Ensure scrutiny separated from executive post-Rotherham, MPs tell councils

Councils must ensure their scrutiny arrangements are separate from executive functions and that there is effective challenge when there is evidence of serious potential problems, MPs have said.

The Communities and Local Government (CLG) committee said the earlier Jay Report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, published in August, had revealed “systemic failures”.

In its own report, Child sexual exploitation in Rotherham: some issues for local government, the MPs found that “senior council officer advice at Rotherham was poor, councillors failed to ask the right questions and, while the council had in place a panoply of child protection policies and plans, these were never effectively checked”.

The committee warned that the circumstances found within Rotherham – “policies divorced from reality, single party supremacy and a dominating personality with predominate influence” – were likely to be found in other local authorities.

The committee’s report also said:

• There should be an investigation into why key documents covering 1999 to 2003 and of prime importance to establish what went wrong within Rotherham were missing;
• It would call Ofsted in to face questioning that “at least in part” it failed the children of Rotherham;
• It was correct for senior officers and the former Leader of the council to leave their posts;
• There should be mechanisms in place to ensure responsible senior individuals were held to account, even if they had left the authority to work elsewhere. These arrangements would need to balance accountability and fairness;
• Louise Casey, who has been asked by the Government to hold a compliance inspection of the council, would be invited to give evidence to the committee after she has reported.

Clive Betts MP, chair of the CLG committee, said: “As a committee, we heard alarming evidence that the organised child sexual exploitation at Rotherham is prevalent across England. Rotherham is not an outlier.

"It’s important to note that it was the press which stimulated action in Rotherham, not the council’s own system of challenge or scrutiny, nor external inspections. It’s vital local authorities across the country now ensure their scrutiny, governance, and leadership is fit and ready to identify and combat child sexual exploitation in their communities.”

Betts added: “Serious questions also need to be asked of Ofsted. Repeated Ofsted inspections in Rotherham failed to lift the lid on the council’s shameful inability to tackle child sexual exploitation. As a committee, we will want to question Ofsted about their inspection regime and ask why their inspections were so ineffective in Rotherham.”

The committee said it expected its successor committee in the next parliament to review the findings and conclusions of the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse as they related to local government.

Reacting to the CLG committee report, an Ofsted spokesperson said: “Ofsted welcomes the opportunity to give evidence to the committee. In common with a number of organisations, we accept that past inspections may not have given child sexual exploitation the forensic focus it needed and deserved.  
 
“That’s why last year we introduced a new and much more rigorous inspection framework for inspecting children’s services, which places a stronger emphasis on the issue. Inspectors now look closely at the experiences of children, focusing sharply on whether the risks of sexual exploitation are understood and acted upon by frontline agencies.”

The spokesperson said Ofsted would this week publish its first in-depth nationwide survey into local authority practice and responses to child sexual exploitation.

“In recent years Ofsted gave Rotherham Council a range of judgements, finding it ‘inadequate’ in 2009 on a number of safeguarding and child protection issues,” they added.