Her Majesties Inspector finds Barnet Council Social work practice "inadequate in many areas"

Her Majesties inspector Louise Warren, has written to Chris Munday, strategic director for Children and young people. The  final conclusion is stark. She says

Social work practice remains inadequate in many areas. The process of changing the culture of acceptable practice remains a significant challenge if the children and young people in Barnet are to be safeguarded effectively and their welfare promoted.

The full letter can be read here -

 https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s44428/Appendix%201%20-%20Barnet%201%20monitoring%20Final%20letter.pdf  

The Barnet Council Children, Education, Libraries & Safeguarding Committee is meeting tonight (Tuesday 17th January) to discuss the report in more detail. The full papers are here. 

This report follows the OFSTED verdict of inadequate for Barnets Childrens Services. This is a major scandal, however one which the Conseervative chair, Councillor Reuben Thompstone seems completely oblivious to. 

It is just as well I have a sense of humour. I attended the last meeting of this committee and addressed the committee. The minutes do document this as follows.

"The Chairman invited Mr Roger Tichborne who joined the table and addressed the Committee with a Public Comment."

Now excuse my ignorance, but I always thought the point of minutes was to tell people what went on. Clearly the bods at Barnet Council were either asleep when I was talking or they don't want you to know what I had to say.  If you are interested in what I had to say at the meeting on the 15th November, here is the text - http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/barnet-borough-of-culture-my.html - I can only assume the the complete non reporting of what I had to say in the minutes was a result of my comments regarding the quality of the chairmanship of the committee by Councillor Reuben Thompstone - Councillor Reuben Thompstone - The worst committee chair in Barnet 

It seems that the way democracy and openness work in Barnet is to airbrush the comments of dissenters to the regime out of the minutes. I sincerely hope that in May, the people of Barnet pass their judgement on Councillor Thompstone and his colleagues. I don't expect everyone to agree with my comments. I find it quite interesting that the regime seem too scared to actually mention what they were. I think we can all draw our own conclusions. 

It seems to me that until the likes of Councillor Thompstone stop ignoring all difficult comments from concerned members of the public, they will never be able to sort the more serious issues out, such as the failing of our local children, 

I daresay that Councillor Thompstone thinks that not mentioning my comments is a jolly wheeze and mightily clever. Perhaps he hopes that if he pulls such stunts, people such as me will give up on trying to hold him to account. If he really is that silly, I suspect that he has a bit of a nasty surprise in store.