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Abuse of Children in Care:

Blocked Accountabilities in the Social Services

& other public sector organisations

Geoffrey Hunt BSc MLitt PhD

Outline of Presentation given at the Royal Society of Arts, London on 11th March 1999

Although this page consists of material designed for UK Social Services Departments it is included here to stimulate thought on the role of the police services in investigating and acting upon information regarding child abuse in care settings and more generally on system failure. For a lecture/seminar which goes with this outline contact Geoff Hunt: polethnet@aol.com

Truth lies at the bottom of a well (English proverb)

The truth will out (Another English proverb)

SYSTEM FAILURE

Abuse in child care settings and poor handling of abuse in UK in recent years include failures in:.

• Leicestershire
• Staffordshire (pin-down)
• Wales
• Cheshire
• Merseyside
• Hackney
• Islington
• Orkney
• Cleveland
• Rochdale
• Bishop’s Auckland
• Ayrshire

Lord Justice Butler Sloss says of the report on one failure (Orkney Report):

“The report reveals a depressing and disturbing resemblance, four years on, to many of the criticisms made in the Cleveland Report.” (1993)

Allan Levy QC (chair of pin-down inquiry) says:

“..we must not ignore the fact that we already have many suggestions and recommendations from exhaustive inquiries. Why have these not been put into practice? Why are the same mistakes still being made, and why is a great deal of avoidable suffering and damage still occurring? It must be a high priority to ensure that the political and organizational will is found to put the detailed lessons into practice.” (1998)

Why, then, does it go on and on and on and ...... ? My answer to this question is that there are organizational blockages of accountability. Police officers may wish to draw parallels and ask whether, for all the good will of individual officers, there are also structural blockages in police services:

BLOCKED ACCOUNTABILITIES

Accountability is the preparedness to explain and justify one’s intentions, acts and omissions to stakeholders, and the devices by which such preparedness is realized. (Blocked accountability is the absence of such preparedness and/or such devices.)

Signs and Symptoms of Blockage

• lack of learning
• poor or absent policies
• lack of significant and relevant standards / bench-marks
• poor grasp of community needs
• lack of monitoring and feedback loops
• lack of good system of rewards and sanctions (blame culture)
• laws and regulation not implemented
• ‘Too little, too much syndrome’ e.g. 75% of abuse investigations do not lead to Protection Order, but abusers flourish underfoot.
• hierarchy
• attention to physical rather than social capital
• lack of internal participation
• lack of external participation e.g. inadequate gate-keeping, and inadequate support, reparation for clients, users
• failure to identify and communicate with stakeholders
• technical (arcane) discourse
• paternalistic professional & management style
• lack of corporate accountability
• at best: ‘best interest’ approach’
• at worst: bullying, secrecy, manipulation, cover-up, defensiveness
• conflict of interest flourishes
• defensiveness (instead of responsiveness)
• failure to inform public (or staff)
• poor records, poor integrity of records
• lack of independence in arbitration
• failure to respond e.g. inaccessible complaints & appeals procedure
• lack of legal support e.g. legal aid (NB: FOI, ECHR, PIDA)
• invisibility (anonymity)
• appearance of ‘whistleblowers’
• shedding responsibility (Staff trained & constrained by the organisation)
• negligence - lack of training, poor attitude
• lack of leadership

The answer to blocked accountability is: Networked accountabilities

NETWORKED ACCOUNTABILITIES

The elements of networking accountabilities in order to open up blockages and ensure checks and balances are:

• organizational & work-based learning
• policies framed with research and participation
• negotiated and researched standards and benchmarks
• engagement with needs and perceptions of need
• monitoring e.g. exit interview
• loops e.g. ‘return to sender’ report
• system of rewards and sanctions (not blame)
• implement regulations & laws you have before creating more
• balanced judgment (overcomes too little/much)
• Networked organisation (not hierarchy)
• generation of 'social capital'
• internal participation (e.g. inter-prof forums)
• external participation e.g. consultative groups, inter-agency
• identify and communicate with stakeholders, near & distant
• narrative discourse
• partnership style of professional & management work
• corporate accountability e.g. Cadbury / Hampel
• empower through informed choice
• policies to eradicate bullying, secrecy, manipulativeness, cover-up
• conflict of interest kept in check
• Responsiveness
• information to stakeholders
• sound records, with balance of protection/sharing
• independence in arbitration
• responsiveness e.g. complaints
• conscientious employees valued - ‘whistleblowing’ policy
• visibility (personal contact)
• accepting responsibility
• continuous education inc. attitude awareness
• ethical leadership (will, understanding, altruism)

READING: Hunt, G (ed) Whistleblowing in the Social Services, Arnold, London, 1998.