IN his role
as director of social care and health for Suffolk, Anthony
Douglas is charged with the responsibility of trying to
protect the county's children.
Today he admitted his
department had failed in its obligation to the baby boy who
died after his father had raised his concerns in a letter.
Mr Douglas, who will shortly be leaving Suffolk County Council
to become chief executive of specialist children's agency
Cafcass, said:" There are no excuses. There are explanations
but none of them are good enough.
I am not happy about it and that is why we took immediate
steps to review our procedures. The only real explanation is a
mixture of systems deficiency and human frailty. Mr Douglas
said his department, which has offices throughout the major
towns in the county, has 100,000 referrals a year and
thousands in any one day.
In any of the offices it is high pressure. Staff are dealing
with incoming phone calls, emergencies and other things. But a
letter that says a child needs protecting should be faxed to
the local team immediately and they should go out. The letter
we have warranted an assessment, certainly within 48 hours.
Our staff are incredibly busy in dealing with masses of
incoming referrals. They have got to make a judgement about
the strength and priority of each one and in this case it
should have had a higher priority."
Mr Douglas, who been a director of social services in both
London and Suffolk over the past nine years, confirmed his
staff had not taken any conclusive action over the father's
letter about the risks he perceived, in the week between
receiving it and the baby's death.
We were several days behind getting it to where it should have
got to. The local team were not aware of it until they heard
the child had died. I have written to the father today
expressing my condolences and apologising for not following up
his letter as we should have done.
I ordered an immediate review the next working day, re-issued
our guidelines on handling post and updated our procedures. We
are still working on those to make sure it never happens
again."
Mr Douglas said the responsibility for the failure to inform
social workers did not lay with just one person . It was a
number of people who could have sent that letter on. It was
not one person. It was really the system that was at fault."
He was at pains to stress that no social workers were involved
at any stage and the fault lay elsewhere in the administrative
process.
We do have very strong procedures. We do have tough
procedures, but the discipline broke down on this occasion. We
do have a robust system but clearly it broke down. Clearly
something did not distinguish this letter from others
sufficiently."
Mr Douglas said the inquiry would continue but confirmed as
yet no disciplinary action has been taken against any
individual. He stressed up to now he and his department have
concentrated on improving a system which has proved itself to
be fallible, with a letter being pushed from one place to
another but not being passed on to those in the field.
One of his primary concerns now is to reassure the public and
ensure anyone who is worried about a child's safety still
comes forward.
He said: "We are in the public confidence business. We get
people ringing in every day alerting us to the situations
children are in where they might need protection. We depend on
having direct contact in confidence. We deal with, and
protect, thousands of children a year successfully and I would
urge them not to lose faith in the system, albeit because of
this incident."
Mr Douglas' words come at a time when social care departments
across the country are under growing pressure.
Although stating clearly she was not talking about the
specific investigation currently under way in Suffolk, Sasha
Carruthers, regional officer for UNISON, the union which
represents SCC staff today said: "It is no secret that Suffolk
County Council does not have as many social workers as it
would like. We are concerned about this because we are
concerned about our members taking on more work. But the
problem with the shortage of social workers is a national
one."
If you have had experience, good or bad, of Suffolk social
services, then write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower
Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail to:
eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk
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