Special public meeting called to probe social care failures

Herefordshire Council will hold a special public meeting to probe the failures that led to two recent damning judgments about the county’s children’s services.

Senior council officers last month briefed councillors in secret about the two recent fiascos affecting the county’s children’s services.

But following a request from the Independent Group, an extraordinary meeting has been scheduled at Shirehall on January 18.

A High Court judge recently found that the council had provided ‘woeful’ care for two half-sisters and failed to put them up for adoption.

And in a second case, Mr Justice Keehan said twins were put up for adoption separately based on ‘erroneous’ information.
The council has apologised to those affected and fully accepts the judgments.

Independent councillor Chris Chappell said he was delighted that the council would hold a public meeting to scrutinise the failures.

“It’s the first time in my 26 years as a councillor that I can remember an extraordinary council meeting being called,” he said.

A statement from his group said they welcomed the council’s announcement.

It read: “We strongly believe that it is in the public interest that, whilst respecting the privacy of the persons subject to the judgements, an open and transparent explanation of all matters the subject of Justice Keenan’s damning judgements are presented and that council and the public can be sure that measures now in place or soon to be put in place will fully respond to the extremely serious criticisms.”

Children and Families cabinet member Elissa Swinglehurst said the council briefing on December 20 to discuss the recent court judgments was the first opportunity to address all members regarding the recent cases.

“Prior to the judgments being published, information regarding the court cases was shared with the opposition group leaders, scrutiny committee chair and vice chair in a series of meetings; although the full details of the judgments were withheld until they were published by the court,” she said.

“To help provide further assurance of ongoing improvement, members have been given details of the immediate action taken by the council to implement stronger supervision and decision-making arrangements and improve the rigour in case reviews.

“A further meeting has been arranged in early January for those councillors unable to attend the briefing and an extraordinary council meeting will be held in public on Friday January 18, 2019.”