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To lie upon the Table.
Holland House
10.19 pm
Mr. Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole) (Lab): It is my honour to present a petition on behalf of thousands of residents from Goole, Hook and the surrounding area regarding the future of Holland House, a private nursing home bought by PD Services, which has evicted the residents as it attempts to convert it into a secure unit. This loss of beds for locals is an enormous concern for the community, and the petition states:
Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will call upon the Secretary of State for Health to hold a public inquiry into the provision of nursing care beds for the elderly, the inquiry to recommend proposals to ensure the adequacy of such provision, and to impose a complete embargo on all applications made by PD Services and like organisations to the National Care Standards Commission—now the Health Care Commission—for deregistration of existing nursing homes, including Holland House, and applications for a change of use of said properties to secure units for persons with personality disorders, until the outcome of such public inquiry.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
To lie upon the Table.
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Commission for Social Care Inspection
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Margaret Moran.]
10.20 pm
Mr. James Plaskitt (Warwick and Leamington): I should like to thank Mr. Speaker for granting me the opportunity to have this important Adjournment debate.
This case involves two of my constituents who are foster carers. Given the involvement of children and the obvious importance of protecting their identity, I shall refer to the couple only as "my constituents". However, the case is known to the Minister for Children and we have corresponded on the matter.
I want to raise the issue tonight because my constituents have been put in a truly intolerable situation as a result of professional failures and organisational incompetence. Although the matter is now, possibly, inching its way towards a resolution, this has taken far too long. The case has exposed very serious systemic failures, and we cannot afford to fail to apply the lessons that could be learned from this sorry situation. Many questions remain unanswered, and I wish to put them to my right hon. Friend this evening. My constituents and I are anxious to have the answers.
I shall briefly outline the context. My constituents discovered that a 13-year-old boy who had been placed with them for fostering had a history of sex abusing. They had not been told this. That was obviously a profound and dangerous mistake, given that my constituents have young children of their own, and other children in their care. The boy—child X—was placed with my constituents by Northamptonshire social services, and the independent agency involved in the case was called Happen.
Initially, my constituents took the view that an honest mistake had occurred. Attempts to resolve the matter amicably failed and, eventually, my constituents lodged a complaint against the agency. The first really sour incident in the story occurred at this point. Happen's response was to cast doubt on the previous and current fitness of my constituents as foster parents. Having failed to dissuade my constituents from making their complaint, Happen's staff visited their home and produced an agenda of concerns questioning my constituents' competence and reliability. Happen also indicated that it would take my constituents back to the fostering panel. It also told them that it was asking a social worker to investigate them. This aggressive response threatened my constituents with the loss of their reputation and their livelihood.
The then National Care Standards Commission undertook an investigation. Two inspectors, Sandra Lemon and Jane Allen, carried out the investigation and concluded that the complaints against the agency could not be substantiated. Those two individuals later carried out an assessment of Happen's fitness for registration—a point that I shall come back to. Surprised by this finding, my constituents pressed the matter to a second stage review. This was carried out by Cathy Craggs and concluded in May 2003. Looking at exactly the same evidence, Ms Craggs concluded that the complaint was partly substantiated.
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Still dissatisfied, however, my constituents took the matter to a third stage review, which was carried out by Judy Downey and was concluded in March this year. Ms Downey's detailed report makes worrying revelations and reaches some very important conclusions. I have sent a copy of it to my right hon. Friend. The third stage investigation concluded, among other things, that the NCSC's inspection of Happen—carried out, as I said, by the same two people who undertook the initial investigation—had been over-generous to the agency. The investigation also found that Happen was unable to substantiate its claims against my constituents. It also concluded:
"Considerable efforts were made by Happen to discredit"
my constituents. It also concluded that while Northamptonshire's own investigation into the affair had found a need for Happen to address its conduct, that was not picked up in either of the first two NCSC investigations. Finally, Ms Downey's report totally vindicated my constituents. She concluded:
"The NCSC should examine its practices in relation to this provider and review their fitness as a matter of urgency."
Since that report, which was delivered in March this year, what has happened? First, the NCSC has become the Commission for Social Care Inspection. The name and initials have therefore changed, but it does not look to me as though the personnel or practices have changed too much. Anxious to see Ms Downey's recommendations acted on, I wrote to Linda Hoare, the south-east regional director of CSCI. My constituents also engaged a solicitor to represent them, and they, too, were in communication with Ms Hoare. Incidentally, she complained that she could not deal with two sets of correspondence on this matter. However, she wrote:
"I will of course do my best to ensure that any necessary improvements in the practice of the CSCI are carried out".
At the same time, Staffordshire social services reacted to the findings of the third stage review. Peter Steel, its commissioning officer, concluded that his county would no longer use Happen. He communicated that view to a range of other west midlands social services departments, as his was the lead authority. Concern about Happen was also drawn to the attention of Northamptonshire, the original placing authority, which would obviously have an interest in the matter. It decided to check with CSCI, which replied that
"there are no indications of concern regarding the agency and its practices and outcomes from the inspection were positive."
Three months after Ms Downey's report and call for urgent action, some social services departments were clearly doing the right thing. CSCI, however, which twice in its previous incarnation failed to undertake a proper investigation, was telling one local authority at least that all was well with the agency, while writing to me and my constituents assuring us that all necessary improvements would be made. I was dismayed by this comment from CSCI. In May, I wrote a further letter to Ms Hoare asking for an explanation.
At that time, I also raised the matter for the first time with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children. She replied that the CSCI complaints board would be conducting a review of its procedures to be completed in the summer of 2004. CSCI has since told me that a further inspection of Happen will be conducted in October. As for the astonishing comment made by CSCI
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to Northamptonshire that all was well with Happen, I still have not had an explanation; instead, I have had only a comment from Ms Hoare saying that she was not in post at the time. In fact, I think that she was.
All that raises serious doubts in my mind about the competence of CSCI. The reputation of two outstanding foster carers has been placed in jeopardy, I think, to cover up professional failures. First, they were subject to incompetence, then to intimidation, and then they were totally let down by the inspecting organisation to which they turned. Either the inspectors did not inspect, or they did but opted to cover up what they found. Either is indefensible, given that not only reputations are at stake but the safety and security of children.
In conclusion, I have some questions for my right hon. Friend. How confident can we be in the staff of CSCI? Is it mired in institutional self-preservation? What has happened to CSCI's review of complaints procedure? Has it concluded? If so, what was the outcome? Why is the complaints process so close to the inspection process, to the extent that the same people are involved? Surely that raises a conflict of interest and results in people being asked to inspect their own competence. Why are CSCI inspections apparently such limp affairs? How rigorous are the inspection criteria? When complaints are made about the very foundations of fitness, why are the inspections about superficial matters? Why are inspections, as in the case of Happen, pre-announced? Does not that further undermine their validity? Why, when it was deemed urgent in March, are some of the core recommendations of Ms Downey's first stage report still not being acted on seven months later? When will all those recommendations be acted on, and when will Happen be either sorted out or deregistered?
10.30 pm
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