Haringey are Still Failing Vulnerable Children
A new report into the quality of Children’s Services at Haringery Council has revealed only “limited progress” has been made since an overhaul was ordered by the Government after the tragic death of Baby Peter.
The Inspectors say there are serious problems in management and in front line safeguarding services and that the problems need to be addressed “urgently”.
Baby Peter was seen more than 60 times before he died by Social Workers, Health Visitors and the Police. He was also on the ‘At Risk’ register.
All professionals involved failed to intervene and stop the abuse that he was suffering at the hands of these closest to him. He died in August 2007 with horrendous injuries including a broken back and ribs.
There was public outrage at the death of Baby Peter and an official report was published into the shortcomings at Haringey Council. Needless to say the report was “damming”. The Government ordered the sacking of Sharon Shoesmith, who was the director of Children’s Services at Haringey. A new replacement was drafted in as well as a new independent chairman for the Local Safeguarding Children Board.
But a recent Ofsted report on the progress made by Haringey since December has found that children in the borough are still at risk.
It states: “Inspectors and the council identified serious concerns about the safety of some children named in social care files and the council and its partners accept that currently not all children are adequately safeguarded”.
The report found that only “limited progress” had been made due to “significant shortcomings in staffing” and the “capability of some managers and social workers”.
Poor decision making is an area of “great concern” and there are serious safeguarding concerns in 14 per cent of cases that the council had decided were a low priority.
A manual for Social Care staff has been added to the staff intranet but “few staff” didn’t even know it existed.
The electronic system that Haringey use for recording cases was said to be “inefficient” because Social Workers are made to spend too much time entering data so managers were not able to track the progress of cases.
A third of the Social Care staff are only temporary agency staff, while a similar number of posts in Health Visiting remain vacant, which makes it difficult for improvements to be made,
When the new team were drafted in they found a backlog of 400 cases that had not been investigated. Although they have now been cleared the new cases are being left to long without being looked at.
Health bodies that work with Haringey have not been left unscathed either. Progress in perfomance has also been limited, the report said.
Christine Gilbert, the head of Ofsted, has told the Government that there are “insufficient numbers of competent staff and managers” and “insufficient attention was given to improving frontline services” after problems in their “management and delivery” were uncovered.
She added: “The first priority must be to tackle urgently the deficiencies in these services.”
Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, admitted the report “identifies important ongoing challenges for Haringey, in particular, in improving standards on the front line”.
Cllr Claire Kober, leader of Haringey Council, insisted: “We are working very hard to address the issues identified by the inspectors.
“Ofsted has confirmed that we have made progress in some areas in the months since our joint plan was approved, but we know that much more needs to be done and more time is needed.”
Another inspection will be carried out by Ofsted by January 2010.
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