22 all this is over, but the point at which I should have
23 written an apology was in February.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for that. One final
25 question and that is that you mentioned that matters
32
1 about police protection, that is the recording and the
2 consideration of police protection, would be considered
3 by the ACPC, if I understood you right. Can you tell me
4 what the mechanism for that is?
5 MS GOODALL: I think the mechanism is reporting back on all
6 of the sort of indicators in relation to child
7 protection and that is numbers and all the factual
8 information, and also the case review, the sub-group,
9 the case review sub-group of the ACPC which will be
10 looking at particular issues about practice, and I do
11 not know the exact mechanism by which the numbers of
12 police protection orders would be reported back to the
13 ACPC, but that is my expectation, that they have the
14 responsibility of monitoring all of the procedures and
15 all of the child protection activity against those
16 procedures.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed. It goes without
18 saying that the monitoring needs not just to be about
19 numbers, it needs to also be about the reasons why and
20 the quality of the work that was done. Are you
21 satisfied that there are procedures in place for you
22 to --
23 MS GOODALL: I am satisfied. I think the ACPC really has
24 been absolutely revitalised and I have a lot of
25 confidence in it. That is why I mentioned the case
33
1 review sub-group because that is concerned with quality,
2 not just statistics.
3 MS GIBSON: Thank you sir, I have no further questions.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your evidence.
5 MS GIBSON: Mr Sheldon will take the next witness.
6 MR SHELDON: Norman Tutt please.
7 MR NORMAN TUTT (affirmed)
8 MR SHELDON: Good morning Mr Tutt.
9 MR TUTT: Morning.
10 MR SHELDON: Could you confirm your full name and
11 professional address please.
12 MR TUTT: My name is Norman Sidney Tutt and my professional
13 address is Perceval House, 14 to 16 Uxbridge Road,
14 Ealing, London W5.
15 MR SHELDON: You have made one statement for use by this
16 Inquiry, sir it is volume 1 page 212. It looks as
17 though a copy of that has just arrived in front of you.
18 Could you look at the last page of it please. Is that
19 your signature?
20 MR TUTT: It is.
21 MR SHELDON: Are you happy that the contents of that
22 statement are true or do you have any amendments to
23 make?
24 MR TUTT: There is one amendment. I notice in paragraph 5
25 it should read "in December 1997".
34
1 MR SHELDON: Instead of 1977?
2 MR TUTT: Yes.
3 MR SHELDON: Apart from that are you happy with it?
4 MR TUTT: I am.
5 MR SHELDON: You became as I understand it the Interim
6 Director of Social Services in Ealing in June 1998, is
7 that right?
8 MR TUTT: That is correct.
9 MR SHELDON: And you replaced in that capacity the former
10 Director who had resigned from the authority after it
11 was put on special measures in December 1997, is that
12 correct?
13 MR TUTT: It was actually put on special measures I think
14 in June 1998. The inspection was completed, the report
15 in 1997 but there was some delay before there was any
16 action taken as a result of that report.
17 MR SHELDON: Thank you. You were confirmed in that post of
18 Director in January 1999?
19 MR TUTT: Well, you say confirmed. In fact there was
20 a formal recruitment process in November and I chose to
21 apply for the post and in open competition was
22 appointed.
23 MR SHELDON: I see, and you stayed there until 2001 when you
24 became the Executive Director of Housing and Social
25 Services which was a new post, was it?
35
1 MR TUTT: That is correct, it was.
2 MR SHELDON: When in 2001 did you take that up?
3 MR TUTT: January 1st.
4 MR SHELDON: That is effectively heading up a new merged
5 department within Ealing of both Social Services and
6 Housing, is it?
7 MR TUTT: That is correct.
8 MR SHELDON: I will come on to ask you in due course about
9 that merger, the thinking behind it and the extent to
10 which it has been a success. Either in that post or in
11 your previous post as Director, have you been concerned
12 to consider and to discover whether there were
13 deficiencies in the handling of Victoria's case by
14 Ealing Social Services?
15 MR TUTT: When the death of Victoria was clear we conducted
16 a case review with an independent reviewer of all of the
17 information we had at that stage and I have been kept in
18 full contact with both that review and the final report
19 of that review.
20 MR SHELDON: Have you been able to follow some of the
21 evidence given to this Inquiry by members of Ealing
22 staff?
23 MR TUTT: I have.
24 MR SHELDON: On the basis of the information you have been
25 able to glean from those sources, what do you consider
36
1 to be the principal deficiencies in Ealing's handling of
2 this case?
3 MR TUTT: I think there was very clear failure in that
4 a full assessment was not carried out of Victoria's case
5 as and when it should have been.
6 MR SHELDON: Anything else?
7 MR TUTT: No, that I think is the major deficiency.
8 MR SHELDON: Before we come on to look at that in more
9 detail, let us attempt to set the background straight
10 and look at the matter in context. In December 1997, as
11 you have already indicated, there was what might be
12 described as an extremely critical SSI report of Ealing
13 Social Services, is that right?
14 MR TUTT: That is correct.
15 MR SHELDON: Perhaps we can turn to that in volume 15
16 starting at page 1. If I could ask you first of all,
17 Mr Tutt, please, to turn to page 7 in the bundle, which
18 is the page headed "Summary", we see there in the first
19 paragraph that the inspectors were told, about five
20 lines down that there were 416 unallocated childcare
21 cases and that 93 of those were children looked after
22 and 94 children were included in the Child Protection
23 Register. Even in the context of some of the other
24 difficulties experienced by other local authorities with
25 which we have been concerned, that is an extraordinarily
37
1 high number, is it not?
2 MR TUTT: It is outrageous, yes.
3 MR SHELDON: Turning over the page, please, to page 8. Top
4 of that page, the second half of what presumably is
5 paragraph 9, there is the finding that other checks such
6 as the monitoring by managers, notification of places
7 were not adequate; and then paragraph 10, the most
8 worrying element perhaps of this report:
9 "Although we saw some good work being done by the
10 Family Placement Team, the basic data even as amended
11 means that children in the public care and on the Child
12 Protection Register of Ealing Social Services Department
13 cannot be considered by any measure to be adequately
14 safeguarded."
15 In the generally careful terminology of the SSI that
16 is about as bad as it can get, is it not?
17 MR TUTT: It is, yes.
18 MR SHELDON: They note, and this I am sure will all be
19 fairly familiar to you because I should imagine this was
20 a document which you had careful regard to when you came
21 into post, that there was at that stage 45 per cent
22 agency staff -- that is paragraph 11 on that page -- and
23 that similarly what was regarded by the SSI to be
24 a culture of hopelessness within Social Services. When
25 you came into post this was the picture that you were
38
1 faced with, is that right?
2 MR TUTT: That is correct, yes.
3 MR SHELDON: You did not think, did you, when you looked at
4 the picture when you came into post that the SSI had
5 overdone things a bit?
6 MR TUTT: No, I thought it was overall a very accurate
7 description of the situation that prevailed at that
8 time.
9 MR SHELDON: The SSI unsurprisingly made a series of
10 recommendations during the course of that report which
11 they regarded as requiring implementation on an urgent
12 basis. If we could have volume 12 page 252, we can see
13 the response that was made to that. Now, that is
14 a document headed "Recommendations Action Plan." The
15 recommendations I take it that are referred to in the
16 title are the recommendations that were made by the SSI,
17 is that correct?
18 MR TUTT: Well, the document I am looking at is dated March
19 1999.
20 MR SHELDON: Yes.
21 MR TUTT: There would have been a previous action plan to
22 that because I came in post in July 1998. Now, this
23 action plan may well be one that was produced in line
24 with the March SSI review.
25 MR SHELDON: Yes, because what I was going to confirm with
39
1 you is that although it is headed "Action Plan", what it
2 is is partly an action plan but perhaps principally
3 a review of progress made to date.
4 MR TUTT: That is correct, yes.
5 MR SHELDON: We went through it in some detail with
6 Mr Skinner so I will not take you through it in detail,
7 but we should read it, should we, as to at least some
8 extent reviewing the progress that you had made in light
9 of the SSI recommendations over the year and a bit since
10 those recommendations were made?
11 MR TUTT: That is correct.
12 MR SHELDON: Next could we see volume 14 page 299 which is
13 the follow-up SSI report that you have just referred to.
14 So we are clear what we are looking at, it may be of
15 assistance to look at page 293 so that you can identify
16 the fact that it was the SSI inspection of 10th to
17 30th March, but the section I wanted to refer you to is
18 the one headed "Key Findings" on page 299 and the first
19 thing that the SSI note is that paragraph 1.5:
20 "Major changes have taken place in the Social
21 Services Department which have led to a range of
22 positive improvements. We found that the culture of
23 hopelessness we referred to in the previous report had
24 been replaced by one of expectation."
25 They make the point at paragraph 1.8 that although,
40
1 and I am paraphrasing here, some work was done
2 immediately after their report, things really got moving
3 after the restructuring which was completed in December
4 1998, is that right?
5 MR TUTT: Well, I would hope that things got moving when
6 I took up post in July/August 1998.
7 MR SHELDON: Yes, but the SSI make the point that we found
8 that most of the fundamental work that was required has
9 largely been undertaken since that reorganisation which
10 was completed in December 1998.
11 MR TUTT: Yes, that is correct.
12 MR SHELDON: That would be fair comment, would it?
13 MR TUTT: Yes, that would be.
14 MR SHELDON: You mention that restructuring in your
15 statement at paragraph 7. I want to understand at the
16 outset how big a restructuring that was. Was it root
17 and branch or was it tinkering around the edges?
18 MR TUTT: No, it was a very root and branch restructuring.
19 Every team that we had changed. Every team manager was
20 required to attend an assessment centre and be
21 interviewed for the post. We reduced the number of
22 teams and therefore enlarged the size of the teams. Out
23 of something like 15 team managers that were in post
24 when I arrived, only eight were successful in being
25 appointed to new team manager post.
41
1 MR SHELDON: And that was all achieved I think Mr Skinner
2 described it in the condensed period of about three
3 months?
4 MR TUTT: It was indeed.
5 MR SHELDON: That process and presumably the series of
6 announcements that preceded it, namely "we are going to
7 be pruning some of our managers that are not up to the
8 job, we are going to be interviewing our managers to
9 decide which of them are up for the job and people are
10 going to have to compete for their posts" is one that
11 has some echoes for us in this Inquiry and it may be
12 helpful in relation to that to consider with you briefly
13 how you managed to manage that process. Was it
14 a difficult one?
15 MR TUTT: It was very difficult process, yes. The way
16 I started it was to look at performance data, because
17 I was new into the post, I knew none of the
18 personalities at all. I just collected a range of what
19 I thought was key performance indicators. I got our
20 internal audit to recheck all of the files. They had
21 done a file audit previously to my arrival and those
22 managers where there had been no improvement in the
23 keeping of the files and the state of the files were one
24 group I if you like targeted. I called in a range of
25 managers and told them their performance was below the
42
1 standard now expected in the department and I would
2 appreciate it if either they resigned or I would take
3 action against them.
4 MR SHELDON: How did that go down amongst the staff as
5 a whole in terms of morale and what in particular did
6 you hear from the unions about it?
7 MR TUTT: Amongst the staff generally I think it raised
8 morale because they were aware that there were a number
9 of people who were not performing, for example there
10 were reviews that were not taking place as the SSI
11 showed but there were individuals charged to undertake
12 those reviews and clearly they were not performing.
13 They were recognised by their colleagues as not
14 performing, so having somebody deal with it raised
15 morale.
16 The unions were not at all happy about it. Every --
17 not every but the majority of managers who I saw
18 individually were accompanied by their union reps and
19 I made it quite clear that in the light of the SSI
20 report my job was to make sure children were safe in the
21 borough of Ealing, and if members of staff were not able
22 to be compatible with that aim or objective I was quite
23 happy to defend my position in whatever forum might be
24 appropriate.
25 MR SHELDON: So we are clear, the condensed period of three
43
1 months that Mr Skinner referred to and that you agreed
2 with just now was that deciding what needed to be done,
3 drawing up the plans, getting the relevant approval and
4 implementing it, that was all three months, was it?
5 MR TUTT: That was all done in three months, yes and the
6 staff interviews and staff were in post within that
7 three-month period as well.
8 MR SHELDON: The success that the SSI pay tribute to in this
9 report that we are looking at is attributable, or at
10 least the key factor in producing that success according
11 to the SSI, paragraph 1.6, was the appointment of three
12 senior managers: the Director of Social Services summer
13 1998, that was you; the Assistant Director, was that
14 Mr Skinner?
15 MR TUTT: It was.
16 MR SHELDON: And the Area Operations Manager, who was that?
17 MR TUTT: That was Judith Finlay.
18 MR SHELDON: And you all came into post in 1998, did you?
19 MR TUTT: Yes.
20 MR SHELDON: Can we just pause there to confirm the
21 chronology in that case. Critical SSI report
22 December 1997. Special measures summer 1998, June 1998,
23 when you also come on board. You start work immediately
24 addressing some of the issues, but the real fundamental
25 change starts to kick in after the restructuring that
44
1 happens in the last three months of 1998. You are
2 appointed permanently in January 1999 and then there is
3 a March inspection by the SSI indicating how far you had
4 got. Is that the chronology?
5 MR TUTT: Yes.
6 MR SHELDON: So by the time we get to April 1999, after this
7 report, had you reached the end of the process of
8 improving Ealing Social Services or was there still work
9 to be done?
10 MR TUTT: We have not reached the end yet. I mean I and my
11 staff are very actively pursuing higher standards all
12 the time. There is no perfection in Social Services.
13 You can always do something better.
14 MR SHELDON: If we turn now to volume 14 page 301, we see
15 some indication of areas that the SSI regarded as
16 of March 1999 to require further attention. They
17 indicate on the second bullet point, paragraph 1.11,
18 some competency gaps at practitioner and junior
19 management levels and that they were particularly
20 concerned to find cases in which potentially serious
21 child protection matters were not identified. They
22 consider that further training in the identification of
23 child protection is required and they also, third bullet
24 point down, find that there was an inadequate management
25 information system. Were those two findings in line
45
1 with your perception at the time?
2 MR TUTT: Yes, I do not disagree with those at all.
3 MR SHELDON: And so work was in hand, was it, as of
4 April~1999 after this report to address those matters?
5 MR TUTT: It was.
6 MR SHELDON: According to Mr Skinner when he gave evidence,
7 page 180 of Day 6, one of the things that you were
8 intending to do in April 1999 was to produce some
9 practice guidelines and a manual for use by staff, is
10 that right?
11 MR TUTT: Yes it is.
12 MR SHELDON: Was the intention that one of the things that
13 the handbook should cover is the area of potential
14 weakness identified here at bullet point 2, namely how
15 to spot child protection issues?
16 MR TUTT: Yes.
17 MR SHELDON: When did that handbook or those set of
18 guidelines eventually come out?
19 MR TUTT: I cannot tell you the exact date. It came out as
20 an interim set of procedure manuals and in fact is still
21 interim at the moment. It is being amended and
22 rewritten as we speak.
23 MR SHELDON: We have the interim ones in volume 20 page 1
24 sir. Why are they still interim?
25 MR TUTT: It is a very substantial process to rewrite all of
46
1 the procedures. Remember we were going from a position
2 when I think John Skinner referred to there being no
3 procedures, and the first of the interim ones were
4 introduced and have held together very well, they have
5 actually been very useful for staff. Clearly in the
6 light of both legislative change and other structural
7 change within the authority those need rewriting now and
8 that is the process we are in at the moment.
9 MR SHELDON: I can well appreciate that it is a substantial
10 job and even the interim ones are a substantial document
11 but this was a plan that you fixed on, it would seem,
12 in April 1999 and we are now two and a half years down
13 the track and we still do not have a final version of
14 the procedures. It is a fairly urgent requirement, is
15 it not, that staff have something to work from?
16 MR TUTT: But I mean most procedure manuals are constantly
17 being updated. There is so to speak never a final
18 version. This year we have had the introduction of the
19 Care Leavers Act for example which would need to go into
20 revised procedure. So it is a constantly changing
21 process. We have appointed a member of staff whose sole
22 job is to constantly be updating and rewriting the
23 procedures.
24 MR SHELDON: Do we have an estimated time of arrival for the
25 final version?
47
1 MR TUTT: As I explained, I do not think there is ever
2 a final version.
3 MR SHELDON: When are we going to get a version that does
4 not say "interim" on the front cover?
5 MR TUTT: Very shortly I would hope but I think most
6 services develop loose leaf binders so that you
7 constantly can revise and update any procedure manual.
8 MR SHELDON: Is that what you are going to do?
9 MR TUTT: It will be in that form, yes.
10 MR SHELDON: Perhaps more concerning is not the Child
11 Protection Procedures, interim as they may be but
12 nonetheless updated and one might think reasonably
13 comprehensive, it is the manual which staff in other
14 areas of Children's Services are working from.
15 Could you have volume 20A please page 1. That is
16 a letter, Mr Tutt, that the Inquiry wrote to Ealing back
17 in September of this year, in which it was confirmed to
18 us that the fieldwork manual that we had been sent was
19 the document sent as a response to the request we made
20 for childcare procedure manuals. We got sent
21 a document, we wrote back to Ealing to make sure that it
22 was the right one, that it was the child care procedure
23 manual that was current, and we received that
24 confirmation.
25 Now, the document itself, there is no front sheet to
48
1 it but it starts at page 3 in that volume. It is not
2 immediately clear when exactly this document was
3 produced but it certainly predates the Children Act of
4 1989. In fact the latest bit of legislation in the
5 Schedule of Act at the front is the 1982 Criminal
6 Justice Act. Were you aware that staff in Children's
7 Services were using a manual that was this out of date?
8 MR TUTT: Certainly I was aware it was out of date and I was
9 aware it was grossly inadequate.
10 MR SHELDON: How hopeless is that?
11 MR TUTT: I think for any new staff coming in clearly given
12 that when the SSI conducted their review they commented
13 on 45 per cent agency staff so there was a high turnover
14 of staff, a lot of new staff coming in, a current
15 procedures manual is an imperative if they are going to
16 carry out their job efficiently.
17 MR SHELDON: And that was something that people had not
18 noticed since the mid-1980s or, if they had noticed it,
19 had done nothing about?
20 MR TUTT: That would seem so, yes.
21 MR SHELDON: What is the position now?
22 MR TUTT: In terms of?
23 MR SHELDON: In terms of what else is referred to in the
24 letter as a childcare procedure manual.
25 MR TUTT: It is currently being revised and will be
49
1 available very shortly.
2 MR SHELDON: The interim procedures that we have at
3 volume 20 are Child Protection Procedures.
4 MR TUTT: That is right.
5 MR SHELDON: This manual deals with other things than child
6 protection, does it not?
7 MR TUTT: It does.
8 MR SHELDON: So what if I was a children's services worker
9 who was not interested in child protection but was
10 interested in for example item 3 section 3 in this
11 manual of day care, day nurseries and child minders;
12 what would I be working from at the moment in Ealing?
13 MR TUTT: You would be working I think from an out of date
14 procedure manual.
15 MR SHELDON: This one?
16 MR TUTT: Yes, that has probably been amended locally as
17 people have amended it in the light of their own
18 knowledge.
19 MR SHELDON: When you came into post in June 1998 and you
20 found that members of Children's Services were working
21 from a manual that predated the Children Act and was
22 grossly and hopelessly out of date, was it not an urgent
23 requirement in your view to get something out to enable
24 them to work with? You did it for the child protection
25 and we have got the interim procedures. Why did you not
50
1 do it for the rest of Children's Services?
2 MR TUTT: In my view it was not the most pressing priority.
3 My view was that we had to ensure that children were
4 safe because one of the things that the SSI commented on
5 was that no child could be guaranteed to be safe in the
6 borough. So our first intention was to ensure that
7 children were safe in terms of the Child Protection
8 Procedures. Our second priority had to be to ensure
9 that all looked after children were safe in our care.
10 MR SHELDON: And now the point has been reached where that
11 has been achieved so you can turn your attention to the
12 other less pressing areas, one of which is a fieldwork
13 childcare manual.
14 MR TUTT: Absolutely.
15 MR SHELDON: Do we have an estimated time of arrival for
16 that?
17 MR TUTT: No, I can check that and let the Inquiry know.
18 MR SHELDON: Could we turn back to volume 14 and the SSI,
19 page 314. I would like to turn now Mr Tutt please to
20 focus on the particular area of assessment or what is
21 sometimes referred to colloquially as the front door of
22 Social Services, and the section dealing with that is at
23 page 314 of the SSI report we have been looking at
24 already.
25 It says at paragraph 5.1 that the previous
|
