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Archived Transcript for 29 November 2001:
Pages 151 to 200
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1 being done in the office; is that right?
2 MS GREEN: Absolutely.
3 MR GARNHAM: Tell us: how competently did you think the work
4 was being done in the North Tottenham District Office
5 during 1999?
6 MS GREEN: I would make a distinction I suppose between the
7 Long Term Teams, the Children and Families Teams, and
8 possibly the I&A and Duty Teams. I have particular
9 responsibility for one of the Children and Families
10 Teams so I would be involved in advising and
11 consulting --
12 MR GARNHAM: Let me ask you to identify that one first.
13 Which one is that?
14 MS GREEN: I am trying to remember.
15 MR GARNHAM: Who was the team manager?
16 MS GREEN: I am trying to remember now in 1999. I think it
17 was probably Chris Sandercombe. It might have been
18 Luciana Frederick at that time. Yes, it was probably
19 Luciana.
20 MR GARNHAM: And your view on that quality of their work?
21 MS GREEN: She was a very good team manager. It was a very
22 stable and consistent team up there who used me
23 regularly and I had a desk up there so I would work with
24 them very closely.
25 MR GARNHAM: I will come back to how you were used in
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1 a moment but I direct the same question to you in
2 respect of the Investigation and Assessment Team. Your
3 overview of their competence in 1999.
4 MS GREEN: Okay. As Duty goes, I would visit the Duty Team
5 and there were different people on Duty. So I would
6 only pick up stuff on the day as and when stuff came up.
7 So people would use me in that way. In the I&A Team
8 regularly social workers including Lisa Arthurworrey
9 used me for consultation and advice. I would say
10 I thought it was a very organised, very well-structured
11 team with a number of stable people within that team
12 although probably less so than the Long Term Team that
13 I have referred to earlier.
14 MR GARNHAM: I am interested in your reflections on that
15 team based not only on the occasions when you assisted
16 them but also based on the material you have gathered in
17 the course of your quality assurance role that you have
18 told us about. Were you seeing their files?
19 MS GREEN: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: Were you able to reach a view as to the quality
21 of the product?
22 MS GREEN: In the audits certainly, yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: And?
24 MS GREEN: And as a child protection advisor giving advice,
25 there were a number of social workers who used me and
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1 I think if people did not use me then I would not have
2 a very clear understanding possibly --
3 MR GARNHAM: Would you not as a result of the audit
4 exercise --
5 MS GREEN: I would absolutely as part of the audit.
6 MR GARNHAM: Well, based on that what was your view about
7 the quality of the work being done in the I&A Team?
8 MS GREEN: I am trying to remember whether the audit we did
9 on the I&A Team actually took place. But what
10 I remember is that one of our concerns coming out of
11 that was that workers were holding on to cases for
12 longer than the period that we would have hoped they
13 would have done, which was really up to case conference,
14 and then pass it on to the Long Term Teams. We were
15 also quite concerned about the amount of family support
16 work that was in those teams and was taking up the
17 teams' time instead of what we would have hoped, which
18 was more of a child protection strategy work.
19 MR GARNHAM: Thank you for that. I will come back in
20 a moment if I may to talk about the atmosphere and the
21 working relations in that team. But let me first
22 complete this part of my questioning by asking you about
23 the way in which you were used. What arrangements were
24 in place to govern the relationship between the CPAs on
25 the one hand and social workers on the others?
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1 MS GREEN: What arrangements were in place?
2 MR GARNHAM: How did they make use of you?
3 MS GREEN: There were several ways. One, we were always
4 available for telephone advice. So if something urgent
5 came up on somebody's case load they could ring and we
6 would give urgent, if you like, more emergency advice.
7 MR GARNHAM: How many of you were there?
8 MS GREEN: Child protection advisors at that time?
9 MR GARNHAM: Yes.
10 MS GREEN: Three.
11 MR GARNHAM: You, Petra Kitchman --
12 MS GREEN: And other colleague.
13 MR GARNHAM: By the name of?
14 MS GREEN: Karen Cooper.
15 MR GARNHAM: Thank you.
16 MS GREEN: We had a post cut by that time. There used to be
17 four of us. So there were three.
18 MR GARNHAM: And Ann Graham was your line manager?
19 MS GREEN: She was.
20 MR GARNHAM: I asked you that question and interrupted your
21 flow, I am sorry. You were telling us about how they
22 would use you. They would on an emergency basis pick up
23 the phone and phone you for advice.
24 MS GREEN: Yes.
25 MR GARNHAM: How else?
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1 MS GREEN: Sometimes they would ring up and I would say,
2 "I shall be down in the district. Shall we sit down and
3 have a face to face talk about this case?"
4 MR GARNHAM: What does "down in the district" mean?
5 MS GREEN: I worked in another office so I would be going
6 down there every Thursday so that I could sit with
7 workers and go through the case that they wanted to talk
8 to me about.
9 MR GARNHAM: I had not entirely understood that. So I ought
10 to perhaps ask you where you spent your time when you
11 were at work. Normally, where was your normal office?
12 MS GREEN: My normal office was Duke House. I would go down
13 to the district office for a whole day on a Thursday --
14 MR GARNHAM: That is what we have been calling North
15 Tottenham District Office, is it?
16 MS GREEN: That is what I have been calling North Tottenham
17 District Office, yes.
18 MR GARNHAM: And where is that in relation to Duke House?
19 MS GREEN: What, geography wise?
20 MR GARNHAM: Yes. Same part of London? Miles apart? Around
21 the corner?
22 MS GREEN: No, it is in Haringey. They are both in
23 Haringey. North Tottenham is in the east part of the
24 borough and Hornsey is in the west. So they were nat
25 totally different parts of the borough.
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1 MR GARNHAM: And Hornsey is where Duke House was?
2 MS GREEN: That is right.
3 MR GARNHAM: What is the distance between those two?
4 MS GREEN: Five miles.
5 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. So your normal office would be at
6 Duke House?
7 MS GREEN: Yes.
8 MR GARNHAM: And how much of your time would you spend over
9 at NTDO?
10 MS GREEN: As I say, a full day a week at least.
11 MR GARNHAM: So the first thing was telephone contact?
12 MS GREEN: Yes.
13 MR GARNHAM: Secondly, you might as a result of such contact
14 say, "I am coming over to NTDO on such and such a date.
15 I will see you when I come."
16 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
17 MR GARNHAM: What else?
18 MS GREEN: Sometimes people would phone me up and say, "We
19 are having a multiagency planning meeting, could you
20 chair it?" Or some other sort of planning manager,
21 something that was complex, something that was
22 difficult, and I would have to decide in terms of
23 priority whether it would be good to go down there and
24 chair the meeting or whether somebody else could do it.
25 If it was on a Thursday, it would fit in with my
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1 schedule because I was down there anyway and I would do
2 them.
3 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. Did social workers need to get
4 authority from their managers before they sought your
5 advice?
6 MS GREEN: Certainly not.
7 MR GARNHAM: And were social workers able to reject your
8 advice if they wanted to?
9 MS GREEN: Certainly not.
10 MR GARNHAM: Then, it does not sound much like advice. It
11 sounds more like instruction.
12 MS GREEN: Well, I think we were very clear that we were
13 considered people who knew something about child
14 protection and if we were used to -- if we were asked
15 questions about child protection then people had to have
16 very good reasons as to why they would not be following
17 that advice.
18 MR GARNHAM: So you would expect a first level social
19 worker, if they sought your advice, to follow it?
20 MS GREEN: Absolutely.
21 MR GARNHAM: What about a manager, a team manager? Would
22 they ever seek your advice?
23 MS GREEN: They did seek my advice and there were often case
24 discussions is what I would call it. They would say,
25 "We have this case, what do you think? This is what we
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1 think", and we would discuss it and come up with a plan
2 of action as to what might be the best way forward.
3 MR GARNHAM: Were there ever occasions when the advice you
4 were giving as a child protection advisor and the advice
5 a social worker was obtaining from his or her manager
6 differed?
7 MS GREEN: Sometimes.
8 MR GARNHAM: How was that resolved?
9 MS GREEN: It would go up through the managers. I would say
10 to -- we would try to resolve it between ourselves. If
11 I really felt that a child was left at risk if they did
12 not follow my advice then I would take that to my
13 manager who would discuss it presumably with her manager
14 and it would be resolved that they would on the whole
15 follow our advice and that was certainly what the
16 assistant director gave us to believe.
17 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. When did you have contact -- tell
18 me if it is different now to then -- with outside
19 agencies?
20 MS GREEN: A lot of the time. I was on a number of working
21 groups. I was in the training subgroup of the ACPC
22 which was a multiagency grouping. I was also part of
23 a mental health grouping which put on training on
24 a multiagency basis.
25 MR GARNHAM: When in a particular case would you have
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1 contact?
2 MS GREEN: Case conference.
3 MR GARNHAM: Any other time?
4 MS GREEN: Multiagency planning meeting.
5 MR GARNHAM: On a particular case?
6 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
7 MR GARNHAM: Yes? Would outside agencies ever have resort
8 to you either for your advice or for seeking to advance
9 a case?
10 MS GREEN: Absolutely. Regularly.
11 MR GARNHAM: How would that happen? A policeman or a doctor
12 would phone you up?
13 MS GREEN: What we had in the team was we had liaison
14 functions which were -- I mean mine was the whole of
15 Mental Health, Adult Mental Health or Child and
16 Adolescent Mental Health Team, so they were aware I was
17 their particular child protection advisor although it
18 did not preclude going to others in my absence. I would
19 go to team meetings, I would discuss the role of the
20 advisors and they would often phone me up and say,
21 "I have a problem with this case. I am not sure whether
22 I should refer" --
23 MR GARNHAM: Who is the "they" in that sentence?
24 MS GREEN: In my case it was --
25 MR GARNHAM: In the one you just referred to, the situation
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1 you were just describing?
2 MS GREEN: What did I just say, sorry? Remind me.
3 MR GARNHAM: You said:
4 "What we had in the team was we had liaison
5 functions ... mine was the whole of Mental Health, Adult
6 Mental Health or Child and Adolescent Mental Health
7 Team, so they were aware I was their particular child
8 protection advisor~... I would go to team meetings,
9 I would discuss the role of the advisors and they would
10 often phone me up and say, "I have a problem ...'"
11 Who is the "they"?
12 MS GREEN: This was the Child and Adolescent Mental Health
13 Team that I liaised with directly.
14 MR GARNHAM: So social worker team?
15 MS GREEN: No, no. They were held by a consultant
16 psychiatrist and it was a multiagency team.
17 MR GARNHAM: So to test the situation with the example you
18 give, if a consultant psychiatrist had a concern
19 involving child protection, he or she could phone you up
20 direct?
21 MS GREEN: Absolutely.
22 MR GARNHAM: And would phone you up in order to obtain your
23 advice?
24 MS GREEN: Sometimes.
25 MR GARNHAM: What else might they do?
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1 MS GREEN: They might phone me because they had -- they were
2 worried about a child that they felt had been referred
3 but they did not feel --
4 MR GARNHAM: Referred by whom to them?
5 MS GREEN: They might have referred the case themselves to
6 the District. For example, North Tottenham felt that
7 the work either was not progressing fast enough or in
8 the manner that they or the direction that they would
9 have liked it to go and they might ask for me to
10 intervene.
11 MR GARNHAM: Why would they use you as their contact point?
12 MS GREEN: One of our jobs is that we offered a resource to
13 everybody, including the general public. So anybody
14 could phone us up about a child protection concern
15 including other agencies. Sometimes if people got
16 frustrated with trying to work things out with the
17 District we were a safety net and were seen as
18 a centralised team of people who would intervene, hear
19 the case, what they have to say about it, and make
20 a decision or think about the best way forward.
21 So sometimes I would say to them, "You have not
22 phoned the District yet. You need to contact the
23 District first of all and say what your concerns are".
24 If they said, "I have gone to the District, I have
25 discussed it with a social worker and the team manager,
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1 I did it a month ago" or something like that, nothing
2 has moved forward, I would say I will go down there and
3 do something about that.
4 MR GARNHAM: Were you then seen as high grade contact,
5 expert contact?
6 MS GREEN: High grade? I do not know.
7 MR GARNHAM: I am wondering why they in that situation, in
8 the example you gave us, would choose to ring you as
9 opposed to ringing the team manager.
10 MS GREEN: There may have been issues about availability.
11 As you can see from my job description I am involved in
12 lots of different bits of work and our availability was
13 such that we would always endeavour to have somebody
14 available who could take a call or who could deal with
15 an issue, and I think that it may have been our
16 availability to other agencies that allowed them to feel
17 that they would come to us and they should come to us.
18 We encourage that.
19 MR GARNHAM: Now, even in circumstances where that level of
20 involvement occurs, you do not have a case work
21 responsibility, do you?
22 MS GREEN: No.
23 MR GARNHAM: How, then, is your contact and the consequences
24 of it fed in to the management of the particular case?
25 MS GREEN: Depending on the case. I mean, sometimes we were
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1 used like troubleshooters. I would go down and I would
2 say, "So and so has phoned me up. This is the
3 information they have given me. Can I check, is that
4 the information that you have?" So I would first of all
5 check out the information. I would then endeavour to
6 find a way forward. So I would say something like -- if
7 there was a disagreement in terms of the information, if
8 they said, "So and so is saying this, it is not true,
9 I might suggest, "What about a planning meeting chaired
10 by myself so that the people can get together, look at
11 what the issues are and make a plan to secure the safety
12 of a particular child?
13 MR GARNHAM: So that would be done by way of discussion?
14 MS GREEN: Yes.
15 MR GARNHAM: Was your involvement in that sort of way
16 recorded?
17 MS GREEN: Yes. If I was involved in a very minor level,
18 like a telephone call or something, I would write it.
19 If I was involved in something small I would write it on
20 the file directly. If it was a full blown --
21 MR GARNHAM: On what file?
22 MS GREEN: The child's file.
23 MR GARNHAM: Yes.
24 MS GREEN: If it was a full blown consultation that I was
25 sitting down with a social worker and going through the
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1 case with them, I always got my notes typed up and
2 I would send a copy to the social worker and the manager
3 and I would keep a copy myself of that.
4 MR GARNHAM: Because it sounds as if given the nature of
5 your role it is quite important that when you have that
6 sort of involvement with an individual case, that that
7 is recorded and kept with the file so that those who
8 come afterwards can see the nature of your involvement.
9 Is that right?
10 MS GREEN: Yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: Because there is a danger, is there not, if
12 that does not happen, that the focus of the case is
13 split?
14 MS GREEN: Yes. I mean, I would take a full history.
15 I would go through what had brought that person to
16 Social Services, why they were there and all of that.
17 And my advice would be based on the information that
18 I was given.
19 MR GARNHAM: And that would invariably be the case? You
20 would always do that?
21 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
22 MR GARNHAM: And you would always record that?
23 MS GREEN: Yes.
24 MR GARNHAM: And you would always ensure that record was
25 added to the child's file?
165
1 MS GREEN: Well, I would send a copy to the social worker
2 and manager on the clear understanding that they would
3 attach it to file.
4 MR GARNHAM: I see.
5 MS GREEN: I did not physically put it in the file myself.
6 MR GARNHAM: But you would not do work semi-detached so they
7 did not know what you had been doing because that would
8 be potentially disastrous, would it not?
9 MS GREEN: Possibly yes. I would not do that, no.
10 MR GARNHAM: You said that you were available to all as
11 a resource. That sounds worse than the bar. Did you
12 ever get calls from churches and, in particular, the
13 Rainbow Church?
14 MS GREEN: We did get calls from churches, not churches
15 directly but we did get phone calls about concerns about
16 churches and practices in churches, but not this one
17 that I remember.
18 MR GARNHAM: Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, not one
19 you came across before?
20 MS GREEN: I am not sure where that one is but there was one
21 that was opposite a building that we used in work in in
22 Apex House where there were concerns but it was a long
23 time ago. I cannot remember the name of that church.
24 But there were concerns about that and that was
25 thoroughly investigated at the time.
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1 MR GARNHAM: Did you ever get involved with churches at all
2 to educate them in child protection matters?
3 MS GREEN: Not in such a way as you are suggesting. If
4 people came and said -- I mean people did come and say,
5 "We have worries about a particular person" or "How do
6 you think we should set up a particular group if we are
7 working with children?" and we would take them through
8 what we thought would be good practice in relation to
9 working with children and being responsible for children
10 when their parents were not there.
11 MR GARNHAM: But the initiative would come from them rather
12 than you?
13 MS GREEN: Otherwise it would be a huge endeavour.
14 MR GARNHAM: Yes. If you had correspondence with an outside
15 body, be it a church or a hospital or a police station
16 or because they wanted to contact you about a particular
17 case, how was your office organised to ensure that was
18 dealt with promptly?
19 MS GREEN: There were two ways. One was formally writing it
20 up on one of these consultation forms and the other was
21 that we had individual books, A4 notebooks where we
22 would write down when they phoned, who phoned, what the
23 query was and what we did in relation to it.
24 MR GARNHAM: And that would indicate the speed of response?
25 MS GREEN: Yes.
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1 MR GARNHAM: And did you have standards that you applied to
2 yourself to ensure that you dealt with that sort of
3 contact promptly?
4 MS GREEN: When they would ring up -- sorry I am a bit --
5 MR GARNHAM: I am wondering who guards the guards. One of
6 your functions is to ensure quality performance by the
7 social work teams. Who ensures that you do your job
8 with reasonable speed?
9 MS GREEN: SSI, I suppose. My manager.
10 MR GARNHAM: And in the meantime when you were between SSI
11 inspections, you would have your own standards
12 I imagine?
13 MS GREEN: Yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: So that things did not just slip and post go
15 unanswered. How did you manage that?
16 MS GREEN: In terms of post -- I mean, if people were on
17 leave for more than a week, we would check each other's
18 post.
19 MR GARNHAM: Did you have secretarial assistance or
20 administrative assistance?
21 MS GREEN: Some.
22 MR GARNHAM: So it is not a matter of your having individual
23 desks on which stuff could pile up for weeks?
24 MS GREEN: No, no. We had our own individual pigeonholes.
25 Letters would come date stamped as they came into the
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1 office, someone would stamp them with a date that the
2 office actually received the information, and we would
3 check for each other --
4 MR GARNHAM: If you were away?
5 MS GREEN: If I was away someone would do it for me.
6 MR GARNHAM: And you for someone else if they were away?
7 MS GREEN: Indeed but only for people on holiday for more
8 than a week. Not for a day or something like that but
9 for extended leave.
10 MR GARNHAM: So that ought to result in correspondence being
11 dealt with reasonably swiftly, that method?
12 MS GREEN: Yes. You would look through people's pigeonholes
13 and see if there was anything urgent looking in their
14 pile and if there was, pull it out and do anything about
15 it. If not, put it back.
16 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. You have told us that you would
17 undertake audits.
18 MS GREEN: Yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: And that was done regularly?
20 MS GREEN: Yes.
21 MR GARNHAM: And frequently?
22 MS GREEN: Yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: What frequency?
24 MS GREEN: Two, maybe two or three a year.
25 MR GARNHAM: And that is audits of what?
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1 MS GREEN: What did I do? I did the Family and Counselling
2 and Support Team. That was one audit. We did I&A, both
3 east and west, Hornsey and North Tottenham.
4 MR GARNHAM: When was your audit of the I&A?
5 MS GREEN: Do not ask me --
6 MR GARNHAM: At North Tottenham?
7 MS GREEN: I cannot remember. I have done a few --
8 MR GARNHAM: Could you give us a punt as to which year?
9 MS GREEN: 1999. There was one done just before the 2000
10 SSI inspection. So there was one done -- it might have
11 been just before April 2000.
12 MR GARNHAM: Thank you very much. That will give us a clue
13 to finding it.
14 MS GREEN: Sorry.
15 MR GARNHAM: Did you also do audits of case files?
16 MS GREEN: No. Do you mean just picking up case files and
17 auditing them? The SSI tended to do it like that. We
18 tended to do blocks of cases like the I&A Team or the
19 Children and Families Team, that kind of thing. We did
20 not just pick files like that.
21 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. I have been helped to find the
22 audit, I think. 15A, please, page 186. Is that the one
23 you had in mind?
24 MS GREEN: What I have in front of me is report of case
25 recording audit held in April/May 2000. Yes, I think it
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1 was.
2 MR GARNHAM: That was done ahead of the June 2000 SSI
3 inspection, I think.
4 MS GREEN: Yes, I think that was it.
5 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. I wonder if you could keep that
6 file but also have 13A, please, page 093. I will show
7 you that page just to identify the document. That is
8 the SSI inspection records in Haringey in April 1997.
9 Go on to page 110 if you will, please. Recorded
10 practice, finding 4.2:
11 "In the Children and Families Division there was
12 a system of case file auditing which took place four
13 times a year, undertaken by child protection
14 coordinators in consultation with managers and aimed to
15 monitor practice."
16 MS GREEN: Yes, I think that is the audits I am talking
17 about.
18 MR GARNHAM: Four times a year?
19 MS GREEN: I did not know it was as often as that.
20 MR GARNHAM: Did they in fact happen that often?
21 MS GREEN: I would have said three times a year, like I said
22 initially if you had asked me, but I would not have been
23 surprised. The thing is we took different leads so that
24 I have probably done three audits myself.
25 MR GARNHAM: Over what period?
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1 MS GREEN: Over probably a three-year period.
2 MR GARNHAM: One a year?
3 MS GREEN: So if I answer for the whole team it was
4 probably --
5 MR GARNHAM: Three a year?
6 MS GREEN: Yes.
7 MR GARNHAM: But is that three audits -- three audits of
8 what?
9 MS GREEN: They were different ones because some were on the
10 Children Looked After side because our team is made up
11 of reviewing officers as well as child protection
12 advisors so it was not just a team of three child
13 protection advisors. So some audits might have been on
14 Children Looked After and I might not have had a role in
15 it at all and I may not have been aware of that
16 particular audit.
17 MR GARNHAM: What I am trying to understand for present
18 purposes is how frequently were you doing audits of
19 the --
20 MS GREEN: There always seemed to be one going on or about
21 to be going on.
22 MR GARNHAM: How often a year? Four times a year?
23 MS GREEN: Yes, I would have thought so.
24 MR GARNHAM: So each social worker would have their work
25 audited four times a year?
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1 MS GREEN: Oh no, not necessarily. Different parts of the
2 service were audits, as I have said. So one year you
3 might be I&A that you were audited but it may not be for
4 another two years that you were audited again.
5 MR GARNHAM: That is what I am trying to --
6 MS GREEN: No, it was not four audits of I&A a year.
7 MR GARNHAM: That is what I am trying to understand.
8 MS GREEN: No it was not.
9 MR GARNHAM: How often would, say, the I&A Team find itself
10 being subject to audit?
11 MS GREEN: Probably once in three or four years I would have
12 thought. I think it depends as well. If we found
13 serious worries in a team, we may go back earlier. So
14 if we did an audit and we thought, "Gosh, this is quite
15 worrying" and we did an action plan and suggested all
16 sorts of things happen then we may go back and audit
17 again quicker because of the nature of the concerns, if
18 you see what I mean.
19 MR GARNHAM: The audit that I showed you after you referred
20 me to it, the one of April/May 2000, was that one with
21 which you were involved?
22 MS GREEN: Yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: What was its outcome? Can I suggest one or two
24 points to you and you tell me whether this is right.
25 Page 189:
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1 "Three files could not be found."
2 Do you remember that?
3 MS GREEN: Yes.
4 MR GARNHAM: Disconcerting?
5 MS GREEN: Indeed.
6 MR GARNHAM: Same page:
7 "Basic information sheet not filled in properly in
8 50 per cent of cases. Most common failure is not dating
9 the form."
10 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
11 MR GARNHAM: Yes?
12 MS GREEN: Yes.
13 MR GARNHAM: Page 191:
14 "Checklist forms not completed."
15 MS GREEN: Yes.
16 MR GARNHAM: Another problem?
17 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
18 MR GARNHAM: 193:
19 "Initial assessment forms not on file or started but
20 not completed."
21 MS GREEN: Yes.
22 MR GARNHAM: 197:
23 "Gaps in supervision notes and confusion over where
24 these ought to be filed."
25 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
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1 MR GARNHAM: Page 200:
2 "Case recording needing to remain a prominent
3 feature of personal development reviews."
4 MS GREEN: Yes.
5 MR GARNHAM: I asked you earlier on what your impression was
6 of the quality of the work that was going on in these
7 teams. In the light of what that audit revealed, what
8 is your answer now?
9 MS GREEN: Well that audit was very worrying and it was seen
10 as such, that there were certain things that had to
11 change very quickly, and my understanding is that that
12 is one of the points the SSI picked up on and they found
13 the same sorts of problems that we had found. We did
14 action plans to address the shortfalls and expected
15 those to have been carried out.
16 MR GARNHAM: That audit was carried out I think in March of
17 2000.
18 MS GREEN: Yes.
19 MR GARNHAM: Looking back at the situation as it then was
20 and how it had been in the period leading up to that
21 date. Presumably you were looking at the files that
22 were then available and may have been running for some
23 weeks or months before that?
24 MS GREEN: As I said earlier, we did have concerns that I&A
25 cases were taking too long to be transferred to the Long
175
1 Term Teams. That was one of the issues that we were
2 worried about, and the amount of family support.
3 I think another issue that came up which was of concern
4 was the number of asylum seekers that were actually
5 needing support and help, and that put an added strain,
6 I think, on those Duty Teams.
7 MR GARNHAM: Yes. Whatever the cause was, I am interested
8 in the quality of the work. Do you still say that the
9 quality of the work in that office was adequate, based
10 on that audit?
11 MS GREEN: In some ways yes I would say some of it was
12 adequate. The thing is --
13 MR GARNHAM: Some of it was adequate?
14 MS GREEN: I mean it was patchy, it is true. You will
15 notice that some of the work would have been to a very
16 high standard.
17 MR GARNHAM: Yes.
18 MS GREEN: Some of it was not -- all of it was not
19 completed. So I would say it was mixed.
20 MR GARNHAM: Mixed suggests that it is possible for cases to
21 fall through the netting, depending on whether --
22 MS GREEN: Mixed means that you will have social workers of
23 different abilities working in any one team at any one
24 time.
25 MR GARNHAM: It suggests more than that, does it not,
176
1 because it suggests whatever systems were in place for
2 picking up individual weaknesses in social workers was
3 not working.
4 MS GREEN: It depends, you see. You can look at progress in
5 a number of ways. You can see somebody whose practice
6 is quite poor and you bring them up to a reasonable
7 standard where the safety of children is protected and
8 therefore you feel a result in some ways. You can see
9 other people who are absolutely brilliant at the job the
10 moment they walk in the door and you want them to go to
11 higher elevations. So you are going to have a whole
12 mixed bag of workers in any one team.
13 So to say -- there were people who were pumping out
14 very high quality, very high standard and it was shown
15 in the SSI reports were very good. There were other
16 workers who needed lifting up to that standard. There
17 were other people who were falling short of that
18 standard.
19 MR GARNHAM: If a particular case fell to one of those in
20 the latter categories, there was a risk the quality of
21 the work would be poor?
22 MS GREEN: Yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: There was also at about the same time, I think,
24 a review of district cases following the death of
25 a child in North Tottenham. Are you familiar with that?
177
1 MS GREEN: You are going back some now. Yes possibly.
2 MR GARNHAM: The same time, March 2000.
3 MS GREEN: Was it?
4 MR GARNHAM: One month before the earlier one.
5 MS GREEN: Okay.
6 MR GARNHAM: Volume 15 --
7 MS GREEN: I do not think I was involved in that one.
8 MR GARNHAM: I will show it to you and if you cannot help
9 us, you can tell us. 15/106. I told you it was March.
10 In fact it is exactly the same month; it is April.
11 11th April 2000 is the date at the foot of the page. If
12 you do not know about this, I will ask somebody else.
13 Is this something with which you were involved?
14 MS GREEN: (Pause) It says here at the top that this audit
15 was of all cases held in I&A and on Duty. That was the
16 audit that I am referring to. Are you saying that this
17 is a different audit? Sorry, I am confused.
18 MR GARNHAM: No, it is my lack of understanding. I had not
19 understood the previous audit had been prompted by the
20 death of a child.
21 MS GREEN: I think it is one and the same. I might be
22 wrong.
23 MR GARNHAM: So tell me what the connection is between the
24 two documents then. Is this a summary of the audit?
25 MS GREEN: I think, yes, this is the summary of that audit.
178
1 MR GARNHAM: I see.
2 MS GREEN: I might be wrong. I think it is.
3 MR GARNHAM: I probably would have thought about asking for
4 a break some time soon anyway. In the light of that
5 answer and not wanting to put a false point to this
6 witness, I wonder if now would be a convenient moment.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: That is fine, Mr Garnham. Shall we get back
8 at 25 past 3?
9 MR GARNHAM: Thank you, yes.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: During the course of this break you are not
11 allowed to discuss your evidence with anyone. With
12 anyone.
13 MS GREEN: All right.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
15 (3.20 pm)
16 (Short adjournment)
17 (3.25 pm)
18 MR GARNHAM: You will have gathered that your answer that
19 these were the same audits somewhat took me by surprise.
20 So let me trace back the origin as I understand it to be
21 and you can tell me whether I am right about this for
22 the second document we looked at. The second document
23 is the one referring to the death of a child in North
24 Tottenham. Will you have volume 2, please. You are
25 going to need several volumes open, one after the other.
179
1 MS GREEN: Okay.
2 MR GARNHAM: Page 241 is the minutes of a meeting with
3 a Councillor George Meehan, the Leader of the Council,
4 at the end of which Carol Wilson, the author of this,
5 notes:
6 "A full audit of current cases east and west on Duty
7 and in the Investigation and Assessment Team has been
8 actioned. The audit will be undertaken by a manager in
9 the service and a senior man in the Child Protection
10 Service."
11 That is dated 3rd March 2000 and what I want to
12 suggest to you is that as a result of that, the report
13 I was taking you to in volume 15 at page 106 was
14 produced.
15 MS GREEN: Okay. Yes.
16 MR GARNHAM: And the death of a child in North Tottenham was
17 the death of Victoria. Does that tally with your
18 understanding?
19 MS GREEN: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: I want to take you to this to see if I can test
21 your previous answers about the quality of the work that
22 was being done in these teams.
23 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
24 MR GARNHAM: This review concerned both North Tottenham and
25 Hornsey.
180
1 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
2 MR GARNHAM: I want to ask you about both. North Tottenham
3 first. This review revealed masses of serious concern,
4 did it not, in the way work was being done in the North
5 Tottenham office? If I take you to the bits that strike
6 me as potentially significant I will get your comments
7 on them. Under the heading "North Tottenham District":
8 "Clear evidence of hands on and regular supervision
9 was apparent throughout the files. However the notes
10 undertaken of the supervision reflect only the decision.
11 The full supervision notes may be held elsewhere."
12 That is not what you would want to see, is it?
13 MS GREEN: No, that is right. One of the things that we
14 noticed was that the actions remained very similar, in
15 a sense, and that the overall thinking or analysis of
16 the case was not on the supervision notes, was not
17 available to us.
18 MR GARNHAM: Were you part of this review?
19 MS GREEN: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: Next paragraph:
21 "We were struck by the repetitive and basic nature
22 of the management actions on file."
23 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
24 MR GARNHAM: Again, disconcerting, to put it at its lowest?
25 MS GREEN: Well yes. What was good was that we felt the
181
1 social workers were being given direction by these
2 actions, that they had clear action plans of what was
3 expected of them. What worried us about them, as
4 I remember, was the fact that there were certain things
5 that you have to do when you get a referral and you
6 expect, as people become longer in the tooth if you like
7 in the job, that you would not need those basic actions
8 repeated time and again, that they would know to do
9 those things.
10 MR GARNHAM: Whereas this audit revealed that managers were
11 requesting time and time again that checks should be
12 carried out.
13 "These tasks are sometimes completed and sometimes
14 not."
15 More than a little worrying?
16 MS GREEN: Agreed.
17 MR GARNHAM: Over the page:
18 "We also consider that more home visits should be
19 undertaken rather than office appointments."
20 MS GREEN: Yes, that was a worry. I think that people try
21 to short-cut by inviting people into the office and we
22 have always maintained in our team that it is really
23 important to do home visits because you get a much
24 better picture of what is going on in a family when you
25 visit them at home.
182
1 MR GARNHAM: Next paragraph, five lines down:
2 "We considered that there was some inconsistency in
3 the dealings with family support cases and that the lack
4 of event may create aimlessness."
5 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
6 MR GARNHAM: Now each of those last two is familiar
7 territory to us because it has the flavour of Victoria's
8 case.
9 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
10 MR GARNHAM: But what this is suggesting is that Victoria's
11 case was in those regards not isolated.
12 MS GREEN: I think that is probably true. What we saw was
13 evidence of lots of work but not necessarily in the
14 direction that we felt it should always be going.
15 MR GARNHAM: Last paragraph under "North Tottenham":
16 "There were pockets of good analysis and clear
17 objectives but occasionally there was a lack of focus
18 and minor drift."
19 MS GREEN: That was what I was trying to point you to before
20 when I said it was mixed.
21 MR GARNHAM: Yes. And also what I suggest to you is
22 particularly worrying about this: that if your child's
23 case happens to be one of those to which these
24 observations can apply there is precious little safety
25 net there, is there? I mean, that is the office not
183
1 doing its job.
2 MS GREEN: In some cases yes.
3 MR GARNHAM: It does not matter if you are the parents of
4 the child concerned, if your case is one of those cases,
5 the office is not doing its job, is it?
6 MS GREEN: No.
7 MR GARNHAM: It is fair to say that North Tottenham was
8 worrying, Hornsey was positively frightening?
9 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
10 MR GARNHAM: You nod.
11 MS GREEN: Yes, true.
12 MR GARNHAM: "Condition of many files confusing. Not always
13 clear where things were filed. Initial assessment forms
14 were almost never used."
15 Bottom of the page:
16 "There was evidence of child protection files that
17 had little or no work for very long periods of time, in
18 some cases over a year."
19 MS GREEN: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: Next page:
21 "On 21st January 2000 all cases on Duty pending or
22 waiting for appointments were closed by instruction."
23 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
24 MR GARNHAM: Your face is extremely expressive but it will
25 not go on the record.
184
1 MS GREEN: If you look at the last line, it says:
2 "We were concerned and surprised by the quality of
3 work we found in the Hornsey District Office. We cannot
4 be sure that the practice is safe."
5 MR GARNHAM: If we remove the words "concerned and
6 surprised" and replaced it with the word "appalled"
7 would that be inaccurate?
8 MS GREEN: No.
9 MR GARNHAM: I am going to go on and just make sure we have
10 got the burden of this. The top of the page, it is
11 right to say that the point about instruction for all
12 cases to be closed did not happen in North Tottenham.
13 That is noted, is it not?
14 MS GREEN: Yes.
15 MR GARNHAM: "Two senior practitioners went through the
16 cases and decided which ones to open. We wondered about
17 the cases that remained closed."
18 A curious way to go about the job. You close all
19 the cases, all the child protection cases, shut them off
20 so nothing is done and somebody goes through the files
21 and says, "Perhaps we ought to open these ones." This
22 is breathtaking, is it not?
23 MS GREEN: Agreed.
24 MR GARNHAM: Did you ever find out whose instructions it was
25 to shut those files?
185
1 MS GREEN: No, I do not remember.
2 MR GARNHAM: "Procedures are often not followed, timescales
3 do not appear to exist. Formal investigations are
4 occasionally not recorded e.g. memorandum interviews."
5 I mean, this is staggering.
6 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
7 MR GARNHAM: "Like North Tottenham there is a lack of
8 clarity about family support work although there is an
9 excellent local resource."
10 If those generalised comments were not worrying
11 enough, look at the examples that you provide. The
12 second one:
13 "Two small children, concerns about neglect referred
14 to Haringey by Hackney. Allocated in October 1997. One
15 office visit, no further work."
16 Next one:
17 "Child sexually abusing other children. Referred on
18 20th April 1999. Strategy meeting held on
19 4th November 1999. No assessment forms completed. Not
20 allocated until January 2000."
21 Fourth one:
22 "Serious allegations of physical abuse, referred
23 18th October. Strategy meeting held 15th November. No
24 medical recommended. No joint investigation. Child
25 still has not been seen."
186
1 Fifth one:
2 "Small child witnessing very serious domestic
3 violence when partner threatens mother and child with
4 knife. Letter written to make an appointment with the
5 mother two months after referral."
6 "11-year old alleged his father hit him twice.
7 Referred March and May. Child seen November,
8 allocated February."
9 If this is right, it is a wonder that there are not
10 Victoria Climbie inquiries all over London. All of
11 these could have produced as serious a result.
12 MS GREEN: Right.
13 MR GARNHAM: What was going on?
14 MS GREEN: As I say, when we did the audit we were appalled
15 and shocked and we wanted to come up with an action plan
16 that -- we were actually saying at that time we thought
17 the office was unsafe, which is about as far as you can
18 go as a child protection advisor really in terms of our
19 concerns. This was made known to managers. Our
20 responsibility was to highlight poor practice and to
21 make sure through the auditing process that the powers
22 that be were aware of it. We were very shocked by it,
23 and that is why we illustrated it with some examples of
24 some of the things that really worried us about the
25 practice at that time.
187
1 MR GARNHAM: Well one can well see why you put your report
2 in the terms you did, and that is an entirely fair
3 comment. Two issues arise out of that, one backward
4 looking, the other forward looking. Before I ask you
5 about each of those, the examples I have just cited to
6 you, as will be obvious to you and those of us who are
7 looking at the documents, are examples from the Hornsey
8 office, are they not?
9 MS GREEN: They are.
10 MR GARNHAM: I say that so there can be no misunderstanding
11 that we are still talking about North Tottenham.
12 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
13 MR GARNHAM: I said there were questions backward looking
14 and forward looking. Backward looking, how did this at
15 Hornsey and North Tottenham get in this state, given
16 that people of your expertise are carrying out
17 a supervisory and audit function?
18 MS GREEN: We do the audits, we put the action plans
19 together, we refer those issues --
20 MR GARNHAM: You remember I asked you at the beginning to
21 look at this job description.
22 MS GREEN: Yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: And it was for this reason, to understand the
24 extent to which you had a quality control function.
25 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
188
1 MR GARNHAM: You told me that you did.
2 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
3 MR GARNHAM: Now, given that you are exercising that quality
4 control function, how does it get to this sort of state?
5 MS GREEN: There may be issues in terms of our role and in
6 terms of how much teeth the role or authority -- the
7 role has within the local authority.
8 MR GARNHAM: Let us explore that. What are the issues? Are
9 you saying you do not have enough teeth?
10 MS GREEN: I am saying that, as you say, case responsibility
11 was not ours. So, therefore, the expectation was that
12 managers would take on our advice and implement them.
13 If they did not, then senior managers would have to deal
14 with that as and when it arose. I think the fact that
15 we were on the same grade as team managers did not help
16 the case.
17 MR GARNHAM: So you were spotting, were you, the development
18 of these sort of problems, pointing them out and team
19 managers were ignoring them?
20 MS GREEN: I would say on individual cases when we were
21 involved we would point out poor practice and try and
22 work with the managers to make sure that things
23 improved. That was our role.
24 MR GARNHAM: That is a laudable ambition but it is plain
25 from this audit that that was not effective. So where
189
1 was the breakdown?
2 MS GREEN: It may be poor management. It could have been
3 a variety of things. The decision to shut those cases
4 was one that needed to be looked at as to how that
5 decision was made and by whom. We are highlighting the
6 concerns at the end of the day.
7 MR GARNHAM: You are --
8 MS GREEN: Which is one of our responsibilities.
9 MR GARNHAM: Absolutely. And it is plain from this
10 report --
11 MS GREEN: There is no doubting what is going on, is there,
12 from reading that?
13 MR GARNHAM: No. One does not need to be a social services
14 expert to get the drift of that. Plainly, in that
15 regard you are doing that part of your job well. What
16 I am challenging you about is how well you are doing the
17 other part of your job, which is a continuing one of
18 quality control.
19 MS GREEN: I think you have to recognise that the
20 difficulties that were facing the local authority were
21 various. One was retention of good workers, the other
22 was the number of agency staff coming in and out, the
23 things that you have identified in other people's
24 statements. The other issues were around attracting the
25 sort of staff that you wanted to keep hold of, as well
190
1 as the work continuing to come in the door. As I have
2 said, there were other pressures that were on the
3 districts at that time, including a greatly increased
4 number of unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers.
5 MR GARNHAM: All of that may explain how it came about that
6 the quality of work plunged to these levels but that
7 does not explain why it was not being picked up by you
8 and your colleagues as it was plunging before the audit
9 that we have looked at.
10 MS GREEN: The audit is one way of identifying overall. You
11 see, our work would involve us in individual cases so on
12 a case by case basis we would pick them up and deal with
13 them. The audits were designed to give a much broader
14 picture, and that is why the audits were undertaken so
15 that you are doing both so that --
16 MR GARNHAM: But the trouble with that is that for some it
17 is just too late, like Victoria, for example. This
18 audit was several months too late for her. Had this
19 audit been carried out in November, she might still be
20 here.
21 MS GREEN: It is possible. Yes.
22 MR GARNHAM: And that is where the problem is, is it not?
23 MS GREEN: Yes.
24 MR GARNHAM: That wherever the flaw lies. The system that
25 was in operation in Haringey was not checking on the
191
1 quality of the work sufficiently well to ensure that
2 this sort of poor practice did not occur and persist.
3 MS GREEN: I am not clear what else could have been done in
4 relation to child protection advisors who highlighted
5 the issues, made it clear what the disparities were and
6 wrote it down in a report. I am not sure other than
7 that what else the expectation is of us to have done.
8 MR GARNHAM: One of the things you suggested might have been
9 a problem was whether managers were acting on the advice
10 they received from you or the advice you gave to their
11 workers.
12 MS GREEN: (Witness nods).
13 MR GARNHAM: Lisa Arthurworrey told Monaghan when he did his
14 report that she would only use a CP advisor on the
15 recommendation of a manager. Now, that is plainly
16 contrary to what you understood and you have told us
17 earlier was or should be the position.
18 MS GREEN: My understanding is that workers are allowed to
19 use us and we are there as a resource for the local
20 authority. We are not owned by anybody in particular.
21 If workers have cases, they have a right to talk to us.
22 MR GARNHAM: That is plainly good sense, but it is extremely
23 worrying if a social worker is given to understand that
24 she can only make use of you with the permission of her
25 manager, is it not?
192
1 MS GREEN: Yes.
2 MR GARNHAM: She also said:
3 "Where contradictory advice was given by the manager
4 and the CP advisor, then the manager's advice was
5 followed."
6 MS GREEN: My understanding from the guidelines is if there
7 is a disagreement then that should be fronted up. If
8 there were disagreements on cases, where people clearly
9 had not followed advice, we would go back and do
10 something about that. But on a case by case basis on
11 every single thing we did we would not necessarily go
12 back. Our understanding was that our advice should be
13 taken and if people went against our advice they were on
14 their own. They should be following --
15 MR GARNHAM: One can see the value of that discipline but it
16 is not a huge comfort to those affected, is it?
17 MS GREEN: What can I say? The guidance is there. We are
18 responsible for the advice that we give. If people do
19 not follow the advice that we give, then they must take
20 the repercussions themselves. That is the bottom line.
21 MR GARNHAM: This is not necessarily a criticism of you.
22 MS GREEN: No.
23 MR GARNHAM: But if that is the position, then it is not
24 only they who take the repercussions, it is also their
25 clients; yes?
193
1 MS GREEN: Yes. As I say, the guidance is there to be
2 followed. When people do not follow it, what can we do?
3 MR GARNHAM: Was it your experience that contradictory
4 advice from managers and you --
5 MS GREEN: No, not on a --
6 MR GARNHAM: Let me finish the question. Was it your
7 experience that contradictory advice coming from you on
8 the one hand and managers on the other would sometimes
9 result in the worker following manager?
10 MS GREEN: That was never brought to my attention, I must
11 say. I would give my advice and I would expect it to be
12 followed out and followed through in terms of the case
13 manager who had responsibility for the case. I would
14 not necessarily know. If a case came to my knowledge
15 that that had not been done and I really thought a child
16 was at risk as a consequence, I would definitely sort
17 that out.
18 MR GARNHAM: The problem with that as a system is you will
19 not always know.
20 MS GREEN: That is true.
21 MR GARNHAM: A pretty major defect in a structure, is it
22 not? Because it means that the person who is able to
23 take the decision to stop the following of your advice
24 is the person who disagrees with you.
25 MS GREEN: Indeed. But we are involved in the child
194
1 protection system at certain times. We are involved at
2 case conference, at statutory review, at different
3 levels. The case management for the case remains with
4 the district and therefore the ongoing support and
5 supervisory issues are actually theirs. We are there to
6 act as advisors.
7 MR GARNHAM: I can understand that, but you see from our
8 point of view, looking not at whether one department of
9 Haringey is to blame or the other but trying to
10 understand how the situation was created, it does not
11 much matter where the split lies. The point is that
12 that system was not good enough.
13 MS GREEN: I accept that.
14 MR GARNHAM: Did you meet resistance to the using of your
15 services by any managers? Were there some who were "get
16 your tanks off my lawn"?
17 MS GREEN: There was a little of that at times, yes.
18 MR GARNHAM: Which managers? Carole Baptiste?
19 MS GREEN: I would not say so particularly. There were some
20 managers who really, really used us a lot and we were
21 definitely a resource to them. Angella Mairs was one
22 whose workers on a regular basis would use me.
23 MR GARNHAM: And there were others?
24 MS GREEN: And there were others who used us a little bit
25 less but I would not say that they discouraged their
195
1 workers. You see there is a natural tension, I think,
2 between team managers and child protection advisors.
3 Team managers are there to deal with the bread and
4 butter stuff and we are there to advise on other stuff
5 perhaps, something a little bit more complicated. If
6 the team manager felt they were able to deal with it,
7 they may feel undermined in some way by workers coming
8 to use us. That is a possibility, I would suggest.
9 MR GARNHAM: And one you saw work its way out in practice?
10 MS GREEN: Yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: Arthurworrey said to Monaghan that there was
12 always what she called politics in using you. Does that
13 reflect what you have just said?
14 MS GREEN: I suppose so. I would say that most people in
15 the office felt free to use me. I would have thought
16 that that was the case but ...
17 MR GARNHAM: And the fact that Lisa Arthurworrey, who
18 happens to be one of the focuses, foci of our attention
19 in this Inquiry, did not demonstrates that there was
20 something not quite right about --
21 MS GREEN: Lisa Arthurworrey used me. She consulted with me
22 on maybe three or four of her cases so I did not feel
23 she was one of the workers where we were off ground
24 with. She was somebody who used me.
25 MR GARNHAM: Did she strike you as a competent and sensible
196
1 young social worker?
2 MS GREEN: Yes. I would say she struck me as keen to learn,
3 inexperienced, youthful in presentation but people that
4 come and use us are generally good workers. They want
5 to gain more, they want to learn more, so yes.
6 MR GARNHAM: Because in many ways using you is
7 a demonstration of competence.
8 MS GREEN: Yes.
9 MR GARNHAM: It is the recognition of when you need help.
10 MS GREEN: Yes.
11 MR GARNHAM: So that those who decline your assistance or
12 discourage others from using you are demonstrating an
13 immaturity.
14 MS GREEN: Agreed.
15 MR GARNHAM: Much of what we have been talking about for the
16 last half hour would be worrying in any event but I want
17 to suggest to you it is even more so because of the
18 atmosphere in the North Tottenham District Office or at
19 least among the Investigation and Assessment Team. Tell
20 me your impressions. Was there a poor atmosphere in the
21 teams in that office?
22 MS GREEN: I really -- I did not pick that up but remember
23 I was only there one day a week and when I was there
24 I was meeting individually with people to consult about
25 particular cases, and that is what I tended to spend my
197
1 time doing. I was not involved in any of the office
2 politics. I did not really know about it so I cannot
3 comment on the office politics. In every office there
4 is something going on.
5 MR GARNHAM: You tell us in paragraph 7 that the workload in
6 Haringey was no greater than in any other London local
7 authority. Are you talking there about the workload for
8 you as child protection advisors or for social workers?
9 MS GREEN: I would say both.
10 MR GARNHAM: What are you comparing with?
11 MS GREEN: Hackney.
12 MR GARNHAM: That is the one other place you have worked?
13 MS GREEN: Yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: So this is not a scientific comparison?
15 MS GREEN: No.
16 MR GARNHAM: This is just your experience --
17 MS GREEN: And I have worked in Camden and I would say that
18 they were busy offices but no busier than any other in
19 a London local authority in my experience.
20 MR GARNHAM: So that properly managed they ought to be able
21 to cope?
22 MS GREEN: Yes.
23 MR GARNHAM: Were you conscious, with your level of
24 involvement with this office, of the effects of the
25 restructuring exercise that was going on?
198
1 MS GREEN: Not in any great detail. I knew that a lot of
2 people were very distressed obviously because they were
3 having to reapply for their jobs and that was obviously
4 going to be a difficult time for them.
5 MR GARNHAM: Can I ask you a little about Carole Baptiste
6 and the reason I want to ask you is because she is the
7 manager of the social worker most intimately involved
8 with Victoria's case.
9 MS GREEN: Mm-hmm.
10 MR GARNHAM: How efficient would you describe
11 Carole Baptiste?
12 MS GREEN: I knew her when she was a new acting team manager
13 for the Long Term Team. I really had no contact with
14 her when she was in the I&A Team because I think she
15 worked different days to the day I used to go down
16 there. When I knew Carole in --
17 MR GARNHAM: Was that before her maternity leave?
18 MS GREEN: I am talking about before her maternity leave.
19 So that was when I really had any knowledge of Carole.
20 MR GARNHAM: When was that?
21 MS GREEN: Probably 1996-1997, I would think. I cannot
22 remember when she went downstairs.
23 MR GARNHAM: So you are only able to comment on how good
24 a manager she was before that or can you comment since?
25 MS GREEN: I cannot comment since because after that when
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1 she went down to the I&A Team I had no contact with her.
2 I think I saw her once in the Duty room in the whole of
3 the period she was there. So I cannot comment on that.
4 MR GARNHAM: Does this description ring any bells with you?
5 A chaotic manager with lots of files on her desk and
6 a lot of unallocated cases?
7 MS GREEN: Yes, that was Carole upstairs yes.
8 MR GARNHAM: Carole upstairs, you will need to explain that
9 to me.
10 MS GREEN: When she was the team manager on the third floor
11 in the Long Term Teams, I was her advisor.
12 MR GARNHAM: And that would be your description of her then?
13 MS GREEN: Yes.
14 MR GARNHAM: So if it is the conclusion of this Inquiry that
15 that description fits also with her in 1999, and that is
16 a matter you cannot comment on because you did not know
17 her, then we would have to conclude that she had been
18 like that for some years?
19 MS GREEN: Yes.
20 MR GARNHAM: Not focused? Not as competent as other
21 managers? Less able to cope?
22 MS GREEN: I think it is fair to say that Carole had lots of
23 skills; that she -- how consistent she was I am not sure
24 about.
25 MR GARNHAM: I think I have taken all of those expressions
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1 from your observations to Monaghan.
2 MS GREEN: Yes, I thought you had.
3 MR GARNHAM: Not focused, less competent than other
4 managers, less able to cope.
5 MS GREEN: Okay.
6 MR GARNHAM: Fair, though?
7 MS GREEN: Probably.
8 MR GARNHAM: And a fair description of how she was at least
9 up until the time when you stopped seeing her regularly
10 after her maternity leave?
11 MS GREEN: Possibly.
12 MR GARNHAM: Did you raise those concerns about Baptiste's
13 performance with anyone else? Her line manager, your
14 line manager?
15 MS GREEN: My line manager was aware of it.
16 MR GARNHAM: That is Ann Graham?
17 MS GREEN: Yes.
18 MR GARNHAM: From back in 1995, 1996, whenever it was?
19 MS GREEN: Because I think that before me Ann might have
20 been linked with her at some point. I am not sure.
21 MR GARNHAM: What does linked mean? Her manager or
22 something?
23 MS GREEN: No, Anne was an advisor at one time as well so
24 she may have been an advisor to Carole before me, but
25 I might be wrong about that. I am not sure about that,
|
