At the beginning of October Tory-run Hertfordshire County Council had
a suprise OFSTED inspection. These inspections were started in the
light of the horrific death of Baby Peter. The report lists areas
which the Council is good at, those it needs to improve and those that
require urgent action.
In total there are 5 areas that were meeting minimum standards, 7 that
required improvements and 2 which require urgent action – both in the
most serious areas. OFSTED found that the call centre was handling
calls and having assistants signing off reported cases of abuse rather
than trained social work managers – a practice we have criticised the
council for in the past. The other was that cases dating back as far
as March 2009 had not had proper case reviews.
Chris White, Liberal Democrat Opposition Leader said: ‘The county
announced this report in very glowing terms, only briefly mentioning
the serious defects in the system and praising the areas that had been
highlighted as meeting basic standards. It did not mention that of the
14 bullet points nearly two thirds were areas they have to improve on
to keep our children safe.’
Sal Brinton, Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for Watford said:
‘Members of the public calling the call centre to report possible
child abuse have been given a substandard service. They are not being
given the respect and care that they deserve when they have been
making that very hard call to report suspected abuse. This has been
rightly critisised by OFSTED and has failed every child in
Hertfordshire.’
Link to report: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/5516/(as)/UAV/uav_2009_919.pdf
in 11 weeks 1 social services visit and yet again another social worker no child protection plan been signed no core groups since august . 12 months my children been on register and have done nothing 5 social workers later still nothing been done was not informed last social worker had left ! and yet looks like they wanna keep my children on register for what ?? doesnt this border on harrasment now . social services have proved themselves to me that they are pathetic , even down to abuse my children suffered from my EX partner in court few weeks ago herts have allowed this man unsupervised contact with his 4 children . this abuse has been hidden by social services from herts and doncaster .
Please contact me privately if you want me to follow this up.