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Beyond The Supression Of Failure: Building Cultures For Child Care In Welsh Local Authorities.
By Chris Clode

1. Child-centredness, a corporate issue.
In working within and alongside child care organisations, we have become aware of a number of problems in the ways in which staff who abuse are dealt with. It is assumed that, since the Children Act and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, organisations such as Local Authority Social Services Departments would now have reshaped themselves to be responsive and child-centred and listening. However, these Departments are set within the wider structure of the Council, subject to the directions of Elected Members, Personnel/Human Resources Departments, Legal Departments and Chief Executives, dominant culture setters for the whole Authority. Our experience is that frequently the wider culture of the organization is shaped to corporate agendas that look outward to address the needs of perceived public image, political parties and the requirements of central government, rather than focusing on the outcomes for vulnerable individuals dependent on the Council's services. As a result, there is plenty of evidence that suppression of whistleblowing is alive and well in the post-1996 unitary authorities in Wales. Much of our evidence comes from Flintshire, through our own experience, but also through concerns fed to us by others; however, I do not believe Flintshire is unique, but that their practice reflects a wider cultural and ethical problem in Wales.

This problem will, we believe, have a seriously detrimental impact on the potential effectiveness of the Commissioner for Children, as well as bring Councils, their Members and Officers into serious disrepute, if it is not properly dealt with. It has been clear, but not particularly noted in the post-Waterhouse public "debate", that the failures of Local Authorities to properly respond to disclosures of alleged abuse were determined by the actions of Chief and senior officers outside, as well as inside their Social Services Departments. Decisions to not discipline abusive staff, to suppress reports on abuse and, most disgracefully, to harass whistleblowers like Alison Taylor from their jobs, could only take place with the active consent of Personnel Directors, County Solicitors and, in some cases, of Chief Executives and leading Councillors. In North Wales (and elsewhere) the Monitoring Officer system of ethical checks on the Local Authority's performance seems to have too often signally failed to protect vulnerable children (and adults) dependent on Councils for their protection, or those advocating on their behalf.

2. Politics and the selection of Chief Officers.
Much has been said about the corporate implications of the failures in child care, especially since Frank Dobson launched the Quality Protects programme for England in 1998. In my work as a consultant to English and Scottish Local Authorities implementing current Government strategies for children in care, it is clear that the timescale of political expectations expressed by councillors, tied to achieving change within election terms, is often unrealistic when dealing with achieving the outcomes from the major (and long overdue) changes in social care provision now underway. Consequently, Chief and senior Officers, appointed by councillors, will often fit with their politically prioritised timescales and expectations, rather than those most likely to achieve improved and safe outcomes for service users. This, we believe, is true in Wales, too. One Assistant Director in childcare has said, "Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, there has been a push to move into a business-type culture which, although there were positive things about that, also meant that managers seemed to lose sight of what the social work process was about." (J. Skinner, quoted in "Having Someone Who Cares") The narrowed perspective this results in has eroded much of the tradition of public service that was once (supposedly) focussed on the impact of Council's work on the ordinary citizen and, the eye taken off this core responsibility, has created the cultures that show themselves irritable of anything that whiffs of bad publicity- cultures that suppress just concerns on behalf of the vulnerable and dependent.

Politics is an inevitable and, at its best, a beneficially external, component of the provision of public services. However, the need to never be "caught out" having a serious and reflective debate on our public failures, is leading to the appointment of a generation of Chief Officers distant from the provision of services and those who use them, living their whole working (and often social) lives in the company of politicians- now often only those on the new and select Council "Cabinets". I suggest that, just as serious damage was done to the dependent in the rush to privatise Council services in the 80s and early 90s, so similar damage is happening from the rush to politicise the management of services for the vulnerable. I believe that the appointment of Chief Officers in Local Authorities needs a significant external, non-political and independent component. This would not be intended to remove the proper contribution of elected local politicians to these decisions, but to provide a balance focussed on the longer-term benefits and outcomes for local citizens and their families; the appointment of Social Services Directors could be made, for instance, by a Panel including a member of the Care Council for Wales. I am aware that this proposal raises the difficult issue of enforcing locally elected councillors to share some of their powers with unelected outsiders.

3. Listening to children and protecting them.
Solicitor for the North Wales Unitary Authorities, Ron Evans, said after the publication of Waterhouse that "children are now listened to fully and they can talk to people independent of the system they are in." We believe that this is frequently not true; Flintshire, for example, had set up no independent visitor scheme, despite the recommendations of two reports from the Children's Rights Service. For such listening to happen, each Local Authority would need to commit itself to a programme of education across departments; bland professions of support for the UN Convention by leading politicians will not achieve a child-centred, as against a corporate-centred, organization. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities' "Checklist for Children" (1995) provides a good basis for this work. The protection and enhancement of the lives of vulnerable children (and adults) needs to be a priority, even beyond budgets.

We are aware of abuse still apparently being improperly investigated and we have passed on this information to the Audit Commission in London for independent investigation. How do things go wrong and some children continue to be unprotected? The legal process of Authorities dealing with their own allegedly abusive staff has flaws. Once C.P.S. has decided not to prosecute an alleged abuser on criminal level evidence (beyond reasonable doubt), some S.S.D.s fail to properly discipline staff (on balance of probabilities) when the child has been believed by the investigative social workers. The decision makers for disciplinary are influenced by issues beyond the proper protection of children- the likelihood of winning in an Industrial Tribunal against a staff member claiming unfair dismissal following abuse allegations, good relations with the union officers representing the alleged abuser, protecting the "good name" of the Authority by suppressing bad news, etc. Post- as well as pre-Waterhouse examples exist of managerial investigations being substituted for proper Child Protection Procedures. Increasingly, it seems that "beyond all reasonable" doubt is the threshold of proof required by Personnel and Legal Departments, if child abuse is linked to dealing with abusive staff, rather than "balance of probabilities" the Children Act would expect.

Additionally, we have seen that recent whistleblowers on child protection, adult abuse and financial malpractice in Welsh local authorities are still being pursued and harassed by senior managers and councillors. Even since the introduction of internal whistleblowing procedures and the Public Interest Disclosure Act coming into law in July 1999, these have failed to be adhered to by Officers and Members, leaving staff with concerns intimidated into silence- and, ultimately, collusion.

4. The importance of public information.
Criticism of Quality Protects has been that it focuses too much on statistical outcomes, rather than on the processes to achieve them. Indeed, Wales too has developed outcome-focussed cultures in local government, but without the publicly accessible DoH statistics on the Net, as in England. In the under-resourced Principality, the prioritised outcome for Chief Officers has been fiscal restraint and, in order to reach that target, the heart has to be taken out of the processes to achieve the outcomes for vulnerable children, through imposed staff shortages and vacancy freezes. But this happens in the silent fog of information denied to the Welsh public about the performance of their Councils' duty to care for their service users. As the Director of the Joint (S.S.I./Audit Commission) Review Team in England has said: "It is our view that local authorities must develop a much more robust attitude to the collection of data in order to help them judge their own performance. Those authorities that have a performance management culture do not find difficulties in using the data…We have certainly found that poor returns are quickly changed when rogue information is about to be made public." (Community Care, 11/5/2000)

5. The failure of monitoring.
In trying to raise previous concerns about conflicts of interest in Councils, I was fed back by my MP and the Welsh Office to ask local Chief Officers to investigate alleged malpractice they had probably colluded in- clearly an inappropriate solution. In relation to the Monitoring Officer role (often held by County Secretaries/Solicitors), this has been shown to be seriously flawed and has probably lost the confidence of many Council staff, who might otherwise have used it to raise just concerns about malpractice. I believe that this responsibility should maybe go externally to District (or national) Auditors, with an easier, more publicised route to access them than exists hitherto. Additionally, the Occupational Physician plays a crucial role in supporting staff who are put under intolerable pressure by managers they are criticising. It is not appropriate that a professional who is supporting a range of staff who may be suffering from the conditions they work in, should be managed by senior managers of that organisation.

Beyond the flawed internal monitoring, externally, the press in North Wales is undermanned and feebly dependent on maintaining good relations with Authority Press Officers. Additionally, the independence of trade unions has been often corrupted by too-close relationships with local politicians and senior officers. These circumstances can offer little in the way of serious external scrutiny of Council malpractice and thereby deny a route for those blocked at every level of their own Authority in raising just concerns about failure or malpractice. Some sort of forum needs to be developed- a type of "failure focus group"- where failure can be discussed in a blame-free learning environment.

In addition, we have recognised in our Children First submission the failure too, of central Government agencies: "One lesson of North Wales and the systematic brutalisation of young people in care itemised during the Waterhouse Tribunal has been that, when concerns were raised with Government bodies outside, they were not listened to; in fact, these bodies colluded with the Clwyd and Gwynedd Councils' suppression of abuse. My experience and those of others working in the new unitaries since 1996 is that the will to suppress malpractice is still a serious problem at every level of public life in some parts of Wales."

6. Summary.
The Welsh Assembly has the responsibility to ensure that safe and caring cultures are created across Wales, when it has inherited the supervision of some local authorities which have developed the sadly unsafe cultures of covering up bad news, whatever the cost to the vulnerable. Lord Utting has blamed the cultures of the old big pre-1996 Social Services Departments for the events in North Wales. There is plenty of evidence that suppression of whistleblowing is alive and well in the small post-1996 unitary authorities too. Beyond the Waterhouse Recommendations and the rewriting of Local Authority procedures, the Assembly needs to set up mechanisms to ensure that there is real safety for children and adults beneath the cosmetics of documentary conformity. To this end, I submit the following proposals to at least start on that road to more protective and accountable local authorities:

Recommendations:

Each Local Authority commits itself to a programme of education across departments to achieve a child-centred, as against a corporate-centred, organization.

The Welsh Assembly needs to initiate accessible Local Authority performance statistics on the Net.

The appointment of Chief Officers in Local Authorities needs a significant external, non-political and independent component.

A forum needs to be developed- a type of "failure focus group"- where Local Authority failure can be discussed in a blame-free learning environment.

Monitoring of a Local Authority's adherence to the Code of Conduct should go externally to District (or national) Auditors, with an easier, more publicised route to access them than exists hitherto.

Occupational Physicians in Local Authorities should be employed by local Community Health Trusts on Service Level agreements, and not be directly employed and therefore line-managed by Local Authorities.

Chris Clode, 12/5/2000.

ColverCare consultancies

training & research for quality & equality in life & work

12/5/2000.

To: Members of the Assembly Health & Social Services Committee.

Dear Member,

Subject: Building Cultures for Child Care in Welsh Local Authorities.

You may remember that I have been conducting a steady correspondence over the last two years with Westminster politicians, civil servants, professionals and yourselves on the problems some Welsh local Authorities are having in creating organisational cultures where the protection of dependent children and the promotion of their growth into adulthood are priorities.

The enclosed paper, "Beyond the Supression of Failure: Building Cultures for Child Care in Welsh Local Authorities", is a summary of the conclusions I have drawn from this correspondence, my experience as a senior manager in Wales, my own work in England and Scotland and discussions I have had with professionals and politicians.

I hope you will find this a useful contribution to learning from the lessons of Waterhouse and best practice in child care elsewhere, to enhance the lives of our children, this year of the implementation of the Human Rights Act.

Yours Faithfully,

Chris Clode.

27/5/2000.

To: Janet Ryder, AM.

Dear Janet,

Subject: Building Cultures for Child Care in Welsh Local Authorities.

Enclosed is a paper I sent to Assembly Health & Social Services Committee members, Peter Law and my own AM, Karen Sinclair. The issues I raise have wider implications for local government than simply childcare and the evidence it is based on was primarily gleaned from Flintshire- whose failures to provide information to District Audit I understand you have asked Peter Law to investigate. My paper is the product of a lengthy correspondence about Flintshire malpractices with Cardiff and Westminster - particularly fruitless with the latter.

I was the senior Children's Services Manager in Flintshire until September 1997. I left then and subsequently became a witness to the Waterhouse Tribunal against Flintshire for their failure in their responsibilities to support procedures to protect children. Finally, last Wednesday, May 24th, at their request, I had a meeting in Mold with Maria Michael, Deputy Chief Inspector, Social Services Inspectorate Wales, David Johnston of her staff and Mike Burns from the Child & Families Policy Division. I was accompanied by Janet Hover, past Residential Child Care Manager for Flintshire (also a Waterhouse witness) and Chris Roberts, past Unison Secretary and Social Services Training Officer, Flintshire.

In the meeting we outlined a wide range of serious malpractices, including inadequate investigation of the abuse of children and the elderly, suppression of concerns about gas safety standards, misspending of Lottery money, undeclared conflicts of interest in appointments to senior posts, illegal payments of retirement monies, the suppression of whistleblowers and a number of Reports into their malpractices.

It seems to us that malpractice- some might call it "corruption"- is widespread through the County and there is consistent evidence that it is sanctioned at the highest level by both Chief Officers and senior Elected Members. I and others have suggested that some functions of the County need to be taken into administration. I send you this paper to ensure that your inquiries into the District Auditor's complaints are linked to other, wider abuses of power.

I hope this is of assistance. Please feel free to contact me if you require further detail or supportive documentation to the concerns a number of us have so far been fruitlessly pursuing for the last three years.

Yours Faithfully,

Chris Clode.

18/7/00.

Rachel Downey, Community Care.

Dear Rachel,

Subject: Response in Wales to Waterhouse.

Enclosed is a paper completed by CloverCare, with the covering letter we sent to the members of the Welsh Assembly Health & Social Services Committee on May 12th. It has led to correspondence and meetings with Assembly Members from all Parties and with Cardiff civil servants. Following the letter published this week in CC from twelve childcare authorities in Wales, I thought that this paper might contribute to the ongoing debate.

You will note that the italicised passages are the sections that refer directly to Flintshire, the source of most evidence; the deletion of these sections does not spoil the sense of the rest of the paper.

I realise that this is a long piece; if you wish to use part or all of it, please contact me to discuss.

Yours Faithfully,

Chris Clode.

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