Rotherham and local government's crisis of accountability

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We are supposed to breathe a sigh of relief, to relax as the government imposes five 'commissioners' on the metropolitan borough of Rotherham. The implication here is that the cavalry is over the brow of the hill and charging down amongst the wrongdoers. I intend in the next few paragraphs to disabuse you of this view and to argue that, however warranted the intervention into Rotherham might be, it doesn't suggest that somehow this means that in our particular local council things are more-or-less OK.

First though a reminder of what the Casey Report into Rotherham says:

‘In denial. They denied that there had been a problem, or if there had been, that it was as big as was said. If there was a problem they certainly were not told – it was someone else’s job. They were no worse than anyone else. They had won awards. The media were out to get them.’

Pretty damning. Just as the Jay Report a few months ago was pretty damning. But every single councillor in the country, every chief executive and every council director should read these reports. Not for the shock factor or the schadenfreude of seeing another council in such trouble but to be reminded that, as the saying goes, 'there but for the grace of god go I'.

I'm a local councillor. I've been a local councillor for twenty years. I've been a cabinet member in a big metropolitan authority. I've chaired scrutiny committees. I've been an opposition front-bencher. I reckon I've a handle on how local councils work. And I think the most telling phrase in that quotation above is 'they certainly weren't told'. Because that is the reality of how council operations - and especially social services and social care - work.

A council is a body of men and women elected by the people to govern a specified set of activities delegated, defined or permitted by national government. This means that, in Bradford, "the Council" isn't a lot of officers but ninety councillors meeting together. The problem is that central government has gradually eroded this in the following ways:

1. By giving statutory authority to people appointed by the council (i.e. by those ninety councillors in Bradford's case). This is authority that, because it is set out in statute, councillors cannot challenge yet results in decisions for which we are accountable.

2. By allowing officers the ability to be selective as to what they tell councillors. I was recently asked to submit a formal request for some information (relating to a property transaction) so that request could be considered by officers. Yet I am, as a councillor, accountable for that decision - a decision officers felt I had no right to be informed about.

3. By blurring the boundaries between officers and councillors in decision-making. Health and Wellbeing Boards contain - as voting members - both officers and councillors (as well as board members and executives of health bodies). I am not fussing when I say that, once again, this process raises questions about who is actually accountable and in what way for the decisions we take.

The thread through all of this is accountability. Most of the time it doesn't matter much and we let it slide accepting blurred edges and fuzzy boundaries because we want to get the job done. But Rotherham tells us we need to stop doing this - at least if we want to do our job as councillors (a simple one of making decisions on behalf of the folk who elect us and being therefore accountable for those decisions).

I wrote this a while back - it sums up the problem:

There's a dangerous view out there among professional public sector 'leaders' that we've moved to some sort of 'post-democracy', to a world where what they are doing is too detailed, technical, specialised and private for elected politicians at any level to merit any say over those decisions.

The other day, at a Health & Wellbeing Board, I was informed by the chair (I paraphrase) not to worry my pretty little head about the 'Implementation and Change Board' as they were doing the 'heavy lifting' for the Board and it would all come to us in good time. For 'heavy lifting' read too detailed, technical and specialised for us mere elected folk to be usefully involved. And anyway the Chair was 'briefed' so that's fine isn't it?

The problem we have in local government isn't one party rule (although that doesn't help), nor is it corruption or poor councillors. The problem is that the chain of accountability from the front line to the council - the councillors meeting together to make decisions - simply doesn't exist in any recognisable way. A while ago Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale rather summed the issue up:

We’re also starting to see a worrying cult of leadership. Highly paid managers are seemingly untouchable and distant from front-line workers. The rise of the unsackable, unaccountable and unapologetic public-sector manager is a trend that will only see services continue to deteriorate. And let’s be clear about what that means. It won’t be just missed targets or a poor Ofsted rating. We’re storing up huge social costs. 

The terrible reality is that, unless we resolve this problem of accountability, we will have more Rotherhams. Even more worrying will be all the failures, all the let down residents and all the mismanaged decisions that don't result in Eric Pickles sending in the cavalry. Right now local government is crying out for more powers, for devolution and for central government's apron strings to be loosened. And unless the crisis of accountability is addressed and resolved we won't see the better, more effective government but a whole series of Rotherhams.

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A fully independent and impartial investigation...

South Yorkshire Police's desired finish?

We're told this is planned by South Yorkshire police:

In announcing an investigation of the police's handling of the abuse of at least 1,400 children in Rotherham between between 1997 to 2013, Ch Con David Crompton said: "A fully independent and impartial investigation is required to ensure that people have confidence that organisations or any individuals will be investigated fairly, rigorously and with complete impartiality."

I guess the Chief Constable could have squeezed a few more 'impartials' into that sentence but not many. And it's welcome that this enquiry is happening surely? Or is it just another coat of whitewash painted over over a police force already remembered for the enthusiastic use of such an approach? Read the Chief Constable's wording very carefully - he's no saying what you think he's saying. And such people don't say these things by accident.

Here's what the Chief Constable actually means:

Crompton has begun discussions to identify an appropriate force to carry out the inquiry.

So that's clear then - it's independent in so far as those investigating how South Yorkshire Police responded (or rather didn't respond) to child sexual abuse in Rotherham are police officers from a different force. No indication that any of the enquiry will be conducted in public merely that, at some point, a report will emerge saying that some police officers who are conveniently no longer with the force did some terrible things and failed big time. But that this doesn't reflect at all on the current crop of 'leaders' who, of course, are brilliant, effective and robust.

How much whitewash will be needed I wonder?

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Quotes of the day...

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"One young person told us that ‘gang rape’ was a usual part of growing up in the area of Rotherham in which she lived."

"...fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them from houses where they were being abused, only to be arrested themselves when police were called to the scene."

"One child who was being prepared to give evidence received a text saying the perpetrator had her younger sister and the choice of what happened next was up to her. She withdrew her statements."

"Within just a few months, Child B and her family were living in fear of their lives. The windows in their house were put in. She and her family received threats that she would be forced into prostitution."

"The social worker’s assessment was that Child C’s mother was not able to accept her growing up. In fact, she was displaying what are now known to be classic indicators of child sexual exploitation from the age of 11. By the age of 13, she was at risk from violent perpetrators, associating with other victims of sexual exploitation, misusing drugs, and at high risk."

 "An initial assessment accurately described the risks to Child D but appeared to blame her for ‘placing herself at risk of sexual exploitation and danger’."

"Notes from the children’s unit files at the time suggest there was a level of chaos surrounding the care of Child E and other children in the unit, with staff powerless as older children in the residential units introduced younger and more vulnerable children like Child E to predatory adult males who were targeting children’s homes."

"Her father provided Risky Business with all the information he had been able to obtain about the details of how and where his daughter had been exploited and abused, and who the perpetrators were...Three months later, the social care manager recorded on the file that Child H had been assessed as at no risk of sexual exploitation, and the case was closed."

"Time and again we read in the files and other documents of children being violently raped, beaten, forced to perform sex acts in taxis and cars when they were being trafficked between towns, and serially abused by large numbers of men. Many children repeatedly self-harmed and some became suicidal. They suffered family breakdown and some became homeless. Several years after they had been abused, a disproportionate number were victims of domestic violence, had developed long-standing drug and alcohol addiction, and had parenting difficulties with their own children, resulting in child protection/children in need interventions. Some suffered post-traumatic stress and other emotional and psychological problems, often undiagnosed and untreated. Some experienced mental health problems."

Most of the men who did this to these young girls are still walking the streets of Rotherham. Or rather crawling along in their cars looking for a new batch of girls to ply with drink and drugs before raping them with their mates. A civilized country?

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Rotherham Council gives local supermarket £80,000 - or so they don't say

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Well that's what it looks like to me:

Carl Battersby, director of environment and development services at Rotherham Council, told the BBC the idea to arrange the loan came after suggestions from its welfare reform steering group.

"We're trying to do the best for our local people," said Mr Battersby.

"Clearly we're not quite sure what the demand and take-up will be but we think it's the right thing to do to help some of the most vulnerable people."

He added: "People are struggling to meet the cost of basic items, food being one of them. As a council we wanted to do something positive."

The vouchers can only be redeemed at Pak supermarket in Rotherham until 11 January and exclude cigarettes and alcohol.

For sure all the campaigners against evil loans sharks and other such demons will see this as the action of a wonderful caring council. Indeed that's how the BBC reports it:

Struggling families in South Yorkshire are being offered help with their food bills through Christmas in a bid to stop people borrowing from loan sharks

But why just the one supermarket - and not even one anyone has heard of? Why not just give cash loans? It wouldn't be that cigarettes and alcohol bit would it!

Put simply this is an atrocious use of public money - bordering on malfeasance.

And 'the-man-who-would-be-MP' seems to get on well with this supermarket!

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Culture and adoption....

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Much excitement over the case of what seems to be blatant political bias in a child protection case in Rotherham.  And there is an oddity in all this around culture and the manner in which we treat its significance during child protection cases. Indeed, it does seem that this is the central reason for the decision that Rotherham took in that they:

"...were severely criticised by the courts in terms of not meeting their cultural and ethnic needs."

And because UKIP has been critical of inward migration from East Europe, the council took the children away from the UKIP supporting foster parents. The rest - emergency placement, crass comments about UKIP's policies and so forth - is just spin (albeit bad spin).

We should also note that the parliamentary by-election in Rotherham provides great cover for the Labour politician who leads on Children & Families - under the daft 'purdah' rules council press during elections doesn't allow for politicians to be quoted or featured.

The interesting bit in all this, however, relates to what we understand by the term 'multi-cultural' or 'multiculturalism'. It does seem that the default social work interpretation is for 'cultural and ethnic needs' to be met through preference for a placement in the same culture. This seems to me more akin to apartheid than 'multiculturalism'. Surely in a multicultural society placements should be blind to the culture of the foster parent but attuned to the need for children to 'access' their birth culture.

It is this that worries me and, indeed, the manner in which the courts have pontificated on 'cultural and ethnic needs' without asking what that might mean in practice. With the result that we trip into the left-wing mind set of the social worker - UKIP are 'extreme right wing' ergo UKIP are racist. And the result of this is that some kids lives are messed about, a good couple (in the true meaning of that term) are upset and po-faced council folk litter the airwaves with obfuscatory explanations for their crass decisions.

The first question we should be asking in child protection is around safety not culture or ethnicity. And the second question we should ask in about stability but culture or ethnicity. Only once the child is in a safer and more stable place should we be considering culture and ethnicity. It appears that this is not the case - culture and ethnicity are made paramount and children are suffering for this reason.

Finally an observation. Would it not have been refreshing if the Council Director had said something like:

We got this wrong and can only apologise for the upset caused. Of course we shouldn't make fostering decisions on the basis of potential foster parents' political opinions. We will be speaking to the social workers responsible to ensure that this doesn't happen again and I will be personally visiting the couple concerned to express our sincere apologies.

Not going to happen though is it!

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Respect - playing with sectarian fire...

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There are a couple of by-elections going on at the moment in, what might be described as urban seats - Rotherham and Croydon North (where I was educated - not that this has anything to do with what follows). And my dear friends in the Respect Party are standing in both seats.

I can't comment on the Croydon election - although you can never know with Lee Jasper - but in Rotherham, Respect have parachuted in Yvonne Ridley, former journalist and famous Muslim convert. All good politics I guess. But then we get a glimpse at the literature - in a reprise of the recent Bradford West by-election we see a blatant and disturbing appeal to sectarianism:

"The RESPECT Party Britain's only party that openly embraces Islam..."

 "...they (the Labour Party) are also going into pubs and clubs behind our backs and attacking Muslims, Asians and Muslim immigrants in particular."

"...we would remind you the last time the Muslim/Asian community voted to elect a Labour MP from Rotherham (he) set up an Israeli support group the so-called 'Labour Friends of Israel'."

"We have set up a database of Muslim/Asian families to make sure your voice is heard..."

This is what Respect have brought to Bradford and what they propose for Rotherham - divisive, insensitive, racist and sectarian politics. Less of a problem in Rotherham when the Muslim population is less that 15% of the electorate but the fact that this unpleasant sectarianism exists at all should be a cause for concern.

In the end there is little difference between the message pumped out here to young Muslims and the message that the BNP, EDL and National Front target at white working class communities. It's 'them' that cause your problems - vote for us because we're on your side against 'them'.

In Bradford we got a glimpse of this divisive approach at the last Council Meeting - motions on "islamaphobia" and questions attacking Israel. We sit quietly while JUST West Yorkshire - supposedly a 'racial justice' charity - churns out a stream of sectarian 'research' (using funding from those naive idiots at Joseph Rowntree) aimed at supporting this sectarian Respect agenda - indeed the leader of the Respect group on Council is a trustee of this "charity".

These people are not interested in integration, in tolerance or in peace. Respect and its allies are set on stirring up discontent in these communities, in finding demons where there are no demons and in dividing one group of Yorkshire people from another.

After a dozen years of building cohesion in Bradford it is distressing to see Respect attempt to tear that work down. And to see them spread this damaging message in Rotherham

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