Written evidence submitted by the Local Government Association [JRR 02]

Report of the inspection of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (February 2015)

Thank you for your letter of February 10th. The LGA is pleased to provide a submission on Louise Casey’s report and on the Secretary of State’s decision to send in commissioners to run Rotherham. I will respond to the specific questions raised in your letter below:

1. What progress the Improvement Board made and why it appears not to be seen as the vehicle to turn Rotherham around.

The background to the Improvement Board is:

a)              The Board was announced in early September 2014 and it represented part of the initial sector-led response to Rotherham’s improvement and recovery process following the publication of the Jay Report. The Board was established jointly by the council and the LGA.

b)              Other key support from the LGA in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Jay report included:

• identifying and agreeing a highly experienced individual to take on the role of interim Chief Executive;
• support from an experienced ex Director of Children’s Services who was placed on site to help the newly appointed Assistant Director in the immediate absence of the substantive director;
• arranging member peer support for each of the political parties in Rotherham, and;
• communications support

c)              The Improvement Board was assembled rapidly and included a number of leading figures that have worked with both DCLG and the LGA on a range of Government interventions and improvement structures in other councils around the country. For example, it was designed to mirror established models of Improvement/Recovery Boards utilised in places such as Doncaster and Birmingham.  The Board was intended to offer immediate support and was commissioned on the understanding that the Secretary of State may in the future be minded to appoint commissioners.  The two are not mutually exclusive in our view.

d)              The Board met for the first time on 26 September 2014, where it agreed its terms of reference and considered a draft Improvement Framework, structured at that initial stage around the findings and recommendations of the Jay Report.

e)              The Board has met three times formally (with papers and minutes available on the Council’s website) and also held more detailed workshop sessions with council officers and elected members on matters such as the budget, financial planning and the responses to the Ofsted inspection published on 19 November.

f)              Its most recent meeting had been due to take place on 6 February 2015. However, this was cancelled in the light of Louise Casey’s report published on 4 February and the decision of the council’s Leader and Cabinet to resign their positions. Had this meeting taken place, it was due to conclude a further refined version of the Improvement Action Plan (taking into account the Casey recommendations) and receive an update on key elements of that Plan that are already being progressed.

g)              The Improvement Board took the view that the Improvement Plan should only be finalised on receipt of the Casey report. Whilst the Casey report was originally due in late November, its publication was delayed by approximately ten weeks.  Nevertheless, the draft Improvement Plan formed a strong basis on which the council could focus its improvement work-streams and progress could, in due course, be checked.

h)              As further inspection activity by Government started to take place in the days and weeks that followed the decision to establish the Board it adapted its approach and worked to understand this wider context so that all improvement activities could be properly integrated in time.

The Improvement Framework agreed in December has five strands. For each strand the council's new officer leadership has been developing an action plan which sets out executive member and lead officer responsibilities. The Rotherham Improvement Board worked with the council to provide challenge and identify areas where external support is required to strengthen and accelerate progress.  Some of the most urgent external support arrangements are already underway or at an advance stage of planning (this includes scrutiny, member development and political processes).

In the few months of its existence the Rotherham Improvement Board gained some early confidence that improvements would be made successfully and at some speed in Rotherham. Examples of improvement included:

• the council established new political leadership, and that leadership was an active partner, with the LGA, in commissioning the Rotherham Improvement Board as well as welcoming the appointment of the Children’s Commissioner and establishment of the dedicated Children’s Improvement Board;

• the council took immediate and rapid steps to replace key senior officers: the children's service senior team, the Chief Executive, the Director of Corporate Resources, the Director of Adult Services, the Director of Public Health.   The new appointees appear to be clear about the intensity and urgency of the challenges, and have the ability to identify and act on their practical implications;

• the Board sought and received explicit acceptance of the findings, analysis, and recommendations of the key reports: Jay and the two OFSTED reports.  The assurances were consistent with the practical commitment to change and the openness to external support that was evident from the behaviour of key members and senior officers; and

• experience of an Improvement Board approach, coupled with appropriate changes in senior political and officer leadership, has proved effective in response to corporate failings elsewhere.

The question of why the Rotherham Improvement Board is not seen as the means to ensure services are made safer is ultimately a matter for DCLG. The Board could not, in five months and prior to the publication of the Casey report, complete the major cultural and service transformation of the authority which is clearly needed. The Board has, nevertheless, built awareness and momentum around the Council’s improvement priorities and shaped an Improvement Plan that targets a range of the issues that feature in the Casey report. This includes specific actions such as reviews of the council’s corporate and community strategies, licensing policies and enforcement, governance and decision-making processes, member development and the council’s organisational development programme - all highly relevant to the findings in the Casey investigation.

Nor was the Board intended to be the sole vehicle for Rotherham’s recovery. For example, the Committee will be aware of the appointment by the Department for Education on 7 October 2014 of a commissioner to oversee immediate Children’s Safeguarding improvements. The LGA support the appointment of this experienced commissioner.  This commissioner appointment was for three months provisionally, but is now expected to represent one of the five commissioner roles recommended by the Secretary of State following the Casey report; and has led to the establishment of a specific ‘Children, Young People & Families Improvement Board’, chaired by the commissioner, and a dedicated Improvement Plan.

Now that the Casey report has been published, the Improvement Board is in an excellent position to help brief and, if appropriate, work alongside the incoming commissioners to help provide a stable transition to intervention by informing their priority actions and workstreams, drawing on the work and consideration that has already taken place.

2. Will the Improvement Board continue to have a role after the commissioners take over?

The Secretary of State’s letter of February 4 to Rotherham’s Interim Chief Executive states that he proposes to: “direct the authority to maintain such improvement panel as the commissioners may agree, the role of the panel, with a membership accordingly, is to provide challenge and support to the authority and to be a public forum where the authority can transparently be held to account for the progress it is making on its improvement journey…”.

The final decision on the nature, scope and membership of any Improvement Panel/ Board is therefore a matter for the commissioners. The LGA and the Council would hope to ensure as much continuity as possible in the work that the Rotherham Improvement Board has already informed and supported.

More importantly, whether or not there is an Improvement Board, the LGA will be on hand offering support for Rotherham.  We can provide unique support in the area of member development and, through our pool of experienced member peers, support to help the council rebuild the political leadership that is needed.  The forthcoming elections are likely to lead to a significant turnover of councillors and, with the additional factor that councillors will no longer have any executive powers, it is likely to mean that the challenges around political engagement and leadership are going to require a great deal of support. 

3. Will the LGA have a role in assisting Rotherham out of administration by the commissioners?

At this stage, it is envisaged that the LGA will support Rotherham in three main ways:

a)     through continued membership of and support to the Improvement Board/ Panel.

b)     though direct support and capacity for the authority via an experienced Principal Advisor and Programme Manager, experienced elected Member Peers working with Rotherham elected members and practical assistance (for example, support with the Member Development Programme).

c)     through the LGA’s well respected sector led support programme which signposts the authority to good practice elsewhere so it can learn quickly and adopt new ways of working; provides mentoring for councillors by experienced Member Peers; delivers peer challenges on corporate and service-specific and galvanises expert support from across the local authority sector to help the council.

The difference between the sector led support offer and, for example, the Ofsted inspection regime is that we offer challenge and support from staff who are employed in the sector and the feedback is immediate and focused on development.

4.              What is the scope to join up and improve the effectiveness of the inspection               regimes covering local government and how can changes be made?

Councils have voiced growing concerns over Ofsted’s ability to undertake robust, transparent and credible inspections of local authority children’s services and schools, in light of high profile cases such as Rotherham and Birmingham. Rotherham was judged to be inadequate when inspected in the wake of Baroness Jay’s report into Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), yet safeguarding and looked after children services were judged to be adequate in 2010 and 2012, when the authority was praised for its work in tackling CSE. Ofsted’s re-inspection and downgrading of some schools from ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ following media coverage has reduced the confidence of councils and the public in the inspectorate.  Five of the schools involved in the Trojan Horse incident in Birmingham are among a number which have been downgraded to ‘inadequate', in some cases less than a year after they were judged to be ‘outstanding’.

In the light of this, the current inspection regime for the protection and care of children and young people is flawed and is stifling improvement. The Government’s report into CSE in Rotherham published on 4 February was disconcerting, with key agencies not properly safeguarding children in the area. We must find a better way of holding agencies to account and driving improvement that takes account of the views of children and young people and draws on the very best expertise we have available to us. The LGA, Solace and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ACDS) have agreed to collaborate on a radical new approach to be published in March.

The LGA has recently launched a consultation paper on sector led improvement and whether any changes are needed to what overall has been a highly effective programme of support.   Over the last three years as part of our approach to sector led improvement, the LGA have delivered over 350 peer challenges; provided development opportunities for over 2,000 councillors; and launched a national benchmarking tool – LG Inform.   Independent evaluation of the approach demonstrates that sector led improvement has been a genuine success with the sector overall improving as measured by a series of national indicators and in the face of reductions in Government funding amounting to almost 40 per cent.  There are some individual councils that have benefitted substantially from our approach including Wirral. 

We would like to hear views on whether the LGA Corporate peer challenge should move from being a voluntary offer to councils or expected to happen every four years, for example.

5.              Has the LGA an estimate of the resources Rotherham is going to need to get its children’s services competent and to provide support to the victims of past child sexual exploitation?

The Secretary of State appointed a highly experienced Children’s Commissioner to oversee the improvement of children’s services in the authority. It is for him, together with the newly appointed Director of Children’s Services and his team, to advise on the resources required.

It is however important to note that resources will be needed to improve the council’s children’s services and establish a new culture of corporate joint ownership of key priorities across the council. The costs of the Organisational Development programme, governance and decision making reviews, service level reviews, training and development (and recruitment) of staff and elected members will be a considerable cost in the years to come ,at a time when Government funding of local government is expected to reduce by a further 30-40 per cent by the end of the decade.

This is not to say that services across the council are a problem; many are performing well, and operational savings in excess of £90 million have already been delivered by new ways of working at the council since 2010. But the challenges of delivering the “fresh start” for Rotherham, as called for in the Casey report, go beyond children’s services.

DCLG has yet to make clear the cost of the inspection which will need to be met by the council and they are also withholding some payments due to the council for our work on troubled families.  The sooner DCLG can deal with these issues the better.

6.              Whether the descriptions by Ms Casey of the actions and failures of senior officers at Rotherham constitutes misconduct requiring investigation by the appropriate professional bodies or whatever authority is now in place in Rotherham. (Including the treatment of Risky Business?

These are matters for the authority’s Interim Chief Executive and incoming Managing Director to determine along with the Monitoring Officer. Nevertheless, the Council has reported (and Select Committee / Casey Report has broadly welcomed) that an independent investigation had been commissioned on the professional social care practice issues highlighted by the specific child case studies highlighted in the Jay Report. The LGA understands that initial feedback is anticipated by the end of February on these specific matters. The Health and Care Professions Council has also been kept up-to-date with progress in case there might be individual social care practice issues about which they and other employers would need to be advised.

An additional and separate independent review of the implications of the Jay Report has also been commissioned by the council from an external firm of solicitors, who are to review employee actions on these matters. The council have already agreed to share any resulting information in respect of former employees who now work elsewhere for their new employer to consider the implications for the performance of their duties in their current role.

In the case of former employees that have moved on, it would be for their current employers to review the Casey report to see if it refers to any actions from their time at Rotherham that they believe could bring their current role into question. 

Separately Rotherham Council has instructed counsel to look as a priority at the Casey report and advise the council of areas where they might need to consider further action under employment procedures. This advice is currently awaited and will help inform the council if any further investigations are recommended as a direct consequence of issues highlighted by the Casey report.

We are also aware that the council has also appointed external investigators to corroborate ongoing Internal Audit investigations into the alleged raid on the Risky Business premises and missing key documents as referred to in the CLG Select Committee reports. Any issues regarding a potential dereliction of duty will be covered by the investigation into professional malpractice currently underway.

7              How exceptional is the situation in Rotherham compared to other local authorities?

Child sexual exploitation unfortunately is not limited to specific geographical boundaries and government, ourselves and councils up and down the country are focussing their attention on this issue.   We believe that for CSE to be tackled properly then fundamentally this has to be a multi-agency response and not just councils.

The issue that sets Rotherham apart from the cases that have arisen elsewhere is the sheer number of victims and the evidence of widespread systematic failure. The Jay inquiry and Casey report clearly describe a toxic combination of poor professional standards, managerial failures, and a lack of leadership 'grip' across partner agencies, which combined, made the system intended to protect children ineffective. In designing safe systems, local partnerships aim to mitigate risks but the culture in Rotherham did not ensure that this happened.

8.              What can be done to detect and address local authorities in similar positions or heading in the same direction as Rotherham?

The LGA has been in discussions with the ADCS and SOLACE in regard to supporting councils who face the challenge of addressing CSE. Together we would recognise:

• A growing understanding in councils and their partners of the signs and systems of perpetration (particularly by highly organised criminal gangs involved in other forms of criminality and violence) and recognition that this is a relatively recently described phenomenon.

• The role of local government in strongly articulating the direct experiences of young people and their families.

• The need for elected members and their officials to set CSE in the context of the abuse of children and being very clear what this means for professional practices of their staff.

• Shining a spotlight on the complex local government and partnership context in which this work is carried out and highlighting the need to clarify the roles of professional partnerships.

• Describing very clearly the wider multi-professional systems within which we are trying hard to protect these vulnerable children and young people.
   

The new Ofsted regime, which has been presented as an improved framework and much more likely to pick up signs of CSE, largely ignored the role of elected members in challenging the system and in community leadership. Councillors represent their communities and reflect different perspectives, making important contributions to the work of the council. In that role councillors can both inform and challenge the work we do and make a significant contribution to the way local services operate.

Equally, where this does not work well, it raises huge risks. The LGA has recently held a seminar on CSE and has issued guidance on skills and strategies.  Each local authority is currently looking at how it both supports and holds to account its professional staff. This epitomises cross professional and multi-agency work involving, for example, police, schools, local authority licencing and the judiciary. All parts of the system need to be working well for interventions to be effective, and all parts of the system are recognising ways in which we need to improve. Along with our colleagues in ADCS and SOLACE, the LGA will work between national and local government in the most effective way possible.

On the wider issues of councils facing significant difficulties, it is true that between 2002 and 2010, councils were subject to a much more intense and top down performance management and inspection regime through the Audit Commission CPA inspections, central government targets and monitoring by the Government Offices for the Regions and others.  However this came at a huge cost and burden.  The National Audit Office estimated that the regime was costing £2 billion a year. However, there were still a few cases where the Government needed to formally intervene. 

The Government have indeed removed much of the regime that was in place but all councils are still subject to external audit and in the case of children’s services formal inspection by Ofsted.  In addition, councils themselves have internal processes and systems including codes of conducts; whistleblowing procedures and requirements placed on a number of statutory officers. 

As part of the current approach to sector led improvement we have agreed with councils that the LGA will maintain an overview of performance in the sector so that we are able to offer support on a proactive basis and minimise potential service or organisational failure.

We have positioned our regionally based Principal Advisers as the focal point for gathering information and intelligence and providing support to councils.   The Principal Advisers are able to draw on a mix of formal data and informal intelligence to reach judgements on where we need to provide additional support.

This includes providing peer challenges where teams of peers (members and officers from other councils) often supplemented by people from other sectors spend up to a week in a council looking at key themes we know from experience are the building blocks of a good organisation.  These include financial sustainability; political and managerial leadership; organisational capacity and clarity of vision and priorities.  We also provide a range of programmes to develop the political leadership of councils as part of our offer around sector led improvement.

We accept that sector led improvement cannot guarantee that there will not be cases of council failure in future, particularly given the financial issues they are facing. However, it is a much more cost effective way of monitoring performance and our independent evaluation of demonstrates that it has been a success.

February 2015