Section:GDN 1N PaGe:16 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 18:43 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Tuesday 30 July 2019
(^16) National
Northamptonshire’s social services
failing to keep children safe – Ofsted
Patrick Butler
Social policy editor
Social services at Tory-run Northamp-
tonshire county council are “failing
to keep children safe ”, according to a
devastating Ofsted report that identi-
fi es major weaknesses across a range
of services for vulnerable youngsters.
The Ofsted judgment is the latest
blow for the council, which declared
eff ective bankruptcy last year and has
spent a traumatic 18 months since then
coming to terms with half a decade of
chronic mismanagement and brutal
spending cuts.
It comes just weeks after the coun-
cil’s child protection services were
criticised in two reports investigat-
ing how two toddlers known to social
services were brutally murdered by
men with histories of domestic vio-
lence, crime and drug use.
Ofsted says an inspection carried
out in mid-June found Northampton-
shire’s child protection services were
inadequate. Staff were too often slow
to react, indecisive and complacent,
with the result that children at risk of
neglect or abuse were left in harmful
situations for too long. Social workers
and team managers were often “over-
optimistic” about the capacity of some
parents to look after their children in
“chronically neglectful situations ”
and too willing to accept the parent s’
versions of events.
Two serious case reviews in June
highlighted council failings in the
deaths of Dylan Tiffi n-Brown , who
was two when he died of cardiac fail-
ure after his father assaulted him in
December 2017, and Evelyn-Rose
Muggleton , who was one when she
died in hospital days after being
battered by her mother’s partner in
April 2018.
Northamptonshire’s cabinet mem-
ber for children’s services, Fiona Baker ,
said it accepted the failings identifi ed
by Ofsted: “It is regrettable that our
services overall have been graded as
inadequate but it is a grading we agree
with and we are determined to tackle
the weaknesses identifi ed”.
The council’s Labour opposition
said the report refl ected years of fail-
ure in children’s services. A Labour
councillor, Danielle Stone, said: “They
cannot manage money. They cannot
manage services. The Ofsted report is
absolutely damning. We need urgent
action to protect our children, to sup-
port our families, to look after our
frontline staff .”
The report highlighted how vulner-
able children in the care of the council
were living in unregulated placements
that it considered to be “unsafe and
unstable ”, while a small group of care
leavers were homeless. Problems
attracting enough local foster carers
meant too many children were sent
to residential care outside the county.
Families that showed early signs of
stress often did not receive vital sup-
port because specialist prevent ive
services had been closed or reduced
because of spending cuts, meaning
problems that could have been pre-
vented spiralled into crisis.
Although there were signs that the
new senior management team ha d a
Free Cyrano
tickets will give
fi rst-time
theatre goers a
nose for drama
Mark Brown
Arts correspondent
James McAvoy is returning to the West
End of London to star in a production
of Cyrano de Bergerac , the opening
play of a season off ering 15,000 free
tickets to fi rst-time theatre goers.
Key workers, under-30s and people
receiving benefi ts will also be targeted
with a further off er of 15,000 tickets at
£15 as a way of encouraging new audi-
ences. The initiatives were announced
by the theatre director Jamie Lloyd ,
returning to the W est End to collab-
orate again with McAvoy, an actor he
previously directed in Macbeth and
The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios.
The new show is a version of
Edmond Rostand’s 1897 comedy ,
freely adapted by the playwright Mar-
tin Crimp.
Lloyd has been a leading voice
stressing the importance of diversify-
ing audiences for commercial theatre
and has spoken out against the high
cost of tickets.
He said: “Every day, we talk about
making theatre more accessible to
absolutely everyone, but, inspired
by free museum and gallery entry,
I believe that true and meaningful
access actually means free tickets.
I hope that this inspires other the-
atre companies and producers to
September 2017, when he posted a
picture on Instagram of him reading
the script while wearing a false nose.
He wrote that Crimp “has done a bril-
liantly accessible, fun and emotionally
powerful adaptation. I’m excited that
my considerable conk is gonna get
some serious augmentation.”
The play will be the opening pro-
duction in a new Lloyd season at the
Playhouse theatre from November
- The season will run until August
next year, with further shows yet to be
announced.
Lloyd said he could not wait to
get back in the rehearsal room with
Mc Avoy, “who shares my commitment
Liberty loses
court challenge
to government
surveillance law
Frances PerraudinThe civil rights group Liberty has
lost its latest high court challenge to
surveillance laws, saying the ruling
allowed the government “to spy on
every one of us”.
In its challenge to parts of the
Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016- which critics have described as the
“ snooper ’s charter” – the organisation
argued that government surveillance
practices were incompatible with
human rights law. The charity told the
court that the ability to interfere with
computers, mobile phones and other
equipment amounted to the greatest
invasion of individuals’ privacy.
In a judg ment yesterday Lord
Justice Singh and Mr Justice Holgate
dismissed Liberty’s claim, rejecting
the argument that the IPA “does not
contain suffi cient safeguards against
the risk of abuse of power”.
Megan Goulding , a lawyer for Lib-
erty, said the judg ment allowed the
government to continue “to spy on
every one of us, violating our rights
to privacy and free expression”.
“We will challenge this judgment
in the courts, and keep fi ghting for
a targeted surveillance regime that
respects our rights,” she said. “These
bulk surveillance powers allow the
state to hoover up the messages, calls
and web history of hordes of ordinary
people who are not suspected of any
wrong doing.”
credible plan for improving children’s
services, Ofsted said, there were still
serious staffi ng problems. “The fra-
gility of workforce, both in terms of
status and practice, does not yet pro-
vide an environment in which good
social work can fl ourish .”
This is the second time in six years
that Northamptonshire’s children’s
services have been rated inadequate
by Ofsted. They spent three years in
special measures after the fi rst inad-
equate rating in 2013. Although it was
uprated to “requires improvement”
in 2016, Ofsted said the quality of ser-
vices deteriorated after that point.
A Department for Education spokes-
person said: “As serious weaknesses
were identifi ed in Northamptonshire’s
children’s social care we took swift
action to put in place a commissioner
and agreed support from Lincolnshire
county council, including providing
a team of experienced and dedicated
social workers to ease pressure and
make improvements.”
The DfE gave Northamptonshire’s
children’s services a clean bill of health
two years ago, signing them off minis-
terial supervision “without cause for
concern”. Within fi ve months Dylan
had been murdered and it became
clear that child protection , rather than
having improved, was in chaos.
The DfE announced last year that a
county-wide independent children’s
trust will be set up from April 2020
when the county is abolished.▲ Separate reports looking into the
murders of Dylan Tiffi n-Brown (left)
and Evelyn-Rose Mugg leton were
critical of the council’s social services‘They cannot manage
services. The report
is damning. We
need urgent action’Danielle Stone
Labour councillorto accessibility in the arts ”. The direc-
tor, who curated a six-month season
showing all of Harold Pinter’s short
plays last year, has been a withering
critic of W est End producers charging
too much, particularly when celeb-
rity actors are cast. He told the Stage
in 2016: “There are a lot of companies
and producers out there who will ...
eff ectively exploit the profi le of actors
in a show by charging tickets that are
soaring way past the £100 mark, which
I think is outrageous. ”
Cyrano de Bergerac will begin pre-
views on 27 November 2019 and run
until 29 February 2020, with tickets
available from September.▲ James McAvoy said he was excited
about his ‘considerable conk’ when he
posted this picture in September 2017
PHOTOGRAPH: INSTAGRAMinvestigate similar schemes in the
future, changing the landscape of West
End theatre for ever.”
The initiative is backed by the
Ambassador Theatre Group and Brit-
ish Airways.
Cyrano de Bergerac tells the story of
a soldier and lovelorn poet who falls for
the beautiful Roxane but fears his big
nose will stop him fi nding happiness.
McAvoy had revealed that the pro-
ject was on the cards as long ago asРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS