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Not very bright to leave children’s chief in dark on baby Rhys
THE case of baby Rhys, whose tragic death emerged this week illustrates an almost cataclysmic weakness in the art of communication so sadly lacking, it seems, in the council’s children’s department.
Inquiries by this newspaper show that this department failed to inform the cabinet member responsible for our children’s welfare in Camden that the police had been knocking at their door last year inquiring into the death of baby Rhys.
The baby’s mother had been living in a women’s refuge in the borough during her pregnancy.
Baby Rhys was born after the mother moved to Newham, but, naturally, police inquiries would have been made at the children’s department when evidence was being assessed for a possible prosecution.
What is astonishing is that the responsible cabinet member, Councillor Janet Grauberg, made it clear yesterday (Wednesday) that she didn’t know about baby Rhys until the court case started in the middle of last month. Yet the fact that a case was pending would have been known to the children’s department several months ago!
Why didn’t the department chiefs inform her at the time?
Stripping away another layer we come to an equally alarming omission: that in December last year Cllr Grauberg made a statement in the council chamber about the Baby P case, pointing out that the council was doing everything in its power to make sure she was being kept informed about all case reviews within the domain of the children’s department.
Yet in that very period a departmental baby Rhys case review lay unpublished for two years, though this was not made known to the political representative in charge of the department itself!
Isn’t there something wrong here?
Moreover, how does all this reflect on Camden’s chief executive Moira Gibb, who was appointed by the government in December to investigate the quality of social services throughout Britain?
• THE decision to allow building societies to de-mutualise in the 1990s, made initially by the Tory government, later encouraged by New Labour, led unerringly to the banking crisis of today.
Never a truer word was spoken than by Lib-Demmer Vince Cable – the man who should be Britain’s chancellor – who made this point yesterday (Wednesday).
Alas, how long ago it seems when building societies and banks arranged mortgages on sound financial principles – usually based on three or four times that of a person’s annual income.
In those days councils also sensibly played their part in the mortgage game. Now, Gordon Brown – pushed by Vince Cable and several Labour MPs – is, hopefully, laying the foundation of a reversal of policy.
By all accounts Lib Dem housing chief Cllr Chris Naylor (see page 6) isn’t against the current moves at Whitehall. But, concerned about the council’s reserves, he appears to be hesitant.
It is up to the government to shore up local authorities with sufficient guarantees. |
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