The first thing to say is that the report into child exploitation and the failures of the local authority in Rotherham are tragic and a huge stain on not just Rotherham Council but local authorities generally.
Some will argue that it is completely inappropriate to make political hay with such a story and I am inclined to agree with them. When last year some Labour politicians, including Ed Miliband, used a tragic suicide to score points over the ‘bedroom tax’ I thought it was disgusting. So it’s important to see my comments below in that context: I do not intend them as political point-scoring.
I have concerns about the scapegoating of the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, Shaun Wright. The logic of the argument is sound. He was the chief decision-maker for Rotherham Children’s Services for a five-year period during this scandal.
However, there are two difficulties with this. First, that one position does not relate to the other in any substantive sense (although you could be concerned about the decision making abilities of the individual). Secondly, as a local authority cabinet member you are limited by the information given to you by your officers. If you are given ‘duff information’ or have ‘duff officers’ you are limited in your recourse.
The test for a resignation for poor performance must surely be this: Did you make (or, worse, consistently make) poor decisions in relation to the information you were presented with? Or did you adequately seek the right answers? My question is this: Are we calling for Shaun Wright’s head on this basis?
As someone who is a local authority cabinet member, I always strive to seek solutions to problems and I believe I work in an environment where we have a healthy scepticism of what officers tell us, as well as confidence in their ability to find resolution to problems.
As someone who has had experience in the Labour Party I never felt that the environment I outline above existed. The ‘wall of silence’ ethic always felt like the first fall-back position, something exemplified by advice given to me over the Stepping Hill saline solution affair. Those who read about Labour’s in-fighting in Salford in the Manchester Evening News yesterday can see first-hand that the argument “We are stronger together than we are apart” has been perverted to mean “We will stay in power if we just keep quiet.”
The Labour Party in Rotherham needs to take a long hard look at themselves as a collective rather than rely on a few scapegoats. This was already clear from the 2014 Local Elections where UKIP dominated, but has now become a more sinister problem for them.
I truly hope they as a collective learn from this experience and ensure that the party’s cabinet is not filled with people that get in because someone voted for their pal. That is something we councillors should all take on board: that it is important to ensure that the person in post can actually do the job.
* Patrick McAuley is a councillor in Stockport
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20 Comments
Never mind scapegoating Where are the prosecutions of council staff and police for at least perverting course of justice and neglect of people in their care
If you read the full report, you will understand that both senior council officers and the safeguarding committee of the Rotherham council received unequivocal reports which one would have thought they could not ignore. They did. Sean Wright is ‘primus inter pares’ of those involved but he is far from being alone. The Police are pretty awful, too.
Everything I have read seen or heard about by this tragic affair seems to indicate that both the council and SYP displayed not only a three wise monkeys approach, but also totally ignored anything that didn’t fit their world view, even when clearly briefed on the realities.
The absolute minimum required is that any councillor from any party that received and ignored these briefings should stand down immediately.
The 1400+ victims deserve no less
I don’t buy the “the officers didn’t tell us” argument – whether in power or opposition , scrutiny I’d one of the mist important roles for any councillor, and failing in this duty should disqualify .
I agree with you that scapegoating one person Rotherham case doesn’t do it justice, rather I see a problem with the culture that allowed it to happen.
Can’t agree with you on Ed highlighting the effects of the Con/Lib attacks on the welfare state though, Ed was quite right in pointing out that the coalitions policies, in some cases, have driven the poor and most vulnerable in our society to suicide. This is the one thing that makes me consider voting Yes to independence. Would Scotland build a better society where politics wouldn’t be an arms race over who could kick those at the bottom hardest?
I agree that scapegoating one person is not helpful and a lot people need to take stock. However, the police were ignoring victims and approached Channel4 to get an expose on these crimes shelved. This was not political correctness gone mad. It was driven by fear of how the white working classes residents in the area would react. Labour and the police in Rotherham basically think that low income white voters are one trigger away from turning into a dangerous mob of neo-Nazi’s. My guess is that Muslims in the area were also being side-lined when they complained about organised criminal activity.
My experience of talking to local people trying to deal with drug and prostitution related crime in Leicester is that lots of people from lots of different communities go to the police and to their local councils but that those bodies are reluctant to do anything because the prevailing attitude is that these are victimless nuisance crimes rather than often being the result exploitation and violence
You are quite right that this is not about one person. However the cabinet member for children’s services has to take responsibility, and that means resigning. Many others should too, but this does not excuse Shaun Wright.
In particular the report describes a lack of accountability, and a lack of clarity as to who was responsible. That is a failure of leadership.
This was not news to anyone in 2012 and it remains a mystery why the Labour Party in South Yorkshire selected Wright in the first place.
the problems of labour are best laid bare here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100284274/rotherham-child-abuse-the-liberal-left-is-circling-the-wagons-over-the-race-question/
I don’t buy the “duff information” and “duff officer” excuse. Politicians, like anyone else, surely have a responsibility to make some checks on the information on which they base decisions, and consequently on the competency and breadth of the people who advise them?
I take your point Joe, but I feel you’ve brushed over the issue of collective responsibility within the Labour Party, with the comment ‘and it remains a mystery why the Labour Party in South Yorkshire selected Wright in the first place.’ We need to get out of the closet, the worst kept secret in politics that predominantly (not all the time but a lot of the time) these positions are gotten by who is friends with who.
For me this collective failure of leadership goes to the very heart of Lib Dem’s argue for a more accountable electoral system in elections its an example of why we aren’t talking about an abstract issue of how to put an x in a box, but the very real consequences of a corrupt form of democracy that in my experience does a disservice to our national democracy but particularly the current Labour Party.
Would you agree?
What makes you think there is just a problem in Rotherham?
Social services departments are failing children and the elderly all over the country.
Start looking around guys!
Richard
you are right, the issue is to what end do you take your checks. Undermining a qualified professional with more experience and knowledge than you is a bold move and you need to have a strong evidence base to do so and a strong grasp of what your doing . If you don’t you could yourself become the problem. It is a constant balancing act making those judgement’s. Accepting in Rotherham this went horribly wrong.
Danny
I hope I was clear at the start of the piece that this is a stain on all Local Authorities and we all need to learn lessons.
It’s very simple. You check until you are satisfied that you can take full responsibility for the decisions you make and the reliability of the information on which the decisions are based. That’s partly what you’re there for. It’s the skill you’re supposed to have, the skill you claim to have in your appeal to voters, the skill you’re there to apply. If you are too easily satisfied and make a mistake and get blamed later, then the blame is rightly on you.
jedibeeftrix, quoting a misinformed person does not make it so to confirm your own prejudices. The Labour Party, in places like Rotherham where it has been found out, is not obviously ‘left’ at all – it is a reactionary and deeply-conservative establishment which is not and never has been, in the vaguest way, ‘Liberal’. Presumably you think Putin is ‘Liberal’ and I suppose, compared to yourself, he probably is.
Patrick
Learning lessons isn’t enough.
Radical reform is what is needed.
Lets see some proposals from leading Lib Dems.
Lets not get bogged down with blaming labour. . Allegations against Jimmy Seville , Cyril Smith and various institutions have been ignored for decades. Still are being. Personally I don’t believe that handful of Pakistani Brits and a few retired TV presenters are the only people who have exploited venerable youngsters. In truth there is a very long history of kicking allegation into the long grass involved in a lot cases of systematic abuse.
It isn’t ‘scapegoating’ to expect someone who was in a senior position while this mess was happening to do the decent thing and resign.
And the fact that he clearly failed as a senior councillor in the way that we now know makes him unfit to be the PCC.
It is also possible to deal with hid resignation AND tackle the other issues at the same time.
There is an awful lot of media fluff about this, and frankly the reporting isn’t great. I suggest that everyone goes and reads the actual report for an idea of just how far beyond partizan politics this is.
When Admiral Byng failed to fight adequately he was executed on the deck of his own ship. From that time onwards only the highest standard of professional skill and courage were acceptable by officers of the RN. Today a captain of ship can be prosecuted if a members of crew makes a mistake, even if they are not on board. It is time all public servants were expected to act with the same very high standards of courage, honour and skill of ship’s captain in the Royal Navy.
It is wholly insufficient to seek to blame just one person for this appalling state of affairs. The truth is that wherever Labour are entrenched in power corruption takes hold eventually. The whole lot of them need sweeping out of power in Rotherham to be replaced by a party committed to clean up Rotherham. 1/3 of the council is up for re-election next May. If no-one else comes forward to challenge the Labour hegemony, the beneficiaries will be UKIP. Absolutely nothing will be done by that party which has members who believe there’s no such thing as rape within marriage. The Lib Dems should try and mount a challenge because the Conservatives have always been dead in the water in this part of S. Yorkshire.
Just as a parting shot, this Labour Party is not untypical. (I and many others in the North of England have bitter experience of the unbelievable nastiness of Labour) And people in our party think we’d be better off going into coalition with them….