A NEW interim director is among those drafted in to help turn around Herefordshire s failing children s services department after a raft of failings were exposed in a damning judgement. Councillors hit out at a culture of lies, delays, and misdirection which prevented proper scrutiny of the department, while staff were said to be too frightened to speak out against poor practice at an extraordinary meeting called to receive the judgement and vote on a series of improvement measures on April 27. But, councillors were told, action is being taken, with new interim director Cath Knowles drafted in to turn the department around under new chief executive Paul Walker, while the Department for Education has appointed improvement advisor Gladys Rhodes White.
Council to go on improvement plan after High Court lambasts ‘utter failures’ in false allegations of abuse case
Herefordshire children’s services will undergo external review and an independently monitored improvement plan following case where social workers ‘ignored’ senior judge and experienced psychiatrist
Photo: Wikimedia commons/Roger Cornfoot
A council’s children’s services are to be monitored by a government-appointed chair, following a High Court judgment in a care case that questioned their “fitness for purpose”.
Herefordshire council will hold an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday for councillors to approve an “assurance and improvement strategy” across children’s social care to address the practice and leadership concerns raised by the case, in which social work teams pursued a plan for special guardianship orders (SGOs) for children who had made false allegations of sexual abuse against their parents. The children did not see their parents for ei