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Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Knapman.]
10.15 pm
Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian): I am grateful for this opportunity to raise an extremely disturbing case involving the abuse and exploitation of handicapped people at a private care institution in my constituency by people who profess to be fundamentalist Christians.
This affair exposes serious shortcomings in the supervision of charities in Scotland; it shows that it can be far too easy for unscrupulous operators to misappropriate Department of Social Security funds; and it demonstrates that it is far too difficult for local authorities to ensure that handicapped people get proper care in such institutions.
The Algrade story is a major scandal, and the Minister must institute an urgent inquiry so that proper safeguards can be put into effect as soon as possible.
The Algrade home is near the village of Humbie at the foot of the Lammermuir hills. The site was originally developed as a holiday village for children from Edinburgh, and from a distance it looks idyllic.
The Algrade trust was established in 1968 with the stated objective of providing for the
The top priority given to spiritual welfare later turned out to be significant, and, I fear, sinister.
The home was registered under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 for residential and day care, and in recent years there have been around 33 residents and 10 day attenders. Many of the residents went to Humbie as children 30 years ago, and they have lived virtually all their lives at the home.
Families trusted the Algrade trust, and particularly the resident trustees, Miss Betty Waugh and Mrs. Rosa Frisby, to provide for the welfare of these handicapped young people. But I fear that things went badly wrong.
Over a period of years, the local social work authority, Lothian regional council, became more and more dissatisfied with the management at Algrade. The council tried to persuade the trust to improve its care arrangements, but the social work department ran into fierce resistance from the trustees, particularly Miss Waugh and Mrs. Frisby, who claimed that they had guidance from a superior, divine authority.
In 1984, the council became so concerned about poor standards of care and management, and inadequate and inappropriate staffing, that drastic action had to be taken. The council's ultimate power was to withdraw the Algrade home's registration under the Social Work (Scotland) Act, but there was a risk that the trust could carry on regardless by claiming housing benefit for its residents instead of DSS funding.
That course of action was actually threatened by Mr. John White, who had joined the Algrade team as an adviser in 1987. I understand that Mr. White has recently folded his Care Management Advisory Service company, and that his record elsewhere includes an incident in which an old lady was scalded to death in a bath in a
home that he owned. He subsequently claimed that the fact that she had a private bath was proof of the quality of her care. The man seems to be a complete chancer, and a callous one at that. He is still operating the Grey Tree trust in Ross-on-Wye, with substantial funding from the Home Office. The authorities should check on all his affairs thoroughly.
Returning to Algrade, Lothian regional council was in a difficult position. Even if it could have closed the Algrade operation, it would not have had the resources to provide alternative care and accommodation for the residents. Nevertheless, further pressure on the trust, including reports to the police and to the Scottish Charities Office, led to the resignation of the old trustees, the appointment of new trustees, the transfer of the management of the home to the Board of Social Responsibility of the Church of Scotland, and, finally, the transfer of the residents to better accommodation made available by the council at Inveresk.
Lothian regional council and the Church of Scotland have fulfilled their responsibilities fully and in difficult circumstances, with precious little help from the Scottish Charities Office. I tabled parliamentary questions in July and November last year, and the replies from the Lord Advocate and the Minister were hopelessly unsatisfactory. We are still waiting for action to deal with serious financial irregularities in the Algrade trust--and remember: the DSS has been paying more than £400,000 a year to that thoroughly dodgy organisation.
It is important that the House and the Minister should understand just how awful the position at Algrade had become. We are not discussing minor lapses or mistakes. This has been a story of serious exploitation, abuse and fraud.
For a start, the accommodation was dreadful. When I visited Humbie just after the management was taken over by Church of Scotland social workers last year, I saw primitive conditions, inadequate and probably dangerous electric wiring, and pitiful heating. In February 1994, Lothian regional council found that the temperature in the living accommodation was just 6 deg C, well below the statutory minimum for places of work. It is a mercy that the residents were moved into better housing before the big freeze at the end of December 1995.
The catering was basic, to put it mildly. I understand that the trust took advantage of the free European Community surplus food scheme to put £50,000-worth of horsemeat on residents' plates over five years--at least, we presume it was horsemeat; the residents described it as pony.
The trust's outlandish religious culture was probably the main priority, and the handicapped residents were manipulated shamelessly. Those who did not comply could be subjected to cruel punishments, and there are even more serious allegations of sexual abuse by a senior carer who worked at Humbie for 10 years. Amazingly, he was protected by the original trustees.
Staffing at the home was, at best, inadequate. One of the oddest features of this operation was its ability to spend such a low proportion of its income on the care of its residents. Although Mr. John White was maximising the trust's claim for DSS and other funding to more than
£420,000 a year, the trust's expenditure on staffing was just £36,000 a year. Spending on staff usually accounts for about 70 per cent. of care home budgets, but at Algrade the figure was 10 per cent., so staff costs were extraordinarily cheap.
Expenditure on food must have been pretty low, too, with all that free EC horsemeat or whatever. We know that heating costs must have been minimal, that the residents had little pocket money, and that there is no evidence of investment in the buildings at Humbie, so where did all the money go?
I believe that large sums of money that should have been spent on the care of handicapped people have been diverted into the former trustees' religious organisation, and into property that now belongs to individual former trustees. I understand that about 17 properties, worth about £2 million, in and around the village of Pathhead may have been acquired in that way. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke), who represents Pathhead, is present. That property in Pathhead includes the high street cafe, which is exotically named, "The Video and Satellite Ministry".
That "Ministry" seems to be a combination of the former trustees' brand of fundamentalism and material beamed from kindred spirits in the United States of America. When I visited the cafe last year, my main concern was for a group of handicapped young people from the Humbie home who were working in the cafe clad in absurd tartan uniforms. The ex-trustee who met me there, Mrs. Frisby, had obviously prompted them carefully and effectively to tell me that they wanted to return to the care of the former regime at Algrade. She went further. She cited divine guidance for her mission. Those "helpers"--I understand that they were paid £5 for a seven-day week--seem to be vulnerable people, who are being exploited and manipulated.
Apart from milking their handicapped residents' DSS funding, the former trustees used other tactics. I have now seen evidence that a blind elderly relative of a day attender was bamboozled into signing a will leaving his house to Miss Waugh, and there are more stories about wills and unconventional property conveyancing that deserve attention.
All that has been perpetrated in the name of Christianity and "spiritual welfare", which is shameful; it has also been done by a registered Scottish charity with substantial funding from the DSS, which is intolerable. I pay tribute to Lothian regional council for its vigilance and persistence, which has led to the removal of the previous trustees and the provision of better care and accommodation for those 33 handicapped people.
That must not be the end of the story, however. About
£2 million of public money intended for the care of handicapped people has apparently been pocketed by the trust or embezzled by former trustees. That money must be recovered and made available for its original purpose. I want to know why the Scottish Charities Office, which has had plenty of information about the affair for 14 months, has still taken no action.
I submit that either the DSS or local authorities should be able to audit and, if necessary, directly control money paid to private care agencies, of which there are now a good many. Moreover, this outrageous story includes a number of allegations of criminal offences: such offences should lead to prosecutions.
"spiritual, physical and material welfare and education of the mentally handicapped".
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