The Truth, the Whole Truth and,..

This following news story is from BBC news 25 february 2011 and clearly shows that in spite of a previous OFSTED report showing up many gross failures, the attitude of Childrens' Services in the South West of the UK is still buried in what Judge Wall described as ".. something out of the middle ages or Stalinist Russia"

The problems are still there because the staff think they are always right and never make mistakes. Eight suicides I personally know about in that area would suggest they are utterly incompetent.

Link to BBC page and more on this story

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Cornwall Council's children's services have again been labelled as "inadequate" by Ofsted.
It follows a damning report in 2009 which found similar problems.

The report, based on inspections carried out in January, said "drift and delay" in the system left children at risk of "significant harm". Cornwall Council said it had worked hard to address the shortcomings identified from the last inspection in 2009.
In a statement, the authority said it did not accept all the findings in the report, but was taking it very seriously.

'Not sufficiently challenged'

The Ofsted report said a plan had been put in place by the council after 2009 which covered 15 key priorities for improvement. While there been some "significant improvements", it said the focus on operational child protection procedures and practice was insufficient. Children's social care had not ensured a "consistent and robust risk assessment" and partner agencies had not sufficiently challenged those failures. "These practices lead to an unsafe child protection system which causes drift and delay and leaves some children at risk of significant harm," the report said.
It also said the management and practice of too many cases were assessed to be inadequate by inspectors, including children who were at risk of significant harm.
However, the Ofsted report said the services for children in and leaving care were much better, and rated them as "adequate".
The council said action had already been taken to resolve the key problems identified by inspectors and it had drawn up a robust plan to ensure all issues were being addressed. It said: "Our focus going forward is to ensure that the quality of practice is of a consistent standard in all cases.
The council added: "It is important to note that the inspectors did not refer any cases where they felt a child was at immediate risk of harm."

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Of course this news story merely reports the basic facts and statements, what it does not highlight are the actual cases that led to the OFSTED inspection. That last statement from the council is blatently wrong, there were cases where OFSTED did feel children had been put at significant risk,.. or they would not have been inspecting in the first place. I should know, I was one of the people who drew their attention to Devon and Cornwall. They also had the referral from a High Court Judge and that has to be a lot more to worry about surely?

I'm not convinced that Cornwall Childrens' Services will improve much until certain staff members have been sacked for their gross professional arrogance. The other sad thing about this is that those very staff are training the new ones to carry out their work in much the same way,.. just get the cases off the desk and don't worry about the fall-out later in the childrens' lives. As one of them put it,

"By the time they (the children) are kicking off about how we sorted their lives out, they will be out of our care and be someone else's problem."

Oh really?