For anyone associated with Lambeth Council (by whom I was employed for 33 years from 1987 onwards) yesterday’s publication of the report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is a significant moment. The report sets out a litany of the most appalling abuse of children in the care of Lambeth Council, going back over many decades.
The Council has apologised and established a redress scheme to provide compensation - but nothing can undo what was done to so many vulnerable children for whom the borough was responsible over such a long period of time. There can be little doubt that yesterday’s report would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the determination of survivors of abuse (such as those organised in the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association - who withdrew cooperation from IICSA because of their limited methodology).
The report should be read (and re-read) in order to understand the testimony heard by the report authors and also to consider their analysis. It is evident that there was a systemic failure to protect children, and to listen to their complaints, which goes back before the formation of Lambeth Council in 1965 and continued - in at least one case to which the report refers - until 2016.
Unfortunately, for some commentators, any report about Lambeth is simply an excuse to bash what is remembered as having been a left-wing Council in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some commentary is poorly informed, some is worse.
Perhaps the report authors - not being local government finance experts can be excused for having said that “the desire to take on the government and to avoid setting a council tax rate resulted in 33 councillors being removed from their positions in 1986.” However seeing this error repeated verbatim by the journal Public Finance (published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy - CIPFA) - who allow an ill-informed subeditor to introduce their article with the misleading statement that “the failure of the London Borough of Lambeth to set a council tax rate during the 1980s directly contributed to sexual abuse in its children's homes” - is alarming.
Council Tax was not introduced until 1993 (a simple fact of which you would think a journal produced by CIPFA would be aware). The tax which the Knight administration in Lambeth delayed setting (not failed to set) was the old domestic rates (which were themselves abolished to make way for the poll tax - or “community charge” - the predecessor to Council Tax).
The Public Finance subeditor also takes what the report says much further than the authors of the report, who plainly see the political contention around the conflict with Central Government, leading up to the delay in rate-setting in 1986 and thence to the surcharge and disqualification of councillors, as part of the context of the culture of the organisation which helps to explain its failure to address the crisis of child sexual abuse - a long way from making the absurd claim that the delay in setting a rate in 1986 “directly contributed” to sexual abuse which had been going on in Lambeth children’s homes since before Lambeth Council was created in 1965.
If an informed and respected source of local government news can get things so badly wrong it is of course no surprise that the MailOnline website prioritises attacking left wing Council leaders of the 80s and early 90s, giving their details a higher profile than those of the convicted sex offenders who were actually abusing children in Lambeth.
Since the report has only been public for a little over 24 hours at the time of writing it is easy to see that this sort of gutter journalism is simply rehashing prejudice rather than paying serious attention to the content of an important document. It is a massive oversimplification to pick out one contextual factor and attribute the horror of Lambeth’s children’s homes to that one cause. Shirley Oaks - the home which has become a byword for abuse - was closed in 1983 (three years before the confrontation between Lambeth Council and the Tory Government).
The report is genuinely horrifying and deserves to be taken seriously. It should not be used to make ill-informed attempts to refight political battles from a generation ago.
Doesn't the report say you told your union members in 1999 to play no further part in a child abuse investigation and says of you that "defending particular sectional interests can result in the failure to fully recognise the wider interests of children”?
ReplyDeleteThis is all rather familiar isn't it? Rotherham, Telford, Rochdale, Oxford. Tens of thousands of children raped and tortured, all covered up by Labour councils and local plod.
It's understandable that you desperately want to distance yourself and paint yourself as an innocent bystander who knew nuffink, guv. Kind of like Corbyn being the unluckiest anti racist in the world with the terrible misfortune to accidentally break bread with and befriend terrorists and Holocaust deniers.
Of course militant loons prioritised ideological battles over the welfare of children. It's the same pattern wherever Labour are in power. In Haringey, plans for low cost housing for the poor were disrupted by newly elected Momentum goons because they were more concerned with campaigning against self service tills in supermarkets. Priorities, comrade!
I'm amazed your pathetically self serving post didn't conclude with a bit of good old fashioned whataboutery. "Yes it's terrible that children were abused in Lambeth, but what about the Tories? Yes, thousands of Black children were subjected to abuse in Lambeth during Ted Knight's leadership, but what about Israel? OK, so some kids were sexually terrorised, but what about self service tills?"
Though children cried and lived in fear
We'll keep the red flag flying here
Hi Jon
ReplyDeleteDo you have any comment about this section of the report ?
26. In 1999, Mr John Barratt investigated Lambeth Council’s failure to respond effectively to an allegation of child sexual abuse against Steven Forrest, a care worker at Angell Road children’s home. Having been troubled by his findings, Mr Barratt issued an interim report and informed Dame Heather Rabbatts that he had “read and heard enough to be satisfied that Child Protection practice, in Lambeth, remains worryingly inadequate and incoherent,and therefore ineffective”.Shortly afterwards, Mr Jon Rogers, the branch secretary of UNISON, wrote to Mr Barratt advising him that in view of his interim report and the suspension of Assistant Director for Children and Families, Ms Constantia Pennie, UNISON would advise its members to play no further part in the investigation. In the course of our investigation, Mr Rogers sought to justify this on the basis that there was considerable anger among UNISON members that Ms Pennie was being scapegoated, and that the Barratt interim report should not have been used in this way when it had said it could not attribute individual blame.692 When asked how UNISON sought to balance the interests of children in care and their protection against the rights of individual UNISON members when giving advice, Mr Rogers regarded this question as misconceived. He explained that “as a UNISON representative, it was my responsibility to give guidance to UNISON members to protect their interests. It would not have been appropriate for me to have taken it upon myself to
undertake the balancing exercise which is implied by the question”
26. In 1999, Mr John Barratt investigated Lambeth Council’s failure to respond effectively to an allegation of child sexual abuse against Steven Forrest, a care worker at Angell Road children’s home. Having been troubled by his findings, Mr Barratt issued an interim report and informed Dame Heather Rabbatts that he had “read and heard enough to be satisfied that Child Protection practice, in Lambeth, remains worryingly inadequate and incoherent,
ReplyDeleteand therefore ineffective”.690 Shortly afterwards, Mr Jon Rogers, the branch secretary of UNISON, wrote to Mr Barratt advising him that in view of his interim report and the suspension of Assistant Director for Children and Families, Ms Constantia Pennie, UNISON would advise its members to play no further part in the investigation.691 In the course of our investigation, Mr Rogers sought to justify this on the basis that there was considerable anger among UNISON members that Ms Pennie was being scapegoated, and that the Barratt interim report should not have been used in this way when it had said it could not attribute individual blame.692 When asked how UNISON sought to balance the interests
of children in care and their protection against the rights of individual UNISON members when giving advice, Mr Rogers regarded this question as misconceived. He explained that “as a UNISON representative, it was my responsibility to give guidance to UNISON members to protect their interests. It would not have been appropriate for me to have taken it upon myself to
undertake the balancing exercise which is implied by the question”
No wonder you never have any comments on your posts. You moderate them so you can delete everything that isn't a rabid far left loon who thinks the sun shines out of your arse or isn't prepared to let you off the hook over Lambeth.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't you be campaigning against self service tills, comrade? ��