Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
CHRISTINE GILBERT
CBE, MICHAEL HART
AND MIRIAM
ROSEN
10 DECEMBER 2008
Q240 Mr Carswell: So, you can have
openness and honesty only if what you are saying is kept secret?
Christine Gilbert: I think that
the reviews are very honest about other members of the family
in some instances. I went back, because the politicians that I
spoke to said that they considered only about a page needed to
be redacted in the Baby P case, and I think that that is probably
true, because so much is in the public domain. However, I looked
at a number of other cases, and you would have had to redact page
after page without it personally impacting on another child in
the family—another member of the family—in a way that
would be very difficult for that child to bear.
Q241 Annette Brooke: Just two questions
really. First, briefly, do you think that there should be sanctions
on local authorities or whoever for actually giving false information?
Would that strengthen your data collection?
Christine Gilbert: I certainly
think that people should not knowingly submit false data. If they
knowingly submit false data, that is a disciplinary issue to be
dealt with in the council as such—or in any other organisation
that had submitted data.
Q242 Annette Brooke: You do not think,
from your inspection, that there is any role for sanctions coming
out?
Christine Gilbert: It would make
the assessment invalid if we knew that. We would not have a role
in doing that; it would be up to the local council or organisation
to deal with it. It would not be our role.
Q243 Annette Brooke: Just taking
a slightly broader perspective—I appreciate that a lot of
this has only just come into your remit—and following on
from the Children Act 2004, there has been a major shake-up. There
has been lots of questioning whether it was right to get rid of
the old format of the child protection index. There have been
issues about who should be chairing the local safeguarding board
and whether the social workers are able to find the needle in
the haystack with all the information. Has any of Ofsted's work,
right across all authorities, looked at the implications of the
changes that have been brought in? Have you picked up whether
local authorities—social workers—see the moves as
for better or for worse? Surely there are general trends here
that could have been picked up earlier. It seems to me really
bad to have to have—I am sure we have to have it—this
follow-on Laming report to pick up all these issues, when surely
an ongoing inspection ought to have picked some of the issues
up.
Christine Gilbert: The report
that we led on with the other inspectorates in July picked up
a number of issues. It was the third safeguarding report and the
first time that Ofsted led on that report. It pointed to a number
of improvements since the previous report, three years before,
in the general arrangements for safeguarding, but also highlighted
a number of things that we were deeply concerned about. On the
day that the report was launched, I was sufficiently concerned
to write to chairs of local safeguarding children boards and invite
them to a conference immediately after the launch—the report
had been launched in the morning. I was there for the entire day.
I spoke to them and we talked about what was in the report. The
afternoon session was entirely on serious case reviews and there
was a presentation on our findings. We were trying to highlight
those issues and areas. We did not feel that the publicity related
to that report had been sufficiently strong in this area, so in
our annual report—published just a fortnight ago, as you
will have seen—we included a chapter that picked up a lot
of the information. At the same time, we decided that we would
publish our first-year evaluation, looking back over 50 serious
case reviews and considering not just how they had been done—the
processes—but the practice related to them and the issues
coming out of them. To be honest, we were to publish that just
when we were asked to do the investigation of Baby P. We did not
think that we could do so while we were doing that review, so
we published them at the same time. That report highlights a number
of difficulties and problems, and essentially suggests what people
need to be doing. We have tried to pick up key themes and issues.
For instance, another issue that is touched on here, although
we have another report coming out after Christmas, is private
fostering. We have tried to pick out issues that we are really
concerned about—not just to do our basic inspection of the
different services, but to try to pull the lessons together and
produce a report that really makes the key points, with some emphasis.
Q244 Annette Brooke: It seems a little
alarming that the Baby P case will trigger the change, whereas
your reports do not seem to have had any impact. Should we be
learning any lessons from that?
Christine Gilbert: I do not know
whether they would have had no impact. We put the safeguarding
chapter in the report because the annual report always generates
a lot of interest. Usually the focus is entirely on schools, and
we hoped that by putting that chapter in, as I said at the beginning
of my introductory remarks, it would generate a lot of attention.
I am launching the report that we will publish after Christmas
at a particular conference. We think that that approach—we
have always had survey reports in other areas of Ofsted's work
and they always generate some interest—would have generated
interest in these areas, even without the tragic case of Baby
P.
Q245 Chairman: Some people out there
who have been interested in and horrified by what happened to
Baby P might say that if there was a tougher report and a more
accurate and insightful inspection system Baby P would have been
saved—rescued—and the misery of that small life would
have been ameliorated.
Christine Gilbert: As I said,
Chairman, we have not been complacent about this at all. We have
really tried to look at what is happening and look at what our
review found—nobody seems to be arguing with what we found
a fortnight ago. We are looking at the process and the practice
to make sure that the changes that we had already said we were
introducing are sufficiently comprehensive. If there are pieces
of evidence that we should be looking at that we are not looking
at, we will really try to find them.
Q246 Chairman: But the crucial investigation
is the 2006 one, is it not? The report said adequate, and 2006
would have been early enough to have influenced the life of Baby
P.
Christine Gilbert: I would stand
by the 2006 report. That report highlighted some difficulties.
Inspection gives you a picture of what is happening at the time.
Things do not stand still; they get worse or better.
Q247 Chairman: Are you saying that
there was a cataclysmic decline between 2006 and 2008?
Christine Gilbert: Sorry?
Chairman: Are you saying that in 2006
you found that children's services and safeguarding in Haringey
were okay—indeed, that they were adequate and in some respects
good—but that by 2008 there had been an absolutely cataclysmic
failure, which you did not detect in 2006, not even a hint of
it?
Christine Gilbert: In fact, there
were hints of it then. The issues about child protection and initial
and core assessments, and the points I made about case files and
so on, were all there. We thought that they had been worked on
and improved. That was not the case. I would also say that things
do not stand still. We can see that in schools. An inspector who
had been into a primary school spoke to me on Monday. The school
had evaluated itself as good and the data was suggesting that
the school was satisfactory, but when he went on the site visit
and made the inspection he put the school into special measures.
So, that school has moved in the three years since the last inspection.
Q248 Chairman: You are moving to
a three-year cycle of inspections for vulnerable children's services.
Christine Gilbert: With annual
checks, with annual on-site inspection visits. That is the key
difference.
Q249 Mr Chaytor: Is there anything,
Chief Inspector, that you would change with the benefit of hindsight?
Is there any judgment you would change in the 2006 report?
Christine Gilbert: In the 2006
report? I could not possibly say. It is based on inspectors' judgments
at the time.
Mr Chaytor: You have just said that you
stand by the 2006 report.
Christine Gilbert: The 2006 report
was an inspection.
Mr Chaytor: But I am saying that, excepting
that general defence of the 2006 report, is there any specific
judgment in there that, with the benefit of hindsight, you think
was inaccurate?
Christine Gilbert: Not that I
could immediately consider. There would not be anything that I
would highlight from that report.
Q250 Mr Chaytor: In the 2007 report,
I think you referred to three sets of data provided by the local
authority that were inaccurate. Leaving those on one side, were
they the entire reason that the 2007 judgment was good? Had the
data in those three categories been accurate, would a different
judgment have been delivered in the 2007 report?
Christine Gilbert: It might have
allowed us to ask more questions about the briefings because we
also have a number of briefings from different organisations and
the briefings were very positive about what was going on in Haringey.
So it is a combination of briefings from other organisations and
the data—those two things.
Q251 Mr Chaytor: Had the data been
accurate, it could still have resulted in a judgment of good in
the 2007 annual performance assessment?
Christine Gilbert: Yes, it could.
Q252 Mr Chaytor: Could I ask you
to clarify? Did you say that the briefings have now been destroyed,
so that it was not possible to verify?
Christine Gilbert: The inspection
information is held only for a certain time. I am not sure how
long it is held for.
Miriam Rosen: Three months after
the publication of the report or the final transactions if there
is any complaint about the report. All the evidence is then destroyed.
Q253 Mr Chaytor: Again, with the
benefit of hindsight, is that three-month period long enough?
I understand that there will be a huge amount of material for
all the inspections that Ofsted carries out, but given the possibility
of challenge and the public interest in inspections generally,
would it be better if the briefing material were retained for
longer?
Christine Gilbert: I think we
should look at that, but even more importantly, we need to be
sure before we make our overall judgment that we have checked
out the information. We will take that point away and look at
it, but that should not stop us doing the more important thing.
Q254 Mr Chaytor: In the special JAR
that you carried out in November, you recommended, among many
other things, that Haringey should appoint an independent chairperson
to the local safeguarding children board and ensure that all elected
members have CRB checks and undertake safeguarding training. Do
you not think that those recommendations should apply to all local
authorities? Why just Haringey?
Christine Gilbert: The issue is
that they are not statutory requirements, but we felt when looking
at Haringey—this is my personal opinion, too—that
they should be applied to all elected members because if they
are carrying out their corporate parenting role they will be looking
at some very personal information. The role is related not just
to practice with children, but to looking at information. That
is why we said it. We feel that if the organisation is to carry
out its corporate parenting role effectively, it needs to look
at some very confidential information that might put children
at risk if looked at by the wrong people.
Q255 Mr Chaytor: So your feeling
is that the recommendations ought to be a statutory requirement?
Christine Gilbert: It is.
Mr Chaytor: All three recommendations?
Christine Gilbert: Sorry, I was
talking about the CRB checks.
Mr Chaytor: The CRB checks, elected members
undergoing safeguarding training and the independence of the chairman
of the board.
Christine Gilbert: I certainly
think that the safeguarding training is important. Many councils
take their corporate parenting role very seriously and do it,
and some do it for some elected members who they think will come
in contact with children or see data about them. Those two recommendations
are really important. The independence recommendation is important
but needs exploring. It is not quite as simple as it might look,
because you also want somebody chairing the local safeguarding
children board who has the authority and clout to get things done.
I definitely think that the person who chairs the panel that deals
with serious case reviews needs to be completely independent.
Chairman: I think that Paul wants to
come in on that point.
Q256 Paul Holmes: Yes. In the emergency
review that you did just last month, you said specifically that
"the local safeguarding children board ... fails to provide
sufficient challenge to its member agencies" and that that
is further compounded by the lack of an independent chairperson.
I understand that of 150 boards across the country, only 50 have
independent chairpersons—the other 100 are in-house. I believe
that often the director of children's services acts as chairman.
Surely there is a lesson there that should be applied across the
whole country.
Christine Gilbert: We did identify
that as a real issue in the July report. We said that more of
the chairmen were independent than when the boards were set up,
but that that was a real issue that local boards needed to consider.
As I said, that is why I invited in the chairmen of the local
safeguarding children boards to hear some of the recommendations
from the July report.
Q257 Paul Holmes: If you were to
have 150 independent chairmen rather than the 50 that we apparently
have at present, who would they be? Would they be mini-children's
commissioners? How would you describe their role?
Christine Gilbert: One of the
things that we feel really needs a wider debate is what independence
means. Some people might think that the chief executive of a local
authority was sufficiently independent for the detailed process
of chairing the board. Some boards have people who live locally,
some have made arrangements with neighbouring authorities and
so on. There are different ways of doing it.
Q258 Paul Holmes: You highlighted
the fact that the boards were not challenging member agencies,
but it seems that there is a complete lack of challenge throughout
the system, and certainly in Haringey. If the leader of the social
work team were not in the weekly supervision picking up on the
fact that children were not being seen repeatedly, that would
be a failure at middle management level. Then right at the top
you have senior managers who are deliberately misleading you when
they fill in the forms, yet you say that you do not know off hand
who the people were whom your team met last year. Surely all those
people should be prosecuted, reprimanded or sacked because they
deliberately misled you when they filled in the forms that gave
such a misleading impression last year.
Christine Gilbert: I do not know
whether the issue is about being misleading. What we pointed out
in July and again in the annual report is that it is very hard
for people who are completely involved in a case to sit back,
critique themselves and be objective. Yes, they need to be involved
in the individual management reviews, but you also need people
in the review teams, who have not been involved in the case looking
at it. Generally, when we look at the serious case reviews, I
do not think that people have deliberately been misleading. It
is very difficult to critique the behaviour of a colleague with
whom they work closely, so somebody needs to be challenging, scrutinising
and questioning at every level—at the individual management
review level and then at the broader level—which is why
I am stressing that the person who chairs the review panel overall
really does need to be independent. As I said, some authorities
have good arrangements with neighbouring authorities and so on.
Q259 Paul Holmes: Back to the other
point about annual performance assessment. You said in interviews
on the weekend that you were misled—that people were claiming
they had done things that had not been done—yet you cannot
say, "These are the people we met last year, these are the
people who should now be held to account." Surely it should
be a major factor if somebody in a local authority is deliberately
misleading the inspectorate and saying that they are doing something
when they are not. There has to be some penalty system. In America,
some of the people who sold toxic loans and sub-prime products
have been prosecuted for criminal fraud. Unfortunately, we are
not doing that here, but surely if you are systematically and
deliberately misleading people there has to be some penalty.
Christine Gilbert: Absolutely
there should, but that means that you are not doing your job.
I do not know who produced the wrong data, who filled in the forms,
who signed them or any of that sort of thing. There would need
to be an investigation by the council, and the council would then
need to apply its disciplinary procedures.
| 
