From the enemy's camp
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Article35192.htm
christianity and feminism toned down to "inappropriate matters"
Quote
Feb 21, 2002
Are senior figures appearing before the inquiry right in denying
responsibility and pointing the finger at staff on or closer to the front
line? Janet Snell reports.
United States president Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk saying:
"The buck stops here". In other words, it's tough at the top and part of the
deal is that you take the rap when things go wrong.
In the lead up to Victoria Climbié's death things went spectacularly wrong
and yet during the 55 days of evidence in phase one of the inquiry Lord
Laming has struggled to get key senior people giving evidence to accept
responsibility for what happened.
Nowhere was that more true than with those in authority at Haringey Council,
each of whom indicated to the inquiry that they were unaware of the shambles
they were presiding over and were unwilling to be held accountable for what
happened as a result.
A case in point was the authority's chief executive Gurbux Singh, who now
chairs the Commission for Racial Equality. He said in evidence: "My role in
this matter was limited to the period immediately following Victoria's
death." This was despite the fact that he had been running Haringey for a
decade, but his argument was that he had put systems in place and those
below him had failed to operate them properly or alert him to what was going
on.
Asked by Lord Laming if he took any personal responsibility he replied: "If
I thought I was responsible for what happened to Victoria I would say so. I
have thought about that and I don't think I am."
Singh was adamant that the responsibility for day-to-day delivery of
services was down to "directors and the layers of management below that".
When Singh's director of social services Mary Richardson took the stand she
too was clear in her own mind that the blame for any failures lay elsewhere.
She is widely held to have put up a "robust" performance at the inquiry.
While Singh eventually began to wilt in the face of the relentless
inquisition by Neil Garnham QC, Richardson was made of sterner stuff. When
Garnham asked whether it was true that "no breath of Carole Baptiste's
alleged incompetence" reached Richardson she responded "absolutely none".
She then defused his incredulity by throwing in the suggestion that this
could be because of "collusion" on the part of staff.
Later she conceded that she was aware Baptiste "was not the strongest
manager that we had". But when Garnham suggested to her that alarm bells
should have rung and that allowing Baptiste to stay in her post for four
years was opening up the authority to a potential series of disasters,
Richardson's disarming reply was: "I cannot disagree with you."
When asked where she felt things had gone wrong, she highlighted "the basic
failure to do the basics" by front-line staff. She brushed aside suggestions
that when she was headhunted by a neighbouring authority after just 18
months at Haringey staff saw it as "the captain deserting a sinking ship".
Team manager Dave Duncan told the inquiry that by setting in train a major
reorganisation of the social services department, and then moving on, it was
as if she had "thrown all the cards in the air and after they hit the floor
she left". But Richardson maintained: "I did not see myself as being that
important."
The next in the chain of command, assistant director Carol Wilson, also
repeated the mantra that "I was reliant on the people who reported to me and
on the systems and procedures that were in place". She was surprised at
earlier evidence to the inquiry that her staff were demoralised and
demotivated because of divisions in the team and also the restructuring
process. As for concerns about Carol Baptiste and her handling of
supervision sessions, the discussion of inappropriate matters and her
frequent absence, that was all "complete news to me," Wilson told the
inquiry.
Elected members at Haringey also appeared to have little clue as to the true
picture. Gina Adamou, lead member for social services, was asked whether she
was aware of problems among the staff and her response was, "I can honestly
say I was not told."
Councillors may reasonably look to their officers to keep them appraised of
what is going on but they cannot shirk responsibility for political
decisions that had a knock-on effect on social services, for example,
channelling resources to education in response to a poor Ofsted report.
Haringey's standard spending assessment for children was £26.9m but the
authority spent just £16.3m. Laming pointed out that Haringey "stands out as
one of the authorities that consistently spends below SSA on children's
services".
Across the authority as a whole, money was tight for a number of reasons.
The inquiry heard that a huge drain on the council's budget was ongoing
debts attached to redeveloping Alexandra Palace. Without this millstone the
authority would have an extra £7m a year to spend on services (and Mary
Richardson said she would have been able to provide a "Rolls Royce" children
's service for an extra £5m).
Another decision by elected members that added to the problems in social
services was an attempt to reduce staff terms and conditions as a further
money-saving move. This prompted strikes, and a series of resignations,
eventually prompting a full-scale recruitment and retention crisis. In the
end the idea was dropped, but not before damage had been done.
One of the authority's former councillors, Craig Turton, suggested that all
the elected members were collectively responsible for under-funding the
service. He said he believed the reason that happened was a lack of
knowledge on the part of councillors about the statutory duties of social
services.
Of course those in government must also take their share of responsibility.
They slashed the SSA in 1999-2000 and they made "education, education,
education" the top priority. It was their policies that led to Haringey
becoming one of the main destinations for asylum seekers, which "threw the
authority off balance" according to a joint review in 1999.1
But overall that report gave a glowing account of Haringey just a few months
before Victoria's death. Staff were said to be "amazed" when it was
published and Singh and Richardson said it was one of the reasons they
thought all was well (although Laming chose not to call the inspectors
before him to account for their actions.)
His final report is likely to point to a failure of the system rather than a
failure on the part of individuals. But individuals in senior positions are
the ones that devised the system and oversaw its running. Meanwhile, elected
politicians, both nationally and locally, decided how much money was
available to spend on services.
The police, the health service and the four local authorities that dealt
with Victoria have all had to examine how they handled the case and how they
can avoid anything like it happening again. In Haringey, where Victoria
spent seven of her 11 months in this country, two front-line staff remain on
suspension awaiting disciplinary proceedings over what happened. At the same
time, as Lord Laming has noted on more than one occasion, senior managers
have been promoted and gone on to better jobs.
Both Mary Richardson and Gurbux Singh told the inquiry they felt they could
not have done any more to prevent the death of Victoria Climbié. Perhaps
they couldn't, but they might have run things differently. And above all
they could have demonstrated some sort of acceptance that, as the people in
charge, they were accountable for what happened. Lord Laming will pronounce
in the autumn as to where he feels the buck stops but, as Neil Garnham put
it during the inquiry: "There is a lack of willingness to take
responsibility... but willingness to acknowledge error is at least at the
root, is it not, of progress?"
1 Report of the Joint Review of Social Services in Haringey Borough Council,
SSI/Audit Commission, 1999, www.joint-reviews.gov.uk/haringey.html
End Quote
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