Reconvened Hearings Transcript for 10 July 2001: Pages 1 to 50

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1 Wednesday, 10th July 2002

2 (10.00 am)

3 THE CHAIRMAN: Good morning. Mr Garnham.

4 MR GARNHAM: Before we resume there is one preliminary

5 matter I would invite you to deal with. Sir, we have

6 had a request from journalists, one journalist from the

7 press, one from television, for access to a copy of the

8 Internal Review that was the subject of much discussion

9 yesterday.

10 It is a long time ago but you may remember that

11 I suggested in my opening statement to this Inquiry

12 a procedure that should be adopted in this sort of case

13 and it is a procedure we have had to resort to on

14 a number of occasions in the past. You indicated that

15 you were content with that suggested procedure and

16 accordingly I would submit that it is one that you

17 should follow in this instance as well. Just to remind

18 you of what it was, you will recall that it is only

19 interested parties and witnesses who have signed

20 confidentiality undertakings who are given access

21 routinely to the Inquiry's bundle of documents.

22 We anticipated that we might get requests from the

23 press for sight of documentation and you may remember

24 sir that what I suggested we should do is as follows.

25 If the material concerned was already in the public

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1 domain, so that there would be no breach of

2 confidentiality in disclosing it to journalists, it

3 would be provided by us on request. Where the documents

4 concerned are confidential or sensitive there will be no

5 disclosure to the media except on your direction, and

6 I invited you to give such directions in public and only

7 having heard from all of those with a legitimate

8 interest.

9 Sir, this request is based on the fact that this

10 review was extensively explored during the course of

11 yesterday's evidence and I anticipate will be revisited

12 again today.

13 You may recall that I asked Miss Gray whether she

14 regarded it as a sensitive document and you will recall

15 the answer that she gave. It seems to me, sir, that

16 this is the sort of document that should be disclosed

17 only on your direction and not by us on the basis that

18 it is already public, and it is a matter for you sir

19 whether or not to direct its disclosure, and

20 I anticipate you will want to hear from certainly

21 Haringey and the SSI Audit Commission before you make

22 your decision.

23 Our position would be that there is no good reason

24 why it should not be made available to journalists,

25 given that it has been extensively quoted during the

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1 course of the public hearings yesterday and will be

2 again today.

3 You may recollect sir that at one stage earlier on

4 there was an application by Haringey in respect of other

5 documents that the Inquiry should proceed in a manner

6 that would ensure that those social workers in that case

7 who had not been the subject of notices of potential

8 criticism should not be identified publicly for fear

9 that that would attract press interest that it was said

10 would be unwarranted, and you will recollect sir that

11 you ruled against that on that occasion. It is a matter

12 for you how you approach this in the light of whatever

13 objections there may be.

14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Garnham, I am grateful to you.

15 Mr Kovats I think I ought to hear from you first as you

16 represent both the SSI and the Audit Commission and it

17 is their document and then Miss Lawson if I may.

18 MR KOVATS: Thank you sir. My position at the moment is

19 that this takes me somewhat by surprise and I was only

20 informed of the request a few minutes ago. I have not

21 had time to take instructions from Miss Platt or from

22 Sir Andrew Foster. I have had a brief word with

23 Dennis Simpson and he does have some concerns about

24 this. Both the Audit Commission and the Department of

25 Health are anxious to be helpful but we would ask your

4



1 indulgence to give us until 2 o'clock this afternoon so

2 that we can come back with our considered position on

3 this, rather than do something in haste.

4 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Kovats I appreciate your position on that.

5 Miss Lawson, I wonder whether or not you would be happy

6 if we actually postponed until this afternoon but if you

7 would rather make your comments now I would be happy for

8 you to do so.

9 MISS LAWSON: I would be very happy to postpone it because

10 my main point was that if it is to be disclosed, it

11 should not be until after the completion of the evidence

12 from Mr Prince.

13 THE CHAIRMAN: That seems to me to be very good sense if

14 I may say so and I think that if we get through

15 Mr Prince before lunch then Mr Garnham, Mr Kovats and

16 Miss Lawson we will take this at 2 o'clock this

17 afternoon. Otherwise I suggest we take it at the end of

18 Mr Prince, if that goes on beyond 2 o'clock.

19 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. Can I ask Mr Simpson to come back

20 to the witness table.

21 MR DENNIS SIMPSON (continued)

22 MR GARNHAM: Good morning Mr Simpson.

23 MR SIMPSON: Good morning.

24 MR GARNHAM: You will recall that you are still on oath.

25 MR SIMPSON: I am.

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1 MR GARNHAM: Yesterday I indicated the six topics I wanted

2 to cover with you. We have dealt with four of them

3 during the course of yesterday and there are therefore

4 two remaining. Those are the Joint Review's approach to

5 the statutory obligations of Haringey and resources and

6 Haringey's response to the Joint Review. Can I deal

7 with those now please.

8 First, the Section 17 and resources point. Can

9 I ask you first about the use of eligibility criteria by

10 the local authorities who you have had occasion to

11 visit. I do not know whether you were in this room

12 yesterday when Miss Gray gave her evidence.

13 MR SIMPSON: I was not, no.

14 MR GARNHAM: Let me tell you then what she said. Sir, it is

15 Day 61, page 199 for your note.

16 She said that the only proper question under the

17 assessment framework is whether a child is a child in

18 need within the meaning of that expression in Section 17

19 of the Children Act. If so, she says, local authorities

20 have a duty to assess and to ensure that the child has

21 the services he or she requires. She said it is

22 legitimate to consider whether the case is high, medium

23 or low priority, provided the needs then identified are

24 properly addressed either by the local authority itself

25 or by means of a partner agency. I paraphrase but

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1 I think that is the gist of her answer.

2 Would you agree with that?

3 MR SIMPSON: I would, yes.

4 MR GARNHAM: Is that how Haringey were using its eligibility

5 criteria during the time when you were reviewing them?

6 MR SIMPSON: Yes, they were.

7 MR GARNHAM: So you were content, were you, that they were

8 assessing children who appeared potentially to be in

9 need?

10 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

11 MR GARNHAM: They were making then a decision as to what

12 those needs were?

13 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

14 MR GARNHAM: And making arrangements either to meet those

15 needs themselves or to ensure that they were met by

16 partner agencies?

17 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

18 MR GARNHAM: Miss Tyrrell, in her statement, and you perhaps

19 should have it in front of you, volume 3 of the witness

20 statements, page 150.452, says in paragraph 13 that her

21 impression at the time the review was conducted, going

22 back to the title, was that the sample was

23 representative. She goes on:

24 "There were relatively few other children in need

25 cases beyond child protection, looked after children and

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1 disabled children."

2 Then she says this:

3 "They stated [that is Haringey stated] that their

4 work was becoming more focused on child protection and

5 looked after children. In my subsequent experience of

6 reviewing other authorities, including London boroughs,

7 this was neither untypical at that time nor in some

8 authorities since. I think it also possible that some

9 of the child protection cases might not have been

10 treated as child protection cases elsewhere and that

11 child protection might have been over-represented and

12 other children in need under-represented, again a not

13 uncommon experience."

14 Does that tally with your evidence in regard to

15 Haringey?

16 MR SIMPSON: When I was in Haringey I saw the eligibility

17 criteria that they had in use at the time and in my

18 report I quite clearly stated that it was too loose and

19 it should be made sharper and more focused.

20 MR GARNHAM: I did not understand what you meant by that.

21 Can you explain?

22 MR SIMPSON: That is what I was going to do. What I meant

23 was the Social Services Department has a duty to assess

24 children in need, that is absolutely correct, but what

25 it also has a duty to do is to decide on the type of

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1 intervention required, the level and type, and based on

2 that assessment the local authority has a duty to

3 provide certain types of services or resources.

4 What you cannot do is provide the same kind of

5 resource to every single family or child who requires

6 it, so you have to identify the risk involved, and the

7 purpose of having eligibility criteria is to ensure that

8 the assessment process is consistent and that it is

9 even-handedly applied across the whole department.

10 When we were in Haringey we found that the

11 eligibility criteria was not sufficiently demanding to

12 separate high risk from the low risk cases and therefore

13 when I say the eligibility criteria should have been

14 sharper and more demanding, what I meant was that it was

15 too loose and allowed for a range of interpretations to

16 be made across the Children's Service. By making

17 eligibility criteria more demanding and for it to be

18 sharper, for it to be a lot more precise and specific,

19 services would have been provided in a much more

20 consistent way by front line practitioners.

21 MR GARNHAM: Does sharpness of eligibility criteria also

22 have the effect, though, of excluding from the potential

23 provision of services some types of children, in other

24 words is it pitched at a high threshold over which it is

25 difficult to get?

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1 MR SIMPSON: It is not pitched at a high threshold because

2 eligible criteria is based on an assessment by the

3 worker concerned, as well as understanding that there

4 are cases that require urgent attention, cases that

5 require attention that is not so urgent and cases quite

6 frankly that are not high risk cases that could be

7 referred on elsewhere and dealt with by other agencies.

8 MR GARNHAM: Help me if you will with this. This is what

9 Gina Adamou says, who as you recall was at the time

10 Chair of the Children's Sub-Committee. In her recent

11 statement to the Inquiry, she refers to the evidence she

12 has already given the Inquiry about the financial

13 situation that Social Services faced and she says this:

14 "Within that limited budget we tried to target the

15 services towards those most in need. Once a child had

16 been identified as being in need the eligibility

17 criteria were to help the staff to decide whether a case

18 was high, medium or low priority."

19 Two questions arise. First of all, does that

20 reflect your understanding of what was going on at the

21 time?

22 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

23 MR GARNHAM: And do you regard that as legitimate?

24 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

25 MR GARNHAM: In the case of a child who is assessed as low

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1 priority need, it is right, is it is not, that that

2 cannot justify there being provided, and I deliberately

3 put it in the passive tense, no services?

4 MR SIMPSON: Absolutely.

5 MR GARNHAM: Because if there is a need it has to be met

6 either by the local authority itself or by one of the

7 partner agencies?

8 MR SIMPSON: Indeed.

9 MR GARNHAM: These eligibility criteria were being applied,

10 as I understand your report, in Haringey by staff at One

11 Stop Shops, amongst other places.

12 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

13 MR GARNHAM: Remind me, was there a single One Stop Shop or

14 more than one?

15 MR SIMPSON: There were three One Stop Shops.

16 MR GARNHAM: You regarded those staff as well equipped to do

17 that work, I think.

18 MR SIMPSON: I did.

19 MR GARNHAM: In fact you list in the Joint Review the

20 elements of One Stop Shop practice that you regarded as

21 examples of good practice.

22 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

23 MR GARNHAM: Did your co-reviewer share your view about One

24 Stop Shops?

25 MR SIMPSON: She did.

11



1 MR GARNHAM: Can I get you to look at her statement again,

2 volume 3, page 150.465. It is paragraph 71. She says

3 there at paragraph 71C:

4 "They stated [that is the I&A Team] that they get

5 referrals which are inappropriately referred and that

6 One Stop Shops could be better and filtering by One Stop

7 Shops is not as effective as it could be. This is

8 referred to in the Joint Review Report on page 29 as

9 follows: 'Initial assessment and filtering could be more

10 effective between information officers and Children and

11 Family Duty Team West.'"

12 You agree with that?

13 MR SIMPSON: Absolutely, and the overall point I wish to

14 make is that both she and I had discussions about the

15 One Stop Shops. We had discussions during the fieldwork

16 and after the fieldwork had ended and we agreed

17 absolutely that the One Stop Shops were a place of good

18 practice. There were some issues that had to be dealt

19 with but in a place of good practice you are not going

20 to find perfect practice taking place.

21 Can I also say that the One Stop Shops received

22 a Charter Mark from the Government for their service

23 some two years before we arrived there and were applying

24 for that Charter Mark to be reconfirmed. So there was

25 evidence from external audit, external sources that that

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1 was providing a good service.

2 MR GARNHAM: Will you turn on to page 150.482 in that

3 statement. At the bottom of the page she was asked

4 about an observation in the notebooks to the effect that

5 the whole office is swamped from the Children and

6 Families Team in the west and she says in her statement:

7 "This comes from my notes of my meeting with the

8 Children and Families Team West. From reading the notes

9 it would appear that this comment was by way of summary.

10 It follows on from the references to taking on an extra

11 ward and the references to their lack of satisfaction

12 with the screening undertaken by the information

13 officers at the One Stop Shop at Duke House Hornsey

14 where the team was based."

15 I was wondering how that tallied with the

16 identification of One Stop Shops as examples of good

17 practice.

18 MR SIMPSON: Certainly in the east, when I visited the One

19 Stop Shop I found excellent collaboration between the

20 information officers who staffed the One Stop Shops and

21 the intake team. I saw the business plan for the One

22 Stop Shops as a whole. I saw the criteria and the

23 procedural framework that they had for assessing Social

24 Services referrals. I saw the guidance, I saw the

25 leaflets, I saw a whole stack of information which

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1 supported the practice of the One Stop Shops and I was

2 impressed with that information.

3 In relation to the way they operated in the west,

4 I discussed that with Miss Tyrrell during the time and

5 we both, as I have repeated, said that we were impressed

6 overall with the performance of the One Stop Shops but

7 there were some issues that had to be dealt with and in

8 a service that is a good service you are not going to

9 find, as I have already said, absolutely perfect

10 practice.

11 MR GARNHAM: Perfection.

12 MR SIMPSON: Perfection, yes.

13 MR GARNHAM: Can I tax your memory to make up for

14 deficiencies in my own? Do you recall -- you say there

15 were three One Stop Shops.

16 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

17 MR GARNHAM: How were they distributed between east and

18 west?

19 MR SIMPSON: A fourth was going to be developed and I think

20 it was going to be developed on the Tottenham site where

21 there was a Social Services referral point, a reception

22 point.

23 MR GARNHAM: So there were otherwise two One Stop Shops in

24 the west?

25 MR SIMPSON: Two in the west, yes.

14



1 MR GARNHAM: Was there a One Stop Shop in the east, do you

2 recollect?

3 MR SIMPSON: I probably went to the One Stop Shop that was

4 serving the east, yes.

5 MR GARNHAM: I did not hear you.

6 MR SIMPSON: I went to the One Stop Shop that was serving

7 the east.

8 MR GARNHAM: Again I am taxing your memory. Do you

9 recollect where it was?

10 MR SIMPSON: If you give me a Tube map I will be able to

11 identify it but off the top of my head I cannot, if I am

12 absolutely honest, but it was providing a service to

13 those people who used the East Children and Families

14 Service.

15 MR GARNHAM: It may be that later on I shall get a prompt

16 from Miss Lawson as to the answer to that but thank you

17 for that. Can I turn to the relevance of resources

18 available to Social Services departments which in

19 a sense is the flip side of this question about

20 eligibility criteria, is it not? Can I take you to

21 something that Carol Wilson says in her statement and

22 for that purpose I wonder if you could look at that

23 statement, volume 3, page 83.205. I am concerned

24 whether it is in that bundle. It should be but I have

25 just found it is not in mine.

15



1 THE CHAIRMAN: It is not in mine.

2 MR GARNHAM: Try 118.201. I think it has been put in the

3 wrong place. Do you have it now?

4 MR SIMPSON: I do.

5 MR GARNHAM: Go to 118.205, please.

6 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

7 MR GARNHAM: The second full paragraph down on that page,

8 Ms Wilson says this:

9 "We were open with the Joint Review Inspectors that

10 the services' ability to extend choice was subject to

11 maximisation of specific grants and constrained by our

12 budgetary position."

13 Then this sentence appears:

14 "The approach taken by the Joint Review Inspectors

15 was that their judgment would be on the appropriateness

16 of spend within existing resources rather than a comment

17 on the adequacy of those resources."

18 Is that what you told her?

19 MR SIMPSON: No.

20 MR GARNHAM: It would be a very odd position to adopt, would

21 it not, for joint reviewers, because if you were

22 confining yourself only to the appropriateness of how

23 existing money was being dealt with and not looking at

24 whether that money was adequate, you would be falling

25 somewhat short of a proper review, would you not?

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1 MR SIMPSON: Indeed.

2 MR GARNHAM: So if it were the case that you came across

3 a situation where there was simply not enough money

4 being devoted to children's services by a local

5 authority, you would say so?

6 MR SIMPSON: I would.

7 MR GARNHAM: Can we take it from that that it was your

8 intent in the course of this review to reach a judgment

9 on whether Haringey was meeting its statutory

10 obligations regardless of any resourcing difficulties it

11 might have?

12 MR SIMPSON: Obviously the issue of resources is important,

13 and as I have indicated in my report, at the time we

14 were doing the fieldwork they were undertaking a review

15 of their eligibility criteria and their risk assessment.

16 It seems to me that if your eligibility criteria is

17 accurate and precise and very clearly identifies the

18 different types of intervention required in relation to

19 risk, and that is applied in a consistent way across all

20 services, certainly for children's services, and if the

21 risk assessment framework, which is a much more again

22 precise tool for identifying the packages of care you

23 need to provide on the basis of the assessment you have

24 done according to eligibility criteria, if those two

25 work hand in glove, accurate, precise eligibility

17



1 criteria determining the level of intervention, the type

2 of intervention as well as a good assessment framework

3 which determines to some extent and fine-tunes the

4 package of care, if those two work in harmony then it

5 seems to me you have a better chance of providing

6 accurate and sensitive services that meet the needs of

7 individuals.

8 Haringey were going through that precise process.

9 I saw the brief as it were that had been allocated to

10 the dedicated officer who was undertaking that project

11 and it seemed it me that that is exactly what they were

12 going to do.

13 MR GARNHAM: That might be right, but if you do not have the

14 money to fund whatever services that process determines

15 you need to provide, then there is a danger that you

16 will not meet your statutory obligations.

17 MR SIMPSON: It depends how you -- at that point in time, at

18 the point I was undertaking the fieldwork I did not get

19 the impression that Haringey were struggling to meet

20 their statutory obligations. I saw clear evidence of

21 services being focused and targeted towards those

22 children who had the greatest risk, children on the

23 register and looked after children in the public care

24 sector as well as seeing evidence about family support

25 services underpinned by strong -- underpinned by a clear

18



1 philosophy about prevention.

2 MR GARNHAM: That might be right but that does not answer my

3 question, does it? You cannot properly meet statutory

4 obligations simply by the adoption of precise and well

5 focused eligibility criteria allied with proper risk

6 assessment processes. You have to have the money at the

7 end of all that to meet whatever demand for services

8 there is. That is not met elsewhere in the system.

9 MR SIMPSON: That is true, yes.

10 MR GARNHAM: So it must follow, and I had understood you to

11 agree with me about this, it must follow that joint

12 reviews have to look at the adequacy of the monies made

13 available by councils to their Children's Services

14 Department.

15 MR SIMPSON: Indeed.

16 MR GARNHAM: Did you do that in Haringey?

17 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

18 MR GARNHAM: And you regarded it as adequate?

19 MR SIMPSON: You will see in the report under that section

20 headed "Children and Families", part way through the

21 report in section 3 I make the point quite clearly that

22 referrals had increased, demand had increased and that

23 resources were tight in relation to children and

24 families services, and I also pointed that out in those

25 histograms at the beginning of the report where

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1 I identified the comparative spend for Social Services

2 as a whole as well as comparative spend for children and

3 families services.

4 Can I also make the point that at the end of the

5 report in section 7, which is a summary meant to

6 identify the key actions, there very clearly is

7 a section there -- no, it is section 6, chapter 6 -- to

8 do with the resources. In the summary, in the opening

9 summary to that section I clearly point out that

10 Haringey were facing I was told significant financial

11 resources certainly for Social Services of somewhere in

12 the order of £5 million over the next three years.

13 MR GARNHAM: Were facing significant financial resources?

14 MR SIMPSON: Were having to face cuts in the budget over the

15 next three years and I pointed that out quite clearly.

16 So, with a combination of identifying the comparative

17 expenditure at the beginning of the report, part way

18 through the report being able to identify increased

19 pressure, increased referrals as well as saying

20 resources were tight, and at the end of the report

21 identifying what I was told was the budgetary reduction

22 to Social Services, substantial and quite significant

23 over the next three years, it seemed to me that

24 a collection of those three statements that you will

25 find in the report was evidence of me pointing out to

20



1 the department that it did not have a resource --

2 a gross resource problem at that point in time.

3 MR GARNHAM: It had to watch it?

4 A. Yes.

5 MR GARNHAM: Can I take you to what Miss Gray said about

6 this in her statement, volume 3, 118.645. This is

7 paragraph 12 of her second statement and I want to put

8 this to you for your comment if you would be so kind:

9 "The Joint Review should have stated clearly that

10 Haringey needed to consider the implications of this low

11 spending on children and families, and establish whether

12 this was resulting in the council failing to provide

13 services to children in need other than to those on the

14 Child Protection Register or those who were looked after

15 and, in addition, whether children looked after and

16 child protection cases were receiving a less than

17 adequate service. It was not the function of the

18 Internal Review to answer those questions, and I did not

19 do so."

20 She is critical of you in not dealing with that

21 matter in the way she says you should have done. What

22 do you say to that?

23 MR SIMPSON: I do not agree with that and I dealt with that

24 I feel adequately and I will go back over what I have

25 just now said. I was provided with information by our

21



1 statisticians at the Joint Review, by the admin people

2 in the Joint Review, based on the comparative spend for

3 Social Services in Haringey and I did that and you will

4 clearly see in the Joint Review Report that expenditure

5 for children and families services was 24 per cent of

6 the budget I believe -- no, 26 per cent of the budget;

7 and its comparator group for outer London, the outer

8 London average was 24 per cent. So, according to the

9 evidence that I had access to, Haringey were spending

10 over 2 per cent compared to the outer London average.

11 First point.

12 Second point, under the section "Children and

13 Families" where I addressed the issues in relation to

14 each of the client groups, I make the point -- again

15 I make the point that resources were tight for children

16 and families services and I make the point also, if

17 I can remember, that expenditure for children and

18 families was £83 per head of populace compared to the

19 outer London average I believe, or its comparator group,

20 of £103. So again a sharp distinction indicating that

21 Haringey were below its comparator group.

22 I also point out that referrals were increasing and

23 that demand in the system was increasing and finally,

24 again, I identified at the end of the report that it

25 faced reductions in the budget potentially of

22



1 £5 million.

2 It seems to me in a report of 100 pages I could not

3 have been any clearer in pointing out, in spelling out

4 the potential financial problems and issues that

5 Haringey faced as a whole as well as the potential

6 implications for children and family services.

7 MR GARNHAM: Can I ask you to look at the next two

8 paragraphs of Miss Gray's statement:

9 "The Joint Review should also have stated clearly

10 that Haringey needed to examine their current level of

11 service provision to children and families, in

12 particular in the east of the borough, and take whatever

13 action was necessary in both the short and long term.

14 The Joint Review should also have stated clearly that

15 Haringey needed to consider the impact of the

16 restructuring on the quality and quantity of services

17 offered to children and families, given that the system

18 was under increasing pressure from an increasing number

19 of referrals."

20 I think you have largely dealt with that.

21 MR SIMPSON: I have.

22 MR GARNHAM: "14. In my view the Joint Review Report failed

23 to provide any analysis of the implications of a low

24 level of spending on services for children and families,

25 in particular for preventive services."

23



1 This is a different point. She is here saying that

2 it is not enough to point out the bold figures, facts

3 and figures about spend, but you needed to go on and

4 identify the implications of that low spend.

5 MR SIMPSON: Again, repeating myself, there is a whole

6 section in the report in section 3, chapter 3, which

7 identifies what Haringey were attempting to do in terms

8 of expanding their family support services, their

9 community based services, firstly.

10 Secondly, again, I mentioned something yesterday in

11 response to a different question from you that I took

12 time to quantify what the level of expenditure was for

13 family based services, preventive services, and I did

14 that in two ways. I asked the staff that I met, the

15 teams in the east, what proportion of their time they

16 spent on preventive work and it was somewhere in the

17 order of 20 to 25 per cent, which in a service that

18 appears to be under pressure and targeting its effort on

19 high risk cases seems to me not a bad percentage. And

20 in terms of preventive services across the whole of the

21 service, including community care, adult services and

22 children's services, I think the figure of £4 million

23 was produced, again not bad in terms of it beginning to

24 develop its preventive services for both children and

25 community care.

24



1 Finally, I was able to extrapolate from that

2 a figure of 12 per cent of time spent across the board

3 by social workers was spent on preventive work and

4 trying to promote early intervention initiatives, and

5 again I feel that I took time and trouble not only to

6 take on board what Haringey were telling me about their

7 attempts to provide family support services for

8 children, but I went beyond that and attempted to

9 quantify that, and not in -- and I do not think you will

10 find that in any other joint review report that has been

11 produced, and effort made to actually quantify the level

12 of resources.

13 MR GARNHAM: I am still not quite sure if that is the same

14 point as Miss Gray is making. She is in this paragraph

15 not challenging the fact that you addressed the figures.

16 What she is saying is that you acknowledged the spend on

17 children's services was low and what you do not do in

18 the report is work out how that is going to impact on

19 children in that particular group.

20 MR SIMPSON: I am not sure that I understand the question

21 that you are putting to me. If it is not -- if you are

22 not satisfied with the answer I have just provided --

23 MR GARNHAM: Let us see what she says in the rest of this

24 paragraph:

25 "Nor did it provide any understanding of the reasons

25



1 for the comparatively high number of children on the

2 register for more than two years. It also did not link

3 these data with the implications of the growing pressure

4 on workloads for the planning restructuring. The Joint

5 Review Report made no reference to whether Haringey was

6 fulfilling its statutory duties to children in need."

7 MR SIMPSON: This is meant to be a strategic overview of

8 services. It is not meant to be, as I indicated

9 yesterday, a detailed inspection of children's services.

10 Had I got any inclination at all that Haringey was

11 failing to meet its statutory obligations I would have

12 identified that in the report, obviously. I would have

13 brought that to the attention of the director instantly.

14 But during our time there we did not discover a single

15 instance where children -- where Haringey was unable to

16 meet its statutory obligations to individuals and as

17 a total populace. I am referring to children either on

18 the register, children in need or children in the public

19 care system.

20 It seemed to me that for example there were few

21 unallocated child protection cases, there were few

22 unallocated looked after children cases and there was an

23 increasing concern to provide family support services

24 for children in need, i.e. those children who were not

25 formally on the register. So I feel in total I did

26



1 address that issue and I addressed that issue

2 extensively.

3 MR GARNHAM: Thank you. Can I turn next to Haringey's

4 response to your report. How did Haringey staff respond

5 when they learned of the tenor of your report? Managers

6 first of all. Delighted I should think.

7 MR SIMPSON: I do not think so, no. Why do you say that?

8 MR GARNHAM: Because it was a largely positive report that

9 ended on a high note.

10 MR SIMPSON: Well, that means the evidence I gave yesterday

11 you have not taken into account properly, I would

12 suggest.

13 MR GARNHAM: Because you say it had in it --

14 MR SIMPSON: If I can.

15 MR GARNHAM: -- a downside.

16 MR SIMPSON: Let me give you evidence then, let me think.

17 Okay. If you go back to the Management Action Plan, in

18 the Management Action Plan there are almost 130 points

19 of action for Haringey to take, and of those 130 points

20 there are 250 things for Haringey to do in terms of

21 improving its services and improving its planning, its

22 practice and procedures.

23 Of those 120 points of action, somewhere in the

24 region of 70 are to do with practice; and of those 70,

25 40 are to do with improving practice for children and

27



1 families. It seems to me that it is not a glowing

2 report in terms of the amount of effort Haringey had to

3 put into improving services not only for children and

4 families but across all the client groups. You are not

5 going to get an action plan with 120 things to do and of

6 those 120 things over half are related to front line

7 practice improvements if it is a glowing service.

8 MR GARNHAM: They certainly did see it as a fairly glowing

9 report. We get that from their press release and in

10 fact from their Joint Review's press release following

11 its publication.

12 MR SIMPSON: Yes, I was surprised by that. I thought it was

13 hyped up.

14 MR GARNHAM: By whom?

15 MR SIMPSON: By Haringey I presume.

16 MR GARNHAM: But you asked me a question, which is entirely

17 fair in the circumstances, as to why I said they must

18 have been delighted, but it is evident that they were

19 pleased because of the way they expressed themselves in

20 their press release.

21 MR SIMPSON: I think there is a discrepancy between their

22 action plan and their press release. Clearly on the one

23 hand you have an action plan with 120 things to do, over

24 half of which are related to practice; and on the other

25 hand -- and moreover a Joint Review Report which

28



1 I produced which has by far the biggest section

2 concerned with practice in it, over 34 pages in

3 a 100-page report totally to do with practice.

4 So on the one hand you have a Joint Review Report

5 over a third concerned with practice improvements and

6 a Management Action Plan substantially setting out how

7 they are going to improve practice, and then on the

8 other hand you have a press release which overhypes and

9 overstates the content of the Joint Review Report.

10 MR GARNHAM: How did staff react when they learned of the

11 way your report was being framed?

12 MR SIMPSON: I gave initial feedback, headline information

13 during April to a large staff group and it was

14 essentially a process of me feeding my initial thoughts

15 back to Haringey as well as taking questions about

16 clarification. It was not an attempt to have a detailed

17 discussion with Haringey staff because the final report

18 had not been completed, and to answer your question

19 specifically, I did not discuss with staff broadly the

20 final report. I did not have the opportunity and that

21 is not the point of the Joint Review.

22 MR GARNHAM: Did you detect some surprise amongst staff when

23 you were giving your feedback to them as to the

24 conclusions you were heading towards?

25 MR SIMPSON: I do not think so. As far as I can remember,

29



1 there were a number of intelligent questions asked about

2 the feedback, a clarification of some of the detail,

3 asking for more information. Broad questions as well.

4 But I do not recall people expressing a view about their

5 satisfaction or otherwise.

6 MR GARNHAM: Miss Tyrrell, in her notebook that deals with

7 one of the sessions of the feedback briefing that she

8 went to, expressed the view that staff seemed "generally

9 surprised at the overall message". Did you detect any

10 such surprise?

11 MR SIMPSON: I did not and I do not know how she got that

12 because I did all the feedback sessions. I produced the

13 slides, the overhead projector slides; I did all the

14 feedback sessions. She was there, and then after we had

15 given the initial feedback we did not meet with Haringey

16 staff again, other than -- or she did not. I did when

17 I went back towards the end of the year to give the

18 formal feedback on the final report to committee, so

19 I do not know how she would have gauged --

20 MR GARNHAM: Let me tell you what she says about that

21 because we asked her the same question and I do not

22 think you need look at it although you can if you want.

23 It is O3, 150.478 sir. She says that she was recording

24 general points made at the session and she says this:

25 "Reviewers generally ask people to let us know if

30



1 they think we have got anything wrong, hence the need

2 for a record. I think that the note [that is the one

3 about 'generally surprised'] must have been made because

4 I noticed a look of surprise on some people's faces, but

5 it is impossible to say which staff after this time

6 lapse and I would not necessarily have known which staff

7 they were at the time."

8 So she says she saw surprise on their face.

9 MR SIMPSON: That is hardly evidence. That is hardly --

10 I mean that is hardly a precise --

11 MR GARNHAM: It is not precise but it is still evidence.

12 MR SIMPSON: All I can say is I gave the feedback session,

13 I took the questions that were asked, and the questions

14 were to do with clarification, asking for more

15 information and asking about the timing of the report.

16 I do not recall people expressing satisfaction or

17 otherwise with what I was feeding back to them.

18 MR GARNHAM: We asked whether she was surprised at their

19 surprise and she replied:

20 "I am not sure that we were surprised. Managers

21 made clear to us that it was unlikely that front line

22 staff would have the same perspective on what had been

23 achieved and what problems still needed to be

24 addressed."

25 Do you recall that?

31



1 MR SIMPSON: I do not but again a third of my presentation

2 was to do with front line practice issues and so the

3 people that we were talking to, front line

4 practitioners, first line supervisors and third tier

5 officers would have been interested in those practice

6 issues, and there were questions about those concerns

7 and how practice could be improved.

8 MR GARNHAM: How well did you feel you knew Haringey and its

9 staff by the end of this review?

10 MR SIMPSON: Quite well, yes, quite well.

11 MR GARNHAM: Did you get on well with the senior officers?

12 Had you found them easy to work with?

13 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

14 MR GARNHAM: Did you know them before you visited?

15 MR SIMPSON: I had met the director before.

16 MR GARNHAM: That is Mary Richardson?

17 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

18 MR GARNHAM: Somebody you had come across a lot or

19 occasionally?

20 MR SIMPSON: From time to time.

21 MR GARNHAM: In the course of your work?

22 MR SIMPSON: Yes, yes.

23 MR GARNHAM: Had you ever worked with her directly?

24 MR SIMPSON: I cannot recall, no.

25 MR GARNHAM: Did you have a good relationship with her and

32



1 the others whilst you were there?

2 MR SIMPSON: It was a professional relationship and -- it

3 was a professional relationship, yes.

4 MR GARNHAM: Were you discussing your findings as you went

5 along with Mary Richardson and Carol Wilson and the

6 other officers?

7 MR SIMPSON: The style I have is to, broadly speaking, if

8 there are significant things occurring during the

9 review, to report that to managers. So, for example,

10 a situation occurred when I visited an older person's

11 team in the east and I found a dysfunctional team, I was

12 concerned with the manager of the team's performance.

13 I thought the team were not going to survive in terms of

14 their professional coherence without additional support

15 from within the management system. I reported that to

16 the Management Team and swift and prompt action was

17 taken.

18 MR GARNHAM: The reason I ask these questions is I wondered

19 to what extent they, the senior managers at Haringey,

20 were able to influence in any way the shape of your

21 report as you were doing the fieldwork.

22 MR SIMPSON: They were not able to influence the report at

23 all. I was totally independent and I was not influenced

24 in any way by my previous relationships with some of the

25 Management Team.

33



1 MR GARNHAM: Jenny Gray talks in her statement about there

2 being informal indications given to Haringey of their

3 highly placed position relative to other councils.

4 MR SIMPSON: I do not know where that came from at all.

5 MR GARNHAM: Is it true?

6 MR SIMPSON: I do not think it is true because we have not

7 even discussed it. I had not discussed that with

8 Miss Tyrrell at all, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

9 MR GARNHAM: Did you give --

10 MR SIMPSON: I am categoric about that.

11 MR GARNHAM: Did you give any indications from which the

12 officers of Haringey might have drawn any such

13 inferences?

14 MR SIMPSON: Absolutely not.

15 MR GARNHAM: Had you formed a view as to where, during the

16 course of the fieldwork, where Haringey might find

17 itself if there were ever a league table published?

18 MR SIMPSON: Promising prospects in some, in terms of --

19 MR GARNHAM: I did not hear you.

20 MR SIMPSON: Prospects and serving some people well was my

21 initial thought at the end of the fieldwork.

22 MR GARNHAM: Yes. Was that a categorisation that was

23 current at the time you were doing this?

24 MR SIMPSON: Broadly speaking, yes.

25 MR GARNHAM: It was formalised some time later, was it not?

34



1 MR SIMPSON: That is correct.

2 MR GARNHAM: Did you see any version of the Management

3 Action Plan, any draft of the Management Action Plan

4 before you finalised your report?

5 MR SIMPSON: We did not, no, I did not.

6 MR GARNHAM: There was no iterative process going on here of

7 you giving an indication of what was wrong and then

8 giving you an indication of how they would respond?

9 MR SIMPSON: Obviously as you are talking to managers for

10 example -- take for example the case about burn-out and

11 pressure in the East Children and Families Team. We

12 discussed that with the two commissioning managers,

13 I discussed that with Ms Wilson, and the point was made

14 to us that attempt had been made to change the

15 boundaries in order to make more equitable the

16 resources, so Haringey were obviously aware that there

17 was greater pressure in the east than there was in the

18 west. They had identified that for themselves before we

19 turned up to do the fieldwork and had sought to do

20 something about it.

21 All I did in terms of the discussion with the

22 managers, people responsible for children's services was

23 to point out that that had not solved the problem, that

24 the pressure was still extreme, the pressure was still

25 great and they had to do something about it quickly, and

35



1 in discussing that issue what you get back from the

2 manager, Ms Wilson, was a view that (a) of course we are

3 aware of that, (b) we are going do something about that

4 and need to do something about that quickly and some of

5 the views we have for being able to deal with that are,

6 and they spell that out.

7 So part of the process of the Joint Review assessing

8 the performance and effectiveness of staff is to work

9 out, to understand, try and get from them how they are

10 going to deal with pressures, problems, how they are

11 going to deal with critical issues so they have some

12 strategic sense about how to manage their service. On

13 that basis you form a view about their capacity.

14 If for example they were to respond by saying,

15 "I was unaware there was pressure there" or "I do not

16 have a clue about how to deal with this situation" or

17 "I will have to refer it up", obviously you are not

18 going to form an opinion about their strategic

19 abilities, their ability to deal with a particular

20 critical issue.

21 Can I say that throughout the Joint Review we posed

22 those questions. As we found service problems, as we

23 found service fragilities, as we uncovered issues that

24 required service change and improvement, we dealt with

25 those with the managers, we talked to managers,

36



1 addressed those issues and asked them for explanations

2 about how they were going to sort them out.

3 MR GARNHAM: You told me yesterday that you did see the

4 March 2000 Management Action Plan and I think you said

5 that you saw that shortly after it had been produced.

6 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

7 MR GARNHAM: You did not see any version of it before March

8 2000?

9 MR SIMPSON: I do not recall, no.

10 MR GARNHAM: You do not recall that you did or you do not

11 recall one way or the other?

12 MR SIMPSON: I do not recall seeing it before March 2000.

13 MR GARNHAM: Had you agreed any general directions beyond

14 the ones you have talked about with Haringey as to what

15 ought to go into that plan?

16 MR SIMPSON: The way the Joint Review process works is you

17 produce a joint review report, you discuss the key

18 findings, the critical issues and you expect the service

19 department to go away and produce a Management Action

20 Plan based on your key recommendations.

21 MR GARNHAM: How did the Management Action Plan they

22 eventually produced in March 2000 compare with your

23 expectations based on that process?

24 MR SIMPSON: It was good, surprisingly good. I was

25 surprised by the quality of it. Often departments

37



1 produce action plans which just address the key findings

2 at the end of the report and so produce sometimes

3 a pithy, skimpy action plan. This report stretched into

4 63 pages, 120 points of action, identified big points of

5 action, and 250 areas for development identified, and it

6 was obvious that whoever had produced the Management

7 Action Plan had gone through the report page by page by

8 page, had not dealt with the end of the report, which

9 just drew out the main findings but had gone through the

10 report and identified both the big and the small changes

11 required.

12 MR GARNHAM: Although as you told us yesterday there were

13 areas where you were concerned about the speed of

14 planned response.

15 MR SIMPSON: That is not up to me. The responsibilities

16 I have is to make sure that the action plan is

17 compatible with the Joint Review Report and it was

18 almost entirely compatible, commendable.

19 MR GARNHAM: The views of joint reviewers as expressed in

20 their joint review reports are taken very seriously by

21 social services departments, are they not?

22 MR SIMPSON: That is true.

23 MR GARNHAM: A critical joint review report can mean bad

24 news for a director of social services, a good one can

25 mean good news for the director of social services.

38



1 MR SIMPSON: It could.

2 MR GARNHAM: And councils generally react with some

3 enthusiasm to reports making sure that they address the

4 things that go wrong.

5 MR SIMPSON: That is right.

6 MR GARNHAM: You would expect, I imagine, that objections

7 and recommendations of joint review reports would be

8 acted on promptly?

9 MR SIMPSON: I would.

10 MR GARNHAM: And that is how you expected Haringey to react

11 to this one?

12 MR SIMPSON: I did.

13 MR GARNHAM: You accepted when we began this questioning

14 yesterday that you should have packaged, I think was

15 your word, your report rather differently so that the

16 observations about children's services were put more

17 forcefully. You said they were all there but they

18 should have been packaged differently to make the point

19 stronger.

20 MR SIMPSON: I said that in relation to practice across the

21 board, not just for children and families services.

22 Can I say I read the report again when I went home

23 last night and I would like to refer to it again if

24 I may, section 7.

25 MR GARNHAM: It is 15A, 056 or thereabouts. I think you may

39



1 want page 114.

2 MR SIMPSON: So you know the report as well as I do then.

3 MR GARNHAM: I very much doubt that. The occasional

4 pretence, that is all, normally prompted by somebody

5 else.

6 MR SIMPSON: Can I refer you to 15A, 115, 7.5.

7 MR GARNHAM: Yes.

8 MR SIMPSON: What I have tried to do there is to at the very

9 end of the report, in terms of priorities for action,

10 spell out what I saw as the main areas concerned with

11 front line practice that ought to be addressed fairly

12 quickly, and in my evidence yesterday I said that

13 I could have packaged more clearly both at the beginning

14 and at the end of the report areas of concern that

15 relate to service provision.

16 Well, I still think that is true in part but having

17 read the report, I think that what I have done is

18 identified some of the key issues, because a joint

19 review report is not just concerned with children and it

20 is concerned with services across the board and I feel

21 what I have done in 7.5 is to identify from across all

22 the user groups, from across all the client groups,

23 those key areas that had to be addressed by Haringey in

24 terms of improving services across the whole service,

25 and that is the point I wished to make.

40



1 MR GARNHAM: I appreciate what you say about joint reviews

2 dealing with social services across the board, not just

3 children's services, but looking through 7.5, which of

4 those are relevant to children's services?

5 MR SIMPSON: The second point, "improve case recording",

6 that is critically important.

7 MR GARNHAM: Yes.

8 MR SIMPSON: And the final bullet point, "child and

9 adolescent mental health services". So, out of eight,

10 two relate to children.

11 MR GARNHAM: One of them relates generally and one of them

12 relates to a particular sector of children's services.

13 The reason I ask this is not to be picky or point score.

14 It would be right to say, would it not, that lots of the

15 other observations that you say we can find elsewhere in

16 the report that are of particular interest to this

17 Inquiry as they relate to children's services do not

18 find themselves highlighted in these concluding pages.

19 MR SIMPSON: A joint review is a strategic evaluation of the

20 service as a whole. It is not a detailed inspection.

21 Had this been a detailed inspection you would have found

22 more in that section relating to Children and Family

23 Services. If you look at joint review reports, and

24 I believe somewhere in the region of 120/130 have been

25 produced to date, and if you go to the final concluding

41



1 section, section 7 as I think it still is, you will see

2 a similar format being adopted, where only the key

3 issues across all the client groups are identified.

4 MR GARNHAM: So do I understand you to resile somewhat from

5 the points you acknowledged yesterday as to the

6 deficiencies in the report?

7 MR SIMPSON: I still feel that at the beginning I could have

8 unpicked, unpackaged a little more clearly some of the

9 points I am trying to make in 7.5. I could have said

10 something more strongly about the need for attention to

11 be paid for service deficiencies, to improve fragile

12 services not just for children and families but across

13 the board.

14 The point I am trying to make, I did make some

15 attempt at the end of the report to identify those

16 important practice issues which had to be addressed,

17 those important changes and improvements to services

18 that had to be addressed.

19 MR GARNHAM: Given your experience of joint reviews, do you

20 think if you had done that unpicking, that unpackaging,

21 in the way that you now say that on reflection you

22 should have done, do you think that would have made

23 a difference to the way in which Haringey responded?

24 MR SIMPSON: It is hard to speculate and I am hesitating

25 because --

42



1 MR GARNHAM: You told us a joint review report is highly

2 regarded by the recipients of them.

3 MR SIMPSON: That is right. I think you need to give me

4 time to think to answer the question on occasions.

5 I felt that the Management Team in Hackney --

6 MR GARNHAM: Haringey.

7 MR SIMPSON: That is a Freudian slip, my apologies. I felt

8 the Management Team in Haringey were sufficiently

9 concerned with wanting to get the detail right as well

10 as get their broad strategic planning right, and not

11 only that they had a link officer that was going to

12 produce a Management Action Plan, and that link officer

13 was a well respected person.

14 MR GARNHAM: Was that Mr Ruge?

15 MR SIMPSON: It was indeed. So my feeling all the way

16 through is that they were going to produce a Management

17 Action Plan. I was hopeful they were going to produce

18 a Management Action Plan that would reflect the totality

19 of the report but they would not just look at the

20 beginning and at the end, they would not just look for

21 the headline information, but they would go through the

22 report page by page and identify everything that had to

23 be done, and again I think my problem was -- problem,

24 pressure, was that what I was trying to do in

25 a considered way was to pack as much into the report as

43



1 I could so that it was not a bland report, it was not

2 just a report full of headline information.

3 What I was trying to do was to on the one hand

4 identify those critical service issues that had to be

5 improved as well as stick to the brief of the Joint

6 Review Team which was to do this strategic overview,

7 strategic evaluation of the service as a whole, and it

8 is not easy in 120 pages to identify the individual

9 practice concerns that require attention as well as say

10 something about the health of the overall service.

11 I felt I made -- I felt -- well, it felt at the time

12 that I was poring over the data, poring over the

13 information, poring over my notes, poring over all the

14 information I had in order to produce a considered

15 report.

16 MR GARNHAM: Thank you very much. Thank you sir.

17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr Garnham. Miss Lawson,

18 I indicated yesterday if you wish 20 minutes.

19 MISS LAWSON: Mr Simpson, one of the points that you make in

20 the Joint Review Report, and it is I think the point

21 that you make specifically in relation to the budgeting,

22 is that you were able to as it were give Haringey bullet

23 points because you knew from the fieldwork you had

24 carried out they were already aware of a lot of the

25 problems that you were highlighting.

44



1 MR SIMPSON: Are you talking about the financial position

2 they were in or are you talking about services?

3 MISS LAWSON: I am talking -- sorry, it is my fault for

4 trying to short circuit actually taking you to the

5 document. Can I ask it more generally? During the

6 course of your fieldwork you had Haringey's position

7 statement?

8 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

9 MISS LAWSON: Do you agree with Miss Tyrrell that that was

10 very honest?

11 MR SIMPSON: I do.

12 MISS LAWSON: Much more so than many position statements

13 that you saw?

14 MR SIMPSON: I do not think so. It was averagely honest.

15 MISS LAWSON: Right, and that Haringey were already aware of

16 some of the weaknesses which your fieldwork identified?

17 MR SIMPSON: That is correct.

18 MISS LAWSON: So that in that sense your report was being

19 addressed to people who already knew about many of the

20 problems which you identified, rather than telling them

21 things that were going to come as a complete surprise to

22 them?

23 MR SIMPSON: During the course of the fieldwork and at the

24 point at which the fieldwork ended, they were aware of

25 some of the issues but they were not aware of all of the

45



1 issues. The whole purpose of the fieldwork and the

2 Joint Review is to check and to challenge the

3 department's understanding as presented in the position

4 statement, and within Haringey there was a lot in the

5 position statement that we could agree with and identify

6 with, both the strengths and the areas of development,

7 but we also uncovered during the fieldwork a lot that

8 they had not identified in the position statement.

9 MISS LAWSON: It is just that Ms Richardson has told this

10 Inquiry that they used the preparation of the position

11 statement for this review as a way of looking at their

12 own services for themselves, so that they did use it in

13 that sort of analytical way.

14 MR SIMPSON: Sure.

15 MISS LAWSON: Do you agree with Miss Tyrrell that Haringey's

16 Management Team was impressive?

17 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

18 MISS LAWSON: And that they had an excellent Chair of Social

19 Services?

20 MR SIMPSON: I thought she was able and competent and

21 understood the issues as they related to social care.

22 MISS LAWSON: Thank you. You have been asked a number of

23 questions about the Management Action Plan drawn up

24 after your review was presented. Were you aware that at

25 the time that this fieldwork was being carried out they

46



1 were also undertaking a Quality Protects Management

2 Action Plan?

3 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

4 MISS LAWSON: Did you see that?

5 MR SIMPSON: I did not. I saw the first, I saw the

6 second -- I saw the second edition of the Quality Action

7 Plan. While I was there -- I was not sure. I think

8 Quality Protects had only just started as a Government

9 initiative and I think Haringey were in the throes of

10 producing either their first or second Quality Protects

11 Action Plan.

12 MISS LAWSON: Yes, can we look at it please, volume 13,

13 page 156. Having said that, I am suffering from the

14 same problem as Mr Garnham in that we have a number of

15 different versions of it and that the pagination varies

16 considerably. I think probably the most complete

17 version of it starts at page 192, not 156.

18 This is a document prepared in January of 1999. The

19 reason I am asking you about it particularly is because

20 you were asked a number of questions by Mr Garnham about

21 the problem of the North Tottenham District Office

22 feeling itself to be more overburdened than was the

23 situation in the west.

24 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

25 MISS LAWSON: You have told us already that one of the steps

47



1 that had been taken about this was the transferring one

2 of the wards from one area to the other but that had not

3 wholly addressed the problem.

4 MR SIMPSON: That is correct.

5 MISS LAWSON: Were you told about other steps that had been

6 taken to try and ease the pressure that the district

7 office was under?

8 MR SIMPSON: I had not been told of any other steps. I was

9 expecting Haringey to take action as a result of that

10 feedback.

11 MISS LAWSON: I will come back to that if I may. I am

12 talking now about the position when you were doing the

13 fieldwork in 1999. One of the main problems we can see

14 from the fieldwork had been the problems posed by the

15 large influx of asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors and

16 so on.

17 MR SIMPSON: Yes.

18 MISS LAWSON: Were you aware that they had, in order to

19 relieve the pressure that that had been causing on the

20 local area offices in December 1998, created

21 a specialist asylum team?

22 MR SIMPSON: I was aware of that and we interviewed and met

23 the Asylum Seekers Team.

24 MISS LAWSON: So that although it was only a matter of weeks

25 afterwards, it was something that might be expected to

48



1 relieve the pressure on the local area offices?

2 MR SIMPSON: Indeed.

3 MISS LAWSON: Similarly a problem they had was the number of

4 travellers families.

5 MR SIMPSON: And we met the Travellers Team as well.

6 MISS LAWSON: So again were you aware that in this Quality

7 Protects plan Ms Wilson was looking to get funding to

8 provide an additional post for the Travellers Team?

9 MR SIMPSON: I cannot recall that if I am honest. I saw the

10 action plan but I cannot recall the details.

11 MISS LAWSON: I would not necessarily expect you to do so.

12 I will come back to that if I may.

13 Similarly, one of the things that Ms Wilson was

14 asking for in this, was recognising as would be needed

15 and was applying for funding to provide, was additional

16 social workers in the east office. Were you aware of

17 that?

18 MR SIMPSON: I was not. In the interview we had with her

19 she did not identify that specifically.

20 MISS LAWSON: No. Can I just ask you as a general point,

21 you did your fieldwork for this obviously at the

22 beginning of 1999. You gave feedback in April and

23 finally reported in November. Between April and

24 November, were you kept informed about what Haringey

25 were doing in the meantime or not?

49



1 MR SIMPSON: I had discussions with a number of individuals

2 in order to collect some more information, during the

3 report writing stage, but apart from that I did not have

4 any contact with Haringey.

5 MISS LAWSON: So you would not have seen the report that was

6 prepared by Mr Duncan within days of the presentation

7 that you made in April, looking at the precise nature of

8 the workload pressures between the two teams?

9 MR SIMPSON: I did not see the report, no, I was unaware of

10 it.

11 MISS LAWSON: I see. I do not think there is any point

12 taking the witness to it if he did not see it, but you

13 recall sir that at 28A, 163, which we have looked at

14 a number of times --

15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

16 MISS LAWSON: So that contrary to the impression being given

17 yesterday when Mr Garnham was asking you questions

18 suggesting that it was not until after the publication

19 of the Joint Review Management Action Plan, indeed some

20 time afterwards, that this problem was being addressed,

21 it looks as though the reality was that steps were being

22 taken to address it both during the time you were doing

23 your fieldwork and in the period immediately following

24 your feedback presentation in April.

25 MR SIMPSON: I have not seen the report, but if you say you

50



1 have a report that addresses those issues to deal with

2 burn-out and pressure, then obviously I am pleased that

3 was produced so quickly after my feedback.

4 MISS LAWSON: Another area which caused particular pressure

5 in Tottenham was the Children and Adolescent Mental

6 Health Service.

7 MR SIMPSON: Yes, across the board, not just in North

8 Tottenham.

9 MISS LAWSON: But of course the main reason for the

10 discrepancy between the workload of the two offices

11 reflects the relative poverty of the two areas of the

12 borough, does it not?

13 MR SIMPSON: Perhaps. It is not absolute.

14 MISS LAWSON: Of course not, but by and large that is the

15 case, is it not?

16 MR SIMPSON: Possibly.

17 MISS LAWSON: Sir, again I am not sure that I need to take

18 this witness to it but for your note the references for

19 the particular points I was making in the Quality

20 Protects Management Action Plan are at pages 215, 216

21 and 229.

22 Another particular problem was with children leaving

23 care, which had again been a particular pressure point.

24 MR SIMPSON: I did not see it as a particular pressure point

25 when I was there. I was concerned about the quality of