Dean: Cover Up on Children's Services at County Hall? (Faversham and Mid Kent Liberal Democrats)

Faversham and Mid Kent Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

Dean: Cover Up on Children's Services at County Hall?

November 9, 2011 11:48 AM
Originally published by Liberal Democrats on Kent County Council

Trudy Dean, Lib Dem Leader of the Opposition at Kent County Council, has called for an independent inquiry to discover whether information about dangerously low levels of staffing in KCC Childrens Services were the subject of a cover up at County Hall.

On 1st June Trudy tried to get the data into the public at the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee she chairs at Kent County Council. Conservative members voted against this, saying it would be a waste of time and money. The webcast of this meeting is available at http://connect.kent.public-i.tv/site/player/pl_v7.php?a=58169&t=0&m=wm&l=en_GB#indx.

Trudy finally received the information in August and has been discussing it with officers since then. On Radio Kent this morning Trudy said:

"The more information I see the more I wonder whether there was a cover up at County Hall. The data tells us that social worker staffing levels were seriously low way back in 2007, leading to soaring case loads for social workers then, not later as we were told. We also now know that a month before councillors were told there were no concerns about professional standards, in 7 of the 12 Kent Districts staffing levels were at 'High' risk level for the majority of the year.

"We were continually being told that there was a national shortage of social workers making it impossible to bring the teams up to full strength, and leaving case workers swamped with work loads of over 120 cases when 25 is the norm. But in the last year we did it, recruiting 60 extra staff who have dealt with the backlog of 2,700 cases in under a year. Why didn't we do it at the right time. Why did it take an unannounced inspection from OFSTED to catch us out?"

Trudy is writing to the Leader of Kent County Council, Paul Carter, to ask him to set up an independent inquiry into whether there was a cover up. She is suggesting that it should be done by Martin Narey, the previous head of Dr Barnados, who is currently working for KCC on a report on Adoption to be presented to the Council in November.

In her letter she wrote:

"This is a serious matter. Either the information was kept from Members by officers, or they only shared it with the senior councillors and together they kept it away from backbenchers. The result of that was that the council failed to vote the necessary money to provide adequate social care and 2,700 children were placed at risk of serious harm.

"In addition the Council's reputation has been damaged, losing its four star rating, and the council taxpayer is footing the bill for over £5.5 million this year and next to clear up the mess.

"Up to 2010 KCC was telling a story which wasn't true, and we are still doing it in our press coverage today. It has to stop. Unless we address this problem of accurate, candid and transparent information, the public can have no trust in what we publish."

The 2011 Ofsted report on Children's Services in Kent grades Kent County Council as "Performs Poorly" and sets out a number of areas of concern, saying:

"Children's services in Kent County Council perform poorly. In October 2010 a full inspection of safeguarding and services for looked after children judged these services, together with capacity to improve safeguarding, to be inadequate. In the light of this evidence, children's services were assessed as performing poorly overall. The local authority recognises the importance of strengthening safeguarding arrangements and services for looked after children however, until further safeguarding inspection evidence is available, the children's services assessment for 2011 remains performs poorly."

Kent County Council was one of just 15 local authorities judged to be performing poorly on Children's Services and in the bottom 10% of authorities across the country.