Archived Transcript for 23 January 2002: Pages 51 to 100

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1 inspection report highlighted that these areas, namely

2 assessment and care plan of responsibility, were

3 seriously deficient, specifically 50 per cent of the

4 cases were unallocated and not properly assessed or

5 planned for. Would it be fair to say therefore that

6 when reading the previous SSI report, this area, namely

7 the quality of assessments done at the front door, was

8 a matter of particular concern?

9 MR TUTT: Yes, it would be correct.

10 MR SHELDON: It is noted at paragraph 5.2 that significant

11 progress has been made since you arrived along with

12 Mr Skinner. One of the areas of progress or one of the

13 strategies for resolving these difficulties would appear

14 to be referred to at paragraph 5.4, which was the

15 establishment of two established teams to deal with this

16 area of work. What was the thinking behind that?

17 MR TUTT: Well, the structure when I first went into Ealing

18 was of a generic duty system so there was something like

19 14 teams I think it was that rotated on duty, and then

20 whichever cases they picked up they picked up and this

21 did not seem to guarantee any priority, so that what you

22 had was teams constantly doing child protection cases

23 but not paying any attention to looked after children,

24 or indeed any expertise in assessment being built up.

25 So we restructured to have a specific Referral and

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1 Assessment Team so that you had the opportunity of

2 building up the expertise amongst staff, you had team

3 managers who were committed to short-term assessment

4 work, whereas others were much more interested in

5 long-term work like working with looked after children,

6 and we went out to recruit senior practitioners who

7 could provide specialist advice and knowledge.

8 MR SHELDON: It is noted in paragraph 5.5 on that page that

9 those teams were still bedding down, not surprisingly,

10 according to the SSI, because they were new. And that,

11 about five lines down, although it was noted that the

12 new system was an improvement over the previous

13 arrangements, the SSI nevertheless found significant

14 deficits.

15 It would appear that one of the deficits identified

16 if we turn to paragraph 5.7 was the example of delay in

17 doing the initial assessment which meant that there was

18 a delay passing the case out of the initial Referral and

19 Assessment Teams into the Long Term Teams. When you

20 read that report in March 1999 and saw that there were

21 some deficits in quality of assessment and some deficits

22 in the speed with which assessments were done, what

23 strategy did you put in place to address those problems?

24 MR TUTT: Well, if you look at 5.7 in fact they referred

25 this particular case directly to me and I remember the

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1 case very well. It was clearly a case of a child with

2 very severe disabilities who was in hospital after

3 amputation following contracting meningitis, and it did

4 not in that sense need an initial assessment, it was

5 clearly a child with severe disability and could have

6 gone straight to the Children with Disability Team which

7 is what they were referring to. What it made me become

8 very concerned about was the skills we had amongst staff

9 if you like to do the initial assessment and determine

10 what priorities the cases should fall into.

11 MR SHELDON: Did you not feel however that that individual

12 case aside, that what the SSI was effectively saying in

13 this section in their report was in the context of huge

14 improvement elsewhere? "The front door was an area of

15 concern to us in our previous report, improvement has

16 been made but it is still an area where further work is

17 needed." Would that be fair?

18 MR TUTT: It is.

19 MR SHELDON: So what further work did you think would be

20 needed in order to address that problem?

21 MR TUTT: Well, I think the big advantage we now have is the

22 assessment framework, because that has given a clear

23 format in which assessment should be undertaken and in

24 a sense I suspect at this time we were partly waiting

25 for that assessment framework.

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1 MR SHELDON: And the assessment framework arrived when?

2 MR TUTT: Again, I cannot tell you the exact date of that

3 I am afraid.

4 MR SHELDON: It was last year, was it not?

5 MR TUTT: No, I think it was the year before.

6 MR SHELDON: 2000?

7 MR TUTT: Yes.

8 MR SHELDON: Right. So you thought, "Well, let us wait for

9 that"?

10 MR TUTT: We did not think let us wait for that, what I was

11 saying is that that was a serious improvement in our

12 overall services. I think one of the problems until the

13 framework was produced was there was no clear definition

14 of how assessment should be undertaken at that point of

15 entry, so you often got variations in practice across

16 local authorities and even within local authorities.

17 What we were intending to do was through training

18 and monitoring of cases and supervision of those cases

19 ensure that there was standard practice within Ealing,

20 so it did not matter which area office you went in, you

21 got the same standard of assessment.

22 MR SHELDON: Yes, I see. You will appreciate how and why

23 the focus of this Inquiry is necessarily a fairly narrow

24 one, given that we are looking at Victoria's case in

25 particular and the particular area of Ealing Social

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1 Services practice which would appear to be relevant to

2 her case, and indeed it is the one you highlighted at

3 the beginning of your evidence was the work done at the

4 front door with assessments.

5 MR TUTT: Absolutely.

6 MR SHELDON: Would it be fair to say in light of that that

7 despite the enormous improvements being made in other

8 areas of Ealing's Children's Services since you became

9 Director, that the specific area we are concerned with,

10 namely front door assessments, is still one of weakness

11 by the time Victoria arrives at Ealing's door in April

12 1999?

13 MR TUTT: I think that is very fair comment.

14 MR SHELDON: There is no sense of that in paragraph 13 of

15 your statement, where you deal with the issue of

16 referral and assessment. You simply say:

17 "The specialist team structure was established to

18 ensure that children in need of support or protection

19 received an initial assessment within the Referral and

20 Assessment Team. Following the assessment, the case

21 would either be closed, referred for additional support

22 to another agency or the Children in Need Team."

23 You do not draw our attention to the fact that that

24 was an area where Ealing was experiencing difficulties

25 at this stage. Why is that?

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1 MR TUTT: Well, I think in the evidence certainly that both

2 Judith Finlay and John Skinner gave, what they were

3 arguing is very rightly there was an adequate but very

4 basic system operating at that stage. The failure to

5 produce a full assessment on Victoria was a failure. If

6 you like the management decision that was taken around

7 the case at the time was based on the assumption, as

8 reported to that manager, that an assessment had been

9 undertaken.

10 MR SHELDON: I am concerned particularly with your statement

11 for present purposes because we see at paragraph 12 that

12 you draw our attention to the fact that the SSI noted

13 significant improvement in services in March 1999 but

14 you do not in a sense balance that by informing us in

15 relation to assessments that the SSI specifically went

16 out of its way to say there were significant deficits in

17 that service, and I wonder the extent to which you

18 thought a balanced picture of the services provided by

19 Ealing at this time would have required you to inform us

20 of that as well.

21 MR TUTT: I think I did present an accurate position in my

22 statement of where we were at that stage. I mean there

23 was no intention to either mislead the Inquiry in that

24 we presented all of the evidence from the SSI report.

25 I did not see it as my particular position in preparing

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1 a statement to point out that.

2 MR SHELDON: I see, whereas you did regard it as important

3 to point out the fact that in other areas the SSI had

4 noticed particular improvement.

5 MR TUTT: That is correct, yes.

6 MR SHELDON: Mr Skinner in his evidence, Day 6 page 192,

7 said that the assessment practices were poor as of

8 April 1999. Is that an assessment that you would concur

9 with?

10 MR TUTT: I think John Skinner would have been in a much

11 better position than I to judge the quality of the work

12 at the front line, but I think there is a major concern

13 about the skills that we were able to recruit amongst

14 staff, that many of the staff coming into post were

15 relatively inexperienced, in that they had not many

16 years' post qualification experience and/or were from

17 Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other

18 countries, and in those circumstances I would not be

19 surprised that John described the assessments often as

20 poor.

21 MR SHELDON: You said that having received this report

22 in March 1999 you were not content to simply wait for

23 the assessment framework the following year. Steps were

24 put in hand to deal with it in the short term as well,

25 and you described what they are. Did you feel that

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1 significant short-term progress was made in this area

2 related to the front door?

3 MR TUTT: I felt that there was progress and I think the SSI

4 in their December 1999 review were satisfied we were

5 making progress and were continuing to.

6 MR SHELDON: Perhaps we should look at that now in that

7 case, please. It starts at page 346 in volume 14.

8 The first passage I would like you to look at please

9 is on page 353, it is paragraph 1.9 in particular, where

10 the SSI note that there are a number of key issues which

11 remained in need of constant attention, and the last of

12 the bullet points underneath it says that the work to

13 improve standards in the Referral and Assessment Teams

14 needed to continue. So (i) an acknowledgment that work

15 is being done, (ii) an indication that it is still an

16 area of some vulnerability?

17 MR TUTT: Yes.

18 MR SHELDON: Some more detail is given as to exactly what

19 the SSI meant by that on page 356. It is paragraph 2.6

20 on that page. The SSI say that further efforts should

21 be made to stabilise the operation of the duty systems

22 to ensure consistent quality, standards and response to

23 referrals, undertaking assessments, providing services

24 and throughput of work. Do you see that bit?

25 MR TUTT: Yes.

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1 MR SHELDON: They refer us to chapter 7, so perhaps chapter

2 7 is where we should go. In particular page 366. Two

3 paragraphs are devote to the issue of assessments. The

4 first one notes that the quality was generally good

5 although there was room for improved consistency, but

6 when they come to deal with the initial assessments,

7 which as you will understand are the ones we are most

8 concerned with, carried out by the Referral and

9 Assessment Teams, they were of more variable quality,

10 particularly for lower priority cases, again such as the

11 one with which we are concerned.

12 You would accept then, would you, that throughout

13 the period covered by the three SSI inspections that we

14 have looked at, the issue of initial assessments at the

15 front door of Ealing Social Services is one identified

16 by the SSI as a problem?

17 MR TUTT: I accept that, yes.

18 MR SHELDON: So that whilst we should doubtless take on

19 board the enormous improvements elsewhere and put

20 matters in the context as I indicated at the beginning

21 of an improved service, the particular service that we

22 are concerned with although it may be subject to some

23 improvement still by the end of 1999 has some way to go?

24 MR TUTT: Yes, but I think you have to see that in the

25 context of what is on the cover of the report. It is an

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1 inspection of the safety of the children looked after in

2 the London Borough of Ealing. That was the main focus

3 of the SSI's criticism initially and therefore had been

4 the priority to address that, to ensure that children

5 were safe.

6 MR SHELDON: I was going to ask you about that. Is the fact

7 that this is still an area of some vulnerability come

8 the end of December 1999 symptomatic of the fact that it

9 was not one of your top priorities when you were looking

10 to rebuild the service from June 1998 onwards?

11 MR TUTT: It is certainly symptomatic of the fact that we

12 had to give much greater priority to looked after

13 children and the child protection systems, yes.

14 MR SHELDON: So would it be fair to say, and one can well

15 understand the way in which your priorities must be

16 driven by inspections and priorities such as the SSI,

17 would it be fair to say that you took your eye off the

18 front door in order to pay particular attention to

19 looked after children instead?

20 MR TUTT: No, I do not accept that it was driven entirely by

21 the inspection. This is statutory responsibilities that

22 would drive a local authority and clearly any child who

23 we had taken parental rights over and had taken into our

24 care, if we could not guarantee those children were safe

25 and secure then we should not have been in business at

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1 all, so it was quite clear that that had to be addressed

2 firstly and foremostly.

3 MR SHELDON: But that was your priority?

4 MR TUTT: Yes.

5 MR SHELDON: The initial assessments being done in the

6 Assessment and Referral Teams was not your first

7 priority?

8 MR TUTT: No, it was not the highest priority certainly.

9 MR SHELDON: And that would explain, would it, why it is

10 still an area of concern to the SSI a year and a half

11 after you have come into post?

12 MR TUTT: I do not think it is the total explanation.

13 I mean, I think what you are denying is the complexity

14 of the low priority cases that are coming into any

15 social services department. They are a very wide

16 spectrum of cases. At the time as Judith Finlay's

17 statement makes clear we had substantial numbers of

18 asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors and other groups

19 coming in through routes referred from Housing and other

20 sources which staff were unclear as to how to actually

21 deal with, and I think that look of clarity persists

22 today.

23 We have just had to revise guidance to staff in the

24 light of the Court of Appeal case that Lambeth took over

25 the use of Section 17 and it is an interesting

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1 reflection and I hope one the Inquiry will address,

2 because suddenly Section 17 is now not to be used if the

3 appeal is upheld to provide accommodation for children

4 in the circumstances that Victoria was.

5 So you have got a lot of complex issues coming into

6 that team, you have got changes in legislation, changes

7 in the broader political context, if I can put it that

8 way, around asylum seekers, and staff were unclear as to

9 what the expectation on them was.

10 MR SHELDON: Given that lack of clarity and the constantly

11 changing set of priorities and legislation, if you were

12 to receive an SSI inspection now that said the

13 assessments of low priority cases by the Assessment and

14 Referral Teams was of variable quality, would you be

15 surprised?

16 MR TUTT: I would be very disappointed because I think

17 I would hope now that the assessment framework is being

18 provided consistently in cases that are being referred

19 to social services.

20 MR SHELDON: Are you auditing that?

21 MR TUTT: We are auditing that, yes.

22 MR SHELDON: And the results of those audits are

23 encouraging, are they?

24 MR TUTT: They certainly are, yes.

25 MR SHELDON: So that although we can still identify it as

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1 a problem at the end of 1999, you would encourage the

2 Inquiry to take the view that it is no longer a problem

3 within Ealing Social Services?

4 MR TUTT: I would never encourage the Inquiry to say that

5 anything is no longer a problem. Clearly at that point

6 of entry you have a huge amount of discretion being

7 exercised by staff in determining whether this case is

8 going to be fully assessed or how it is going to be

9 dealt with and that discretion is very often based on

10 staff with little experience or knowledge. It should be

11 controlled by supervision by managers but it is an

12 inexact science at that point of entry into the system.

13 MR SHELDON: Sir I am just about to move on to another topic

14 I do not know if you had any thoughts about

15 a mid-morning break today but if you were going to have

16 one that would be a convenient time for me.

17 THE CHAIRMAN: That is very thoughtful of you,

18 characteristically so. Thank you very much indeed. If

19 you could pause a moment please, I am in the middle of

20 a difficult exercise. So your timing was splendid.

21 Ladies and gentlemen we will break until a quarter

22 to 12. Mr Tutt you are not allowed to discuss your

23 evidence with anyone and that includes your advocate.

24 (11.35 am)

25 (A short break)

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1 (11.45 am)

2 MR SHELDON: Mr Tutt, just one question arising out of the

3 assessment discussion that we were having just before we

4 broke if I may. You indicated that the new assessment

5 framework is now in place and alluded to some of the

6 beneficial impact that that has had. My understanding,

7 and I am happy to be corrected by you if it is wrong, is

8 that within the assessment framework time limits are set

9 down firstly for the completion of the initial

10 assessment and secondly for the completion of the core

11 assessment. Is that right?

12 MR TUTT: That is correct.

13 MR SHELDON: As I understand it, the initial assessment has

14 to be done within seven days and the core assessment

15 35 days thereafter, so the whole process takes 42 days?

16 MR TUTT: Yes.

17 MR SHELDON: Is one of the things that you audit the extent

18 to which or the proportion of cases that are dealt with

19 within those time limits?

20 MR TUTT: We would do that through the supervision process

21 and then through spot random checks by audit, yes.

22 MR SHELDON: Is it one of the indicators that you are

23 concerned to satisfy yourself of in deciding how well

24 the system is working?

25 MR TUTT: It would be, yes.

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1 MR SHELDON: And you get that information, do you?

2 MR TUTT: We refine that information. In any kind of

3 tracking like that it is not necessarily easy to collect

4 management information on, but we have a whole range of

5 key indicators which are reported to the Children's

6 Services Management Team on a monthly basis and then to

7 the Departmental Management Team on a quarterly basis,

8 and certainly I would look at those and would take up

9 issues either directly with Judith Finlay or in

10 exceptional circumstances will go to other people in the

11 department.

12 So for example if we are monitoring young people

13 under the age of 10 in residential care, I would go

14 straight back to the management information section and

15 ask which of those children under 10 have been placed in

16 residential care, and then I would go to the operational

17 managers and ask why they had been placed there.

18 MR SHELDON: So accepting what you say about the need for

19 refinement of this sort of data, would it be possible

20 for you, should you feel like doing so, to go back to

21 Ealing later on today and say, "How many of our

22 assessments are being done within the assessment

23 framework time limits?"

24 MR TUTT: I could certainly ask that question and I would

25 eventually get an answer. What I would not be able to

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1 do is to go back and press a button and get the answer.

2 MR SHELDON: But you are as satisfied as you can be given

3 the limits of the data that is available to you that

4 those time limits and the assessments as a whole are

5 being conducted in a satisfactory way by Ealing?

6 MR TUTT: I think the time limits in the majority of cases

7 are now being met, yes. We will not meet those time

8 limits in all cases, partly because of the variability

9 of behaviour from some of the service users.

10 MR SHELDON: Yes, but you are not getting a sense in the

11 position that you are in that these are simply

12 unworkable and utopian time limits that you cannot meet?

13 MR TUTT: No, not at all.

14 MR SHELDON: Could we move on please to paragraph 14 of your

15 statement where you deal with the issue of a client

16 database providing management information. Are you

17 saying there that at the time with which we are

18 concerned, so towards mid-1999, the department had some

19 sort of electronic database which enabled cases to be

20 monitored?

21 MR TUTT: We had an electronic database which allowed

22 a client index to be maintained for certain subsects of

23 that index; we could have monitoring data, so children

24 looked after, child protection et cetera; we could have

25 monitoring data but that is not the same as tracking

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1 data.

2 MR SHELDON: So just to understand what that means in

3 practice, was there some sort of electronic database

4 which for example a team manager could use to find out

5 how long a case had been on the team, whether action was

6 needed and so on?

7 MR TUTT: In March 1999 my understanding is that was not

8 available. It was introduced in 1999 and certainly was

9 in operation December 1999.

10 MR SHELDON: And that was certainly Mr Skinner's

11 recollection, so it is Day 6 page 183, he said that

12 contrary to what he said in his statement, his

13 recollection now was that at the time that Victoria was

14 known to Ealing that system was not operating and that

15 is your recollection?

16 MR TUTT: In March 1999 my recollection is it was a paper

17 based system.

18 MR SHELDON: Have you read Sarah Stollard's either written

19 or oral evidence to the effect of what systems she was

20 using to track cases on her team at the relevant time?

21 MR TUTT: I have read her written evidence, yes.

22 MR SHELDON: She also described it to us, Day 5 page 179.

23 What she said effectively was that she devised a sheet

24 on which she would make a manual note of cases that she

25 would attempt, time permitting, to update each week, and

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1 that these sheets were kept in a file and that that was

2 the system that she was relying on to follow the

3 progress of particular cases on her team.

4 Perhaps if we go to her witness statement we can

5 remind ourselves of the other element to the system. It

6 is volume 1 of the green files, page 209. This is the

7 bit that you indicated you have read. You will see at

8 paragraph 10 the indication that if no further action

9 was required on a particular file, it would be put in

10 the A to Z cabinet. She would check the contents of the

11 cabinet when she was on duty and know what was urgent.

12 When she took over as manager there were two hundred

13 cases in that cabinet, and that she goes on to say how

14 she managed to reduce it over time.

15 Now, that is a system which is reliant almost

16 totally, is it not, on the memory of the manager knowing

17 what cases have gone in there and what cases need to be

18 brought out?

19 MR TUTT: Yes.

20 MR SHELDON: Is that an adequate system?

21 MR TUTT: No, of course not. The only defence is that we

22 were still nine months from the point where the SSI had

23 said we did not even know how many children we were

24 looking after. I mean the management information

25 systems in Ealing had broken down completely and we were

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1 having to rebuild from scratch. Clearly this was not

2 adequate and is not the system that is in operation now.

3 MR SHELDON: Yes, so is it not the case then that

4 paragraph 14 of your statement should read:

5 "At the time with which this Inquiry is concerned we

6 had no database and an inadequate system of tracking of

7 cases used by managers," because that is the true

8 position, is it not?

9 MR TUTT: No, it is not the true position. We did have

10 a database, we had a client index, and as I said certain

11 groups of that could be pulled off for monitoring data

12 by managers but they were about things like the number

13 of children, number of cases allocated, whether reviews

14 were done on time. They did not allow you to track

15 cases through a referral and assessment.

16 MR SHELDON: It did not allow you to do what was needed to

17 be done in Victoria's case?

18 MR TUTT: No, but the Referral and Assessment Team was set

19 up only three months prior to Victoria's case arising

20 and still at that stage they had not got adequate

21 systems.

22 MR SHELDON: I appreciate the background and I have been

23 careful to point out the context and the mess that you

24 inherited.

25 MR TUTT: I appreciate that.

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1 MR SHELDON: What I am concerned about though is that the

2 true position at least as far as the Inquiry's sphere of

3 interest is concerned is that at the time Victoria's

4 case came on to the Referral and Assessment Team, there

5 was not a database capable of tracking her case after it

6 had arrived on the team and the system that was being

7 used by the manager concerned, and it may be that she

8 was in a similar position to other managers on other

9 teams, was shambolic.

10 MR TUTT: It was basic. I do not think it was shambolic, it

11 was basic, and in fact we were able to demonstrate in

12 Victoria's case that it was being tracked, albeit on

13 a very basic system.

14 MR SHELDON: But we get no sense of that from your

15 statement, do we, at paragraph 14 where you just simply

16 state that there was a client database that provided

17 management information and enabled work to be monitored,

18 and each team manager had a separate monitoring system,

19 whereas the true position is you had a database which

20 did not allow you to do what you needed to do in

21 Victoria's case, and you had a very basic system being

22 used by the manager which was not adequate.

23 MR TUTT: No, I am sorry, my statement is factually accurate

24 at that time.

25 MR SHELDON: I see. Paragraph 15 of your statement, you

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1 indicate that the system that was used for ensuring that

2 referrals were brought to the team manager and allocated

3 to a social worker et cetera is outlined in more detail

4 in the statements of Sarah Stollard, Sharmain Lawrence

5 and Judith Finlay. You have clearly read and considered

6 their evidence on that and are, I take it, in a position

7 to form a view as to whether the systems that they

8 describe are adequate or inadequate. Is that right?

9 MR TUTT: Yes, I mean I have already said I think they were

10 very basic. They were adequate but certainly not

11 desirable.

12 MR SHELDON: And it was in order to improve them that the

13 database was updated in order to enable cases to be

14 tracked electronically or via computers?

15 MR TUTT: That is correct.

16 MR SHELDON: Do you know when that was done?

17 MR TUTT: I cannot give you the exact month. It was

18 certainly in operation by December 1999.

19 MR SHELDON: So if I were to suggest to you that at the

20 stage with which we are concerned there was no adequate

21 system of monitoring cases on the Referral and

22 Assessment Team in order to ensure quality standards

23 were met, you would disagree with me; you would say,

24 "Inadequate is the wrong word, I would prefer to use

25 basic"?

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1 MR TUTT: Yes.

2 MR SHELDON: You also say in paragraph 14 of your statement

3 that the database provided management information. Was

4 it adequate management information?

5 MR TUTT: It was adequate in certain areas, as I have

6 explained. We were able to ensure that reviews were

7 done on children on time. We were able to look at all

8 the looked after children, child protection cases. In

9 the general children in need area it was less than

10 adequate.

11 MR SHELDON: Because we looked at it earlier on when we were

12 looking at the SSI inspection of March 1999, volume 14,

13 page 301. One of the things that the SSI said was that

14 Ealing at that stage had an inadequate management

15 information system. In addition to updating that part

16 of the database which enabled you to track cases in the

17 way we have described, was anything done to it to

18 improve the level of management information it provided?

19 MR TUTT: A new system was adopted in November 1999 which we

20 had developed in-house called SIMBA and that is in

21 operation now. I mean I think the other bit of context

22 I need to give you is that in 1999 I was able to

23 persuade the committee to allocate 1.1 and a half

24 per cent of the overall budget for investment in

25 information technology and systems, and we set ourselves

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1 the aspiration of every social worker having a PC on

2 their desk where it was appropriate. Now, up until that

3 time there had been very little investment in

4 information technology and the access any social worker

5 would have had to a computer would have been very

6 limited indeed, probably one per team.

7 MR SHELDON: So it is not the case now that A to Z filing

8 cabinets and manual tracking forms are being used to do

9 the job that they were doing when Victoria was at

10 Ealing?

11 MR TUTT: That is right.

12 MR SHELDON: What is your understanding of the

13 responsibilities of one London borough with regard to

14 a child temporarily housed in another London borough?

15 MR TUTT: Well, I have -- I am familiar with the Greater

16 London Association Directorate of Social Services

17 guidance, which says that the placing authority should

18 support that child and family whilst they are in the

19 placement outside of the borough, yes.

20 MR SHELDON: So the fact that Victoria and Kouao were housed

21 in Brent would not have altered the responsibility of

22 Ealing to continue to support them?

23 MR TUTT: That is right.

24 MR SHELDON: What about information exchange? What are the

25 obligations as you see it on the placing borough to

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1 inform the housing borough of the presence of that

2 family?

3 MR TUTT: I am not aware of any firm obligation to do that.

4 Obviously it would be good practice but I do not think

5 it could be done with the current arrangements. I mean

6 it would be extremely complex if you take a borough like

7 ours, we are probably placing 20 to 30 such families out

8 of borough each week, and the boundaries within London

9 obviously are very permeable but it would not just be

10 within London. I mean we are using bed and breakfast

11 accommodation certainly as far out as Slough and outer

12 London areas so that you would have to set up a very

13 complex system. You would have to have somebody in each

14 authority who was receiving the information and

15 disseminating it to the appropriate sources.

16 My view is had we phoned up or indeed if a London

17 borough phoned one of my own area offices to say that

18 they had placed somebody in our area, we would make

19 a note of it but not know what difference it would make

20 to life.

21 MR SHELDON: Yes. In light of your understanding of the

22 position, I do not need to take you to the document in

23 detail but just to confirm my understanding, you will be

24 familiar with the London Directorate of Social Services

25 Agreement and the five principles to which they

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1 subscribe. Principle four which is volume 20 page 181

2 is that with families placed in bed and breakfast it is

3 considered good practice for the placing borough to

4 provide social services support immediately following

5 the placement until and unless such support is

6 specifically assumed by the receiving borough, and that

7 is a principle to which you subscribe as well?

8 MR TUTT: It is and I believe that is what we did in

9 Victoria's case.

10 MR SHELDON: "Specifically assumed" would mean what in those

11 situations? What would the placing borough want to

12 receive from the other borough in order to ensure that

13 their responsibilities had ended? Some sort of written

14 confirmation?

15 MR TUTT: Well, in the specific case we closed the case and

16 we had no reason to know that it had been reopened until

17 Brent contacted us. We would then expect a referral

18 back from Brent as being a child in need who is our

19 responsibility.

20 MR SHELDON: Thank you. The SSI report that we looked at

21 first of all this morning, the 1997 one which you

22 inherited, indicated in one of the paragraphs that we

23 looked at that 45 per cent of your staff in Children's

24 Services were agency workers. Was that a position that

25 was particularly bad in Children's Services or was that

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1 a social services wide problem?

2 MR TUTT: It was worse in Children's Services than other

3 services for which I am responsible, yes.

4 MR SHELDON: It was also noted by the SSI, page 9 of

5 volume 15 -- it may be that you are familiar with this

6 so we will not need to go to it -- that you paid social

7 workers less at least in terms of salary than other

8 boroughs or comparable boroughs. Was that the position?

9 MR TUTT: I think it was. It was not by the time I arrived.

10 Members had already addressed that issue and there

11 was -- I believe social workers were paid two points up

12 the scale coming into Ealing but it is a particular

13 problem of an authority like Ealing which is on the edge

14 of inner London because the inner London allowance

15 obviously is much more substantial than we pay and

16 therefore there is always a differential.

17 MR SHELDON: The SSI also drew attention to the fact that it

18 was not just a salary problem, that other boroughs

19 seemed to be progressing staff up through the salary

20 grades quicker than Ealing was as well. Again, was that

21 something that had started to be addressed by the time

22 you arrived?

23 MR TUTT: It was, yes.

24 MR SHELDON: The inspector said that you would have to take

25 action to address those issues of staff recruitment and

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1 retention and it sounds as if some work had been done by

2 the time you arrived. Was that work that you continued

3 to do when you got there?

4 MR TUTT: It certainly was. I mean I am very much of the

5 same opinion as Lord Laming that pay is only part of the

6 problem. What I found when I arrived in Ealing was that

7 even if you looked at the childcare services, some of

8 the teams had virtually no agency staff whereas others

9 had very high numbers of agency staff, and you have to

10 conclude from that it is something about the management

11 of those teams and clearly there were some managers who,

12 if they knew somebody was resigning from their team, put

13 a lot of effort into making sure the job description was

14 up-to-date, getting it through Personnel and getting

15 recruitment under way.

16 Others were much more lax and would just take on

17 agency staff and would then get into a position where it

18 is kept almost as a self fulfilling function. So the

19 more agency staff you took on the more agency staff you

20 had. So one of the things we impressed on managers was

21 that they were judged as to whether or not they were

22 good managers by the level of agency staff they needed

23 to employ, but I mean that was only one of the issues.

24 The other issue, Ms Goodall mentioned many of the

25 issues that we have tried as well but I mean it is about

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1 creating an entirely different culture in the

2 organisation and one where people want to come and work

3 and want to stay.

4 MR SHELDON: How do you do that?

5 MR TUTT: Not easy. It is a whole range of issues. I think

6 the way we have tried to tackle it is by stressing that

7 we believe in a very high standard of work and we do not

8 accept less than that and most social workers actually

9 want to work in a department which will support them to

10 achieve the best for children.

11 We do it by stressing that work should also be fun

12 occasionally, so we have a health at work programme

13 where people can take yoga or Tai Chi during their lunch

14 hour. We have negotiated deals with sports and leisure

15 complexes so staff can join those, a whole range of

16 additional benefits other than just salary.

17 MR SHELDON: And the effect of all of that is that by the

18 time the SSI come back in March 1999, 85 per cent of

19 your Children's Services workers are permanent?

20 MR TUTT: That is correct.

21 MR SHELDON: And if we were concerned to understand how you

22 managed to achieve that success, you would point us

23 principally in the direction of devolving the

24 responsibility for reducing the number of agency staff

25 to managers and making it an important part of their job

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1 description, and secondly improving the culture, making

2 it a more rewarding and a more enjoyable place to work?

3 MR TUTT: That is right, and you also have to speed up the

4 efficiency of your human resource function or your

5 personnel function because obviously team managers need

6 staff in post and if you have got a long, protracted

7 personnel process, that means that there are vacancies

8 for three to six months between people leaving and new

9 entrants joining then that will deter managers from

10 dealing with it through permanent appointment.

11 MR SHELDON: I see. So you would encourage the view, would

12 you, that this is a problem that is capable of other

13 solutions other than simply throwing money at it?

14 MR TUTT: Most certainly, yes.

15 MR SHELDON: How does the pay of Ealing, pay and conditions

16 of Ealing social workers compare with comparable

17 boroughs now?

18 MR TUTT: We are not very competitive. I mean some of the

19 other London boroughs around us, particularly the outer

20 London boroughs are paying bonuses for joining. I think

21 Hillingdon now pays £2,000 bonus for new entrants; we do

22 not do that.

23 MR SHELDON: You said at the outset of your evidence that

24 the key deficiency as you saw it in Victoria's case as

25 far as Ealing was concerned was the failure to do

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1 a proper assessment during the time that she was known

2 to your authority. You have dealt during the course of

3 your evidence I think with the various measures that you

4 have implemented since to improve the situation with

5 regard to assessments done at the front door. Is there

6 anything that we have not covered that you would like to

7 draw to our attention in terms of what Ealing has done

8 in order to plug the gaps that would appear to be

9 illustrated by Victoria's case?

10 MR TUTT: Well, I think the most fundamental change has been

11 the establishment of a Housing or Homeless Persons and

12 Social Work Team, so that now a case like Victoria's

13 would go to Housing in the first instance, and would not

14 then be passed on to Social Services. The same team has

15 social workers attached who would carry out the child

16 care assessment and so you would get much more condensed

17 assessment of what the situation was. It could all be

18 dealt with at the day of entry.

19 MR SHELDON: In her opening remarks to this Inquiry back

20 in September, Ms Mayer on behalf of Ealing drew our

21 attention -- Day 2, pages 20 to 40 -- to a number of

22 measures that were being taken by Ealing in response to

23 the independent review that had been commissioned by

24 Ms Finlay and I wonder if I can enlist your help in

25 understanding what precisely some of them mean. There

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1 are four.

2 The first one that she mentioned was that the

3 department will be reviewing all eligibility criteria

4 concerning children in need and child protection.

5 Firstly, what does that mean and secondly what has been

6 done?

7 MR TUTT: Certainly what it means is that we would have

8 looked at whether a child looked after assessment gets

9 a service and what the criteria for getting that service

10 is, that is the eligibility criteria, whether we have

11 got that threshold too high or too low or about right,

12 and that has been done, and a new eligibility criteria

13 issued for staff.

14 MR SHELDON: And the impact that that would have were

15 Victoria to arrive in Ealing now would be what?

16 MR TUTT: I think what would happen now is that there would

17 be a joint assessment done under both the homeless

18 persons legislation and the childcare legislation and

19 I suspect we would come to exactly the same conclusion,

20 that because the family had no habitual residence

21 attachment to Ealing or indeed to the UK, their

22 interests were best served by returning them to France.

23 MR SHELDON: The next point that she made was that

24 a homeless persons procedure has been produced, is that

25 right?

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1 MR TUTT: That is correct, yes.

2 MR SHELDON: In order to address what particular

3 difficulties?

4 MR TUTT: Well, exactly the issue I have just been talking

5 about. Up until Victoria's case and our actions to

6 address that, people would be going into the Homeless

7 Persons Unit, being assessed as Victoria was, as not

8 having any claim for residence in this country or in

9 Ealing, and then being passed over to Social Services.

10 What was happening is there social workers would see it

11 as a homeless case rather than a child in need, and so

12 by putting the team together you have now got both

13 approaches in the one team and one assessment being

14 conducted.

15 MR SHELDON: Thank you. She thirdly suggested that you now

16 have a general training team, team-based training days

17 and training sets, is that correct?

18 MR TUTT: Yes, we have put a lot of effort into staff

19 training which I think is another good way of both

20 recruitment and retaining of staff, to show staff that

21 you are interested in their personal and professional

22 development.

23 MR SHELDON: And then finally a partnership is being

24 developed, we heard, with a voluntary organisation and

25 a Family Welfare Association to deliver better support

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1 services, is that correct?

2 MR TUTT: That is correct.

3 MR SHELDON: What is the voluntary organisation?

4 MR TUTT: It is the Family Welfare Association.

5 MR SHELDON: I see. And what will that partnership entail?

6 MR TUTT: It will entail an initial assessment being done by

7 Social Services and if there is reason for the person to

8 receive what might be called universal services in terms

9 of guidance, support and education, then the Family

10 Welfare Association would take on the case and ensure

11 that that was being carried through.

12 MR SHELDON: Finally, Mr Tutt, Ms Mayer at the outset of the

13 evidence indicated, and this was before the Ealing

14 witnesses had come along to give evidence, that lack of

15 resources did not explain the failure of Ealing to carry

16 out a proper assessment of Victoria during the time that

17 they were aware of her. Having heard the evidence, or

18 seen some of the evidence that has been given, is that

19 something with which you would agree?

20 MR TUTT: I would agree with that. I think resources are an

21 issue but not -- they do not explain the situation in

22 Victoria's case at all. I say they are an issue because

23 in the Social Service Inspectorate report you will see

24 that they were concerned at that time that we had

25 a £4 million overspend in Social Services and that has

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1 persisted, but members have taken the view that they

2 would rather fund the overspend out of balance to

3 maintain good quality of services than to cut the

4 services, so members have given us full support by

5 providing the resources that are needed to carry out the

6 services.

7 MR SHELDON: So the answer to the question of why was no

8 adequate assessment of Victoria done by Ealing Social

9 Services?

10 MR TUTT: Was not because resources were not available.

11 MR SHELDON: That still leaves the question of what the

12 answer is.

13 MR TUTT: It does.

14 MR SHELDON: What do you think the answer is?

15 MR TUTT: I think the answer is a failure of the staff, not

16 an individual failure but a failure of the staff to see

17 this other than a homeless case, a case of destitution

18 which had a simple solution. They were distracted from

19 that simple solution, i.e. returning the family to

20 France, they were distracted from that by the letter

21 from the solicitor which said that they might be subject

22 to judicial review and by the fact that there was an

23 appeal against the Benefits Agency, and in those

24 circumstances probably three months of drift occurred as

25 people awaited those decisions.

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1 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms Mayer, please.

2 MS MAYER: Mr Tutt, two brief areas I hope. Firstly, you

3 were asked about the departmental manual and the

4 upgrading of it as it were. Am I right in saying that

5 rather than calling it an interim manual it really is

6 a running manual, in other words pages are taken out,

7 new pages --

8 MR TUTT: That is my view that it is not an interim document

9 in that it is going to serve a purpose for a limited

10 period of time and then a new document will be

11 introduced which supersedes it. I think it was

12 introduced as guidance for staff and is being updated

13 constantly as guidance for staff.

14 MS MAYER: I am told -- I had the benefit of Ms Finlay

15 sitting next to me as you were giving your evidence, and

16 am I right in saying that a final version, in other

17 words a completed version which will be subject to

18 upgrading in due course, is to be ready in March of this

19 year?

20 MR TUTT: That would certainly be my hope and expectation.

21 We have had somebody in post I think for six months

22 I would guess and I would have thought that would be

23 adequate time to produce the document.

24 MS MAYER: And the specific parts of it which are going to

25 be finalised by March 2002 are the assessment framework

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1 manual, case recording and file maintenance, housing and

2 children in need and an induction manual. I have given

3 you four. Am I wrong about any of these?

4 MR TUTT: No, I just comment on the induction manual. The

5 induction manual is for childcare staff. There is

6 already an induction manual for staff into Social

7 Services more generally and certainly some of the issues

8 would be raised in that general introduction, but then

9 there is a specific introduction for the child care

10 staff.

11 MS MAYER: Have I left any out?

12 MR TUTT: Not that I am aware of.

13 MS MAYER: There is also a revised ACPC procedure out for

14 consultation at this juncture, is that right?

15 MR TUTT: That is correct.

16 MS MAYER: And do you know when feedback is due?

17 MR TUTT: I do not know I am afraid.

18 MS MAYER: If I told you that by the end of this month in

19 fact some feedback is due so as to be incorporated into

20 the manuals, would you been able to comment on that?

21 MR TUTT: No, I think the ACPC now is a very forceful body

22 and we have got very good child protection coordinator

23 who has seen this as a priority and it will be out very

24 shortly.

25 MS MAYER: Thank you. The second area again briefly I want

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1 you to deal with is some information you gave the

2 Inquiry about the inter-borough dissemination of

3 information as it were. In this particular case we know

4 and the Inquiry knows that Ealing have closed the case

5 and I think on 7th July and then on the 14th July

6 Victoria went to the Central Middlesex Hospital. Now,

7 whilst Victoria and Kouao were in Nicoll Road, Ealing

8 continued being responsible for the case until they

9 closed it; that is right, is it not?

10 MR TUTT: That is correct.

11 MS MAYER: Once Victoria became subject to Child Protection

12 Procedures when in the Central Middlesex Hospital, whose

13 responsibility would she have been even if Ealing did

14 not close the case?

15 MR TUTT: It would have been the responsibility of the

16 authority in which that hospital was based, in this case

17 Brent.

18 MS MAYER: So by virtue of becoming subject to Child

19 Protection Procedures responsibility would have shifted

20 from Ealing to Brent --

21 MR TUTT: That is correct.

22 MS MAYER: -- on that day. We know that she came off as it

23 were the child protection procedures after being

24 diagnosed by Dr Schwartz. What would you have expected

25 Brent to do at that juncture?

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1 MR TUTT: Well I think if they felt there were outstanding

2 child in need concerns in this case they would have

3 referred the case back to us in a formal way and we

4 would have dealt with it as a referral, because it was

5 now a case that was closed and coming back from another

6 agency as having some outstanding issues that still

7 needed to be dealt with.

8 MS MAYER: To clarify finally, if Victoria stopped being

9 subject to child protection and there were proper

10 referral by Brent to Ealing, would Ealing have taken

11 responsibility for Victoria again as a child in need?

12 MR TUTT: We would.

13 MS MAYER: Thank you very much.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Ms Mayer. Just a few points for

15 clarification. First of all, if I can just follow

16 Ms Mayer's first question which was about the procedure

17 manuals, of course procedure manuals have to be

18 regularly updated but would you agree with me that

19 a procedure manual for staff that actually precedes the

20 1989 Act is positively dangerous?

21 MR TUTT: It is indefensible, yes.

22 THE CHAIRMAN: Secondly, I would like to follow up what

23 Ms Mayer just asked you about when a child from Ealing

24 goes into a hospital in Brent, just to use what happened

25 to Victoria, if Ealing had handled the case rather

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1 differently and had actually started an assessment of

2 Victoria's needs and she had been admitted to a hospital

3 in Brent, what would have been the procedure that would

4 have been followed then?

5 MR TUTT: I would have still expected Brent to carry out the

6 child protection investigation and contacted my staff

7 for the children in need assessment which we would have

8 provided.

9 THE CHAIRMAN: That is an interesting answer and I would be

10 glad if you could help me with it please, because of

11 course it is right that where a child is found in

12 a particular place and is at risk it is the

13 responsibility of that authority, but if literally half

14 a dozen miles down the road there is an authority that

15 is currently actually engaged in doing a thorough

16 assessment of that child, is that right that there would

17 be a separate activity started by Brent?

18 MR TUTT: Well, I think -- I mean my expectation would be

19 that Brent would be the lead agency in the Section 17

20 investigation and would both get all of the formal

21 information -- sorry Section 47 -- get all of the

22 information from my staff and indeed call a meeting at

23 which my staff could share that information with them,

24 but I mean as you will appreciate, the situation in

25 London is there is huge transfer of people across

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1 borough boundaries into hospital. I mean something like

2 30 per cent of the Hammersmith Hospital, which is not in

3 our borough, are patients from our borough and the

4 hospital team there would pick up the child protection

5 cases and would be constantly backwards and forwards

6 exchanging information with us.

7 THE CHAIRMAN: It is precisely because I am aware of the

8 kind of situation you describe where 30 per cent of

9 patients might come from another borough that the

10 arrangements have to be such that there is clarity of

11 purpose and clarity of role and where there is a full

12 exchange of information rather than just handing over

13 the case.

14 What I am really wanting to be clear about is how do

15 you prevent a situation where an adjacent borough

16 decides that it is going to take action without ensuring

17 that they have the kind of information that the other

18 borough has about the child?

19 MR TUTT: I mean, clearly ideally you would be exchanging

20 information in some systematic way. My point in the

21 cross-examination was that there is not a mechanism

22 established to do that at the moment and I would hope it

23 is something the Inquiry could address, but clearly it

24 would be complicated both in terms of the channels of

25 communication but also in the systems to support them

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1 and I would expect it would mean very substantial

2 capital expenditure in some sort of infrastructure to

3 achieve that.

4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. You said at the beginning of your

5 evidence that Ealing had taken the decision to bring

6 together Housing and Social Services.

7 MR TUTT: That is correct.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: You may be aware that other boroughs are in

9 the process of separating Housing and Social Services.

10 I wonder if you could share with us the advantages and

11 disadvantages of one way or the other.

12 MR TUTT: Certainly. It is something that has exercised me

13 considerably over the past year. I think my explanation

14 is that in Ealing we have brought the two departments

15 together at what one might call a strategic level to

16 ensure that Housing strategy and Social Services

17 strategy is in line. We do not see a single line of

18 management, so have no fear, there are not Housing

19 managers managing social workers or vice versa, that is

20 not what we have set out to do.

21 We have identified some areas where there is

22 a duplication of work which could be dealt with more

23 effectively, so a joint reception between Housing and

24 Social Services obviously can make very good sense in

25 our area offices. We have the Housing and Social Work

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1 Team, we have a joint strategy, joint IT, joint

2 personnel and human relationships, joint customer

3 complaints section, all of that is joint, but the actual

4 services you would still find very divided and very

5 different and I think it is important in both senses in

6 that there are 19,000 tenants or lessees in Ealing, the

7 majority of those are not known to Social Services and

8 may never be known to Social Services, and to assume

9 that it is a simple overlap between people who are in

10 social housing and Social Services clients is actually

11 wrong.

12 THE CHAIRMAN: That is very helpful, thank you. I should

13 say that when people refer to things being brought

14 together at a strategic level it causes me slight

15 anxiety about what actually happens on the ground. In

16 reality, what would have happened different today? Just

17 go through it again if you would, please. What would

18 have happened today? What would have happened different

19 in reality had Kouao and Victoria turned up in the

20 circumstances they did turn up at the Housing office?

21 MR TUTT: If they turned up now they would turn up to a team

22 which is both Housing and Social Services, has social

23 workers attached to that team because they would be seen

24 as a homeless person. They would be interviewed by the

25 Housing manager who may well do a joint interview with

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1 the social worker there or ask the social worker to

2 conduct an interview with the child and the mother to

3 establish whether there were any children in need

4 issues. So I would hope that we would come to the sort

5 of decision that Julie Winters came to in Ealing, that

6 is the Housing manager, but it would now have social

7 services or social work input into that decision. We

8 would have an agreed decision between the two

9 departments what the course of action for this family

10 should be.

11 THE CHAIRMAN: Well the course of action you suggest would

12 be that they should be sent back to France.

13 MR TUTT: That is correct.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: What happened if the adult involved declined

15 the offer?

16 MR TUTT: Well, we have no powers to put people on

17 aeroplanes. This is a persistent problem in an area

18 like Ealing where you have a number of asylum seekers

19 whose status has been determined by the Home Office that

20 they do not have asylum status in this country and yet

21 will still come to Social Services because they are now

22 destitute. People from abroad come with a whole range

23 of health and other problems and present in our offices

24 although they have no status legally within this

25 country.

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1 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, so what would you have done when Kouao

2 says, "Thank you for the offer but I am not taking it"?

3 MR TUTT: I think if you are asking me to speculate, we

4 would have made the offer, probably Mrs Kouao would have

5 left Ealing and tried another borough.

6 THE CHAIRMAN: Life is seldom as simple as that. Suppose

7 that they remained sitting in the waiting room in your

8 office and said, "What you are suggesting is

9 unacceptable to me", and the social workers had decided

10 that because there was a young child there something had

11 to be done, what would they have done?

12 MR TUTT: Our only alternative in those circumstances would

13 have been to accommodated the child and left Mrs Kouao

14 to cater for her own needs.

15 THE CHAIRMAN: So are you saying that the policy in Ealing

16 now is in those circumstances you would always take

17 action to receive the child into care and leave the

18 adult in the waiting room?

19 MR TUTT: No, I am saying under -- and that is why I refer

20 to the Lambeth case in the Court of Appeal -- our

21 Council's opinion is that we cannot use Section 17 to

22 accommodate families. Now, in those circumstances there

23 are only two courses of action in this case. One is to

24 offer the putative mother the fare home with her then as

25 we had thought daughter, or alternatively to offer to

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1 accommodate her child. I see no other course of action.

2 THE CHAIRMAN: So how many children have you received into

3 care on that basis?

4 MR TUTT: At this time very few because we are still looking

5 to the DTLR to look at how it is going to change the

6 arrangements for housing in order to meet the Lambeth

7 judgment.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me ask you a more precise question. Have

9 you received any children into care on that basis?

10 MR TUTT: I mean, obviously I would have to consult on that

11 but I would say no. Certainly when we were approached

12 by the Social Service Inspectorate just before Christmas

13 when Shelter had complained that children were taking --

14 sorry, that local authorities were taking children into

15 care in cases of homelessness, we were asked to check

16 whether we had done this at any time and we had not, but

17 the difference I have to say today is the Lambeth

18 judgment.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, I understand that and I understand the

20 subject, I understand it is subject to appeal. What

21 I am concerned about is presumably you are still using

22 finance under the Children Act to accommodate adults.

23 MR TUTT: At this point, no. We have sent out an

24 instruction to staff this week in the light of our

25 counsel's opinion that they cannot use Section 17 to

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1 accommodate adults.

2 THE CHAIRMAN: I do not quite reconcile the two things.

3 Either you are receiving children to care because you

4 are not using finance under the Children Act, and you

5 say you are not, or you are using money under the

6 Children Act to accommodate adults.

7 MR TUTT: Sorry, that instruction has only gone out to staff

8 this week so I cannot tell you what the exact position

9 is, whether we have been approached by families in these

10 circumstances and how they have responded, but in the

11 light of counsel's opinion we clearly were acting

12 against statute by using Section 17 for such purposes.

13 THE CHAIRMAN: You are quite right if I may say so that

14 Social Services receive a huge range of referrals and it

15 is precisely for that reason that staff who are actually

16 dealing with this enormous range of referrals have

17 proper guidance available to them on all of these

18 matters and are able to call upon support in some very

19 difficult decisions. What actually happens in Ealing

20 now that did not happen when staff dealing with Victoria

21 did not get the help they needed?

22 MR TUTT: In terms of support for the frontline staff?

23 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

24 MR TUTT: I think we have first of all got more experienced

25 senior practitioners and team managers running the

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1 service. We have monitoring systems in place. We

2 have -- we now have arrangements to appoint senior

3 caseworkers so experienced people can stay in the job

4 and move up in terms of salaries and conditions. We

5 have operational managers at both sites with whom the

6 team manager or the senior practitioner or indeed the

7 frontline worker could be checking.

8 THE CHAIRMAN: Had that all been in place, do you accept

9 that in the weeks that Victoria was in Ealing an

10 assessment should not only have begun but actually could

11 have been completed?

12 MR TUTT: It should have been both begun and completed in

13 the seven days, yes.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: You mentioned in response to a question from

15 Mr Sheldon about one of the SSI reports, which was about

16 children looked after if my memory serves me right, that

17 that was a different focus from the focus that our

18 concern is about but one of the things that interests

19 the Inquiry is the capacity of local authorities to see

20 services for children as an entity, to see a continuum

21 and to not be all the time seeking to compartmentalise

22 children in need from child protection or looked after,

23 whatever it may be.

24 Do you first of all agree that that is a concern and

25 secondly do you have any thoughts about how that concern

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1 can be addressed?

2 MR TUTT: Certainly I do not see the system

3 compartmentalised in that way and I hope I have not

4 given that impression. What I was trying to say is that

5 the priorities that I had to address in my first year

6 were those that had been highlighted by the SSI which

7 clearly were that there were no -- that children within

8 our care may not have been safe.

9 So that was the first issue to address. We

10 certainly see it as a continuum and that is why we have

11 developed this partnership arrangement with Family

12 Welfare Association to try and develop an early

13 intervention strategy as we call it, because our view is

14 that if you can intervene early in the cases, they are

15 not going to escalate to the point where the child has

16 to be either accommodated or looked after by the local

17 authority. So we would see it as a single system.

18 THE CHAIRMAN: You began by saying that when you went to

19 Ealing you assessed the calibre, the capacity of the

20 team managers and you decided some were capable and some

21 were not. They were sorted out and jobs were advertised

22 and filled all within three months. Did Ealing do

23 anything different or could every local authority

24 operating within the law do that?

25 MR TUTT: I like to think I operated within the law. I will

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1 let others judge that.

2 I think it is achievable. It was achievable in

3 Ealing because as I think you well know Lord Laming, the

4 Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive and the

5 Chair of Social Services and the then Director had been

6 seen by the Minister of State and told that in his

7 opinion this was the worst department in the country and

8 they had better do something or he would.

9 The Leader took that as a very significant event and

10 still refers to it as the worst day of his political

11 life. He has been determined to ensure that the

12 services are changed and when I went as an interim,

13 I mean he met me I think on the first day and said that

14 he would back whatever needed to be done so that when we

15 needed to ask certain staff to leave the department he

16 was prepared to take that on and would, I am convinced,

17 would have fronted that against the unions if that had

18 come to that point.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: So within the law there are no impediments to

20 quick organisational action where it is needed?

21 MR TUTT: No, I do not think so.

22 THE CHAIRMAN: You mention in your witness statement,

23 paragraph 16, a task force chaired by

24 Councillor Brookes. You use the word "was" for reasons

25 I remember. Has that task force done its job or does it

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1 still exist now?

2 MR TUTT: The task force has become the Corporate Parent

3 Panel and then there is a Children's Planning Group as

4 well led by members, but I think the significance of the

5 task force was firstly it was bipartisan that all of the

6 parties in Ealing agreed to work on it and it was not

7 used for the usual political differences. There was

8 a commitment from all parties to improve the lot of

9 children in the borough. There were children on the

10 task force, which was very significant because it made

11 members aware of what children and young people thought

12 about the services they were receiving and engaged them

13 in that process, and it had representatives of Health

14 and voluntary organisation and Education on it.

15 It has now become the Corporate Parent Panel and

16 chief officers attend it and are expected to work

17 cooperatively for the betterment of children in the

18 borough.

19 THE CHAIRMAN: Was the Leader as was you referred to still

20 the Leader now?

21 MR TUTT: He is.

22 THE CHAIRMAN: Is Councillor Brookes you referred to still

23 on the authority?

24 MR TUTT: She is. She is now the portfolio holder, we have

25 moved over to a Cabinet system, for supporting adults