Casey Report - Rotherham Child Sex Abuse
Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons
dated 04 February 2015 for the
Report of Inspection of
Rotherham Metropolitan
Borough Council
February 2015
HC1050
Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons
dated 04 February 2015 for the
Report of Inspection of
Rotherham Metropolitan
Borough Council
Author: Louise Casey CB
February 2015
HC1050
© Crown copyright 2015
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1
Overview and Executive Summary
Foreword
Background and methodology
Executive Summary
The good people of Rotherham
What happened in Rotherham and why it matters
What is Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)?
Child Sexual Exploitation: A picture in Rotherham
Response to Professor Jay’s Report: Denial
An unhealthy culture
The Race Issue
The Role of Risky Business in tackling CSE in Rotherham
Children’s Services Failure/Children’s Social Care
Where were the police?
Where were the rest of the council?
Treatment of Victims
Rotherham Today
1. Is the Council taking steps to address past weaknesses and
does it have the capability to do so?
Background and judgement
Leadership and Governance
Top to bottom – translating political leadership into action
Scrutiny and Standards
Member Standards of Conduct
Senior Management of the Council
2. Is the council taking steps to address weaknesses in Children’s
Services and its work on CSE and does it have the capacity to
continue to do so?
Background (OFSTED inspection) and judgement
Scope of inspection
Children’s Social Care Services
Children’s Social Care Services and CSE
Young people turning 18 years old
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CSE numbers and analysis
The RMBC/SYP CSE Strategy
‘Missing’
The Offer to Victims
Summary
3. Did Rotherham take and continue to take sufficient steps to
ensure only ‘fit and proper persons’ are permitted to hold a taxi
licence?
Background and Judgement
Licensing at RMBC
4. Taxis and Child Sexual Exploitation
Licensing Authority – denial that they knew of a CSE problem
Evidence that the Licensing Authority knew of taxis and CSE as a
problem
Responsible Authority meetings
Revocations and current practice
5. Does the Council undertake sufficient liaisons with other
agencies?
Background and Judgement
Community safety and tackling Child Sexual Exploitation
Abduction notices
South Yorkshire Police
6. Does the Council take appropriate action against staff guilty of
gross misconduct?
Background and Judgement
Action post Jay report
Disciplinary, grievance and severance case files
Severance payments and compromise agreements
Sanctions, dismissals and the role of members
7. Does Rotherham cover up information and silence whistleblowers?
Background and Judgement
Cover up?
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Whistleblowing procedures and evidence reviewed
Staff who blow the whistle
Annexes
Annex A: Serious Case Review into child S published in 2012
Annex B: List of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
achievements
Annex C: Findings from the Statement of Accounts
Annex D: Child Sexual Exploitation numbers
Annex E: Tools and powers available to tackle Child Sexual
Exploitation
Annex F: Glossary
Annex G: The Inspection Team
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5
Foreword
Terrible things happened in Rotherham and on a significant scale. Children were
sexually exploited by men who came largely from the Pakistani Heritage
Community. Not enough was done to acknowledge this, to stop it happening, to protect
children, to support victims and to apprehend perpetrators.
Upon arriving in Rotherham, these I thought were the uncontested facts. My job was to
conduct an inspection and decide whether the Council was now fit for purpose.
However this was not the situation I encountered when I reached Rotherham. Instead, I
found a Council in denial. They denied that there had been a problem, or if there had
been, that it was as big as was said. If there was a problem they certainly were not told –
it was someone else’s job. They were no worse than anyone else. They had won
awards. The media were out to get them.
So this is why in making a judgement as to whether Rotherham Council is fit for purpose
today I have set it in the context of how it has behaved in the past and its reluctance to
deal with past failings.
I recognise that child sexual exploitation is hard to tackle. It is complex, sometimes
thankless and very hard to get it right. But it is vital that public services face up to difficult
tasks. However, Rotherham Council is a place where difficult problems are not always
tackled as they should be. When faced with the solid findings contained in the report it
had itself commissioned by Professor Jay, it did not accept them. And without accepting
what happened and its role in it, it will be unable to move on and change.
We must not lose sight of what the failures in Rotherham have meant in practice;
victims have been hurt and remain without justice, the Pakistani Heritage Community
has been harmed by association , as have individual social workers, police officers, taxi
drivers and other hard working people in the Council, voluntary sectors and the town of
Rotherham more broadly. It has also harmed public services because what happened in
Rotherham does not represent its values - of putting the needs of the most vulnerable
always at its centre.
I want to be clear that the responsibility for the abuse that took place in Rotherham lies
firmly with the vile perpetrators, many of whom have not yet faced justice for what they
have done. I hope that this will shortly be rectified. But in its actions, the conclusion that I
have reluctantly reached is that both today and in the past, Rotherham has at times
taken more care of its reputation than it has its of its most needy.
Child abuse and exploitation happens all over the country, but Rotherham is different in
that it was repeatedly told by its own youth service what was happening and it chose,
not only to not act, but to close that service down. This is important because it points to
how it has dealt with uncomfortable truths put before it. However, I propose that this
report is one uncomfortable truth that will not be ignored, but that Rotherham Council will
use it to embrace the change so sorely needed and ensure that from here it get its
priorities right.
Louise Casey CB
January 2015
6
Background and methodology
Professor Alexis Jay’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in
Rotherham was commissioned by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in
October 2013 and published on 26th August 2014. Covering the periods of 1997-
2009 and 2009 - 2013, it looked at how Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council’s
(RMBC) Children’s Services dealt with child sexual exploitation cases.
The report found evidence of sexual exploitation of at least 1400 children in
Rotherham over this period. The majority of the perpetrators were described as
‘Asian’ by victims. Professor Jay found there was a “collective failure” by both the
Council and police to stop the abuse.
A Best Value authority is under a general Duty of Best Value to “make arrangements
to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised,
having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.”1
The Secretary of State may appoint a person to carry out an inspection of a specified
best value authority's compliance with the requirements of this duty in relation to
specified functions.
On the 10th September 2014, the Secretary of State appointed Louise Casey CB
under section 10 of the Local Government Act 1999 to carry out an inspection of the
compliance of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council with the requirements of
Part 1 of that Act, in relation to the Council’s exercise of its functions on governance,
children and young people, and taxi and private hire licensing.
In undertaking this inspection, Louise Casey CB was directed to consider:
In exercising its functions on governance, children and young people, and taxi and
private hire licensing, whether the local authority:
• allows for adequate scrutiny by Councillors;
• covers up information, and whether ‘whistle-blowers’ are silenced;
• took and continues to take appropriate action against staff guilty of gross
misconduct;
• was and continues to be subject to institutionalised political correctness,
affecting its decision-making on sensitive issues;
• undertook and continues to undertake sufficient liaisons with other agencies,
particularly the police, local health partners, and the safeguarding board;
1 Department for Communities and Local Government, Best Value Statutory Guidance, 2011
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• took and continues to take sufficient steps to ensure only ‘fit and proper
persons’ are permitted to hold a taxi licence; and
• is now taking steps to address effectively past and current weaknesses or
shortcomings in the exercise of its functions, and has the capacity to continue
to do so.
Louise Casey CB was appointed as lead Inspector but as the statute allows, the
Secretary of State appointed on her recommendation, Assistant Inspectors to ensure
that she had all the required skills and experience available to her to fulfil her remit.
Louise Casey CB began her inspection on the 1st October 2014.
In total the inspection team carried out over 200 meetings with:
• Victims and their families
• Whistle-blowers
• Concerned members of the public
• Current and former Cabinet Members
• Current and past Councillors
• Current and past senior officers
• The Monitoring Officer
• Heads of Safeguarding
• Former Directors of Children’s Services
• Current and past staff in Children’s Services
• Managers and staff in taxi licensing
• External auditors
• Other local interested parties
• Representatives from the following partners:
- Apna Haq
- Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce
- Council of Mosques
- GROW
- Learners First
- Local Safeguarding Children’s Board
- Rotherham Clinical Commissioning Group
- Rotherham Diversity Forum
- Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance
- Rotherham NHS Trust
- Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber Mental Health Trust (RDaSH)
- Safe @ Last
- Schools (x 2)
- Senior partners who have now left Rotherham
- South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority
- South Yorkshire Police
8
- Voluntary Action Rotherham
Inspectors met with over 30 representatives from the Rotherham Partnership,
representatives from the Youth Cabinet, and from the community sector as facilitated
and invited by Voluntary Action Rotherham.
The inspection also reviewed documentary evidence, sampled cases and processes
and observed practice, including:
• Approximately 320 requests for documents totalling up to 7000 documents
and information
• 68 past and current cases in Children’s Services
• 19 staff case files
• 22 taxi licensing cases
• Reviewing policies, procedures and practices
The Inspection team is very grateful for the cooperation of the management and
support staff of the current Council in helping the facilitation of the inspection. We
were treated courteously at all times. The team is also grateful that all current and
former staff that we approached including frontline workers, managers, Directors and
Members agreed to be interviewed. Two people declined – former Leader, Roger
Stone and former Police and Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright.
9
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is not fit for purpose. It is failing in its legal
obligation to secure continuous improvement in the way in which it exercises its
functions. In particular, it is failing in its duties to protect vulnerable children and
young people from harm.
This inspection revealed past and present failures to accept, understand and combat
the issue of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), resulting in a lack of support for victims
and insufficient action against known perpetrators.
The Council’s culture is unhealthy: bullying, sexism, suppression and misplaced
‘political correctness’ have cemented its failures. The Council is currently incapable
of tackling its weaknesses, without a sustained intervention.
On 26th August 2014 Professor Alexis Jay published an Independent Inquiry into
Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham. The report, commissioned by RMBC as a
review of its own practices, concluded that over 1400 children had been sexually
exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. The vast majority of the
perpetrators were said to be ‘Asian’ men.
In response, on 10th September 2014, the Secretary of State for Communities and
Local Government appointed Louise Casey CB to carry out an inspection of
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) under section 10 of the Local
Government Act 1999. The inspection would assess the Council’s compliance with
the requirements of Part 1 of that Act, considering leadership and governance,
scrutiny, services for children and young people, taxi and private hire licensing, and
whether the council ‘covers up’ information.
The inspection team reviewed approximately 7000 documents, looked in detail at
case files and met with over 200 people, including current and former staff, council
Members, partners, victims and parents.
Our investigations revealed:
• a council in denial about serious and on-going safeguarding failures
• an archaic culture of sexism, bullying and discomfort around race
• failure to address past weaknesses, in particular in Children’s Social Care
• weak and ineffective arrangements for taxi licensing which leave the public at
risk
• ineffective leadership and management, including political leadership
• no shared vision, a partial management team and ineffective liaisons with
partners
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• a culture of covering up uncomfortable truths, silencing whistle-blowers and
paying off staff rather than dealing with difficult issues
Despite Professor Jay’s findings, which we fully endorse, and substantial quantities
of information available within the Council, RMBC demonstrates a resolute denial of
what has happened in the borough. This took several forms – notable in their
recurrence – including dismissal of Professor Jay’s findings, denial of knowledge of
the ‘scale and scope’ of CSE, blaming others, and denial that CSE remains a serious
problem in present day Rotherham. Whilst the appointments of a Children’s
Commissioner and interim Chief Executive (CE) have undoubtedly been beneficial,
changes in the senior management team alone will not be enough to shift things on.
Interviews with staff and Members of RMBC highlighted a pervading culture of
sexism, bullying and silencing debate. The issue of race is contentious, with staff and
Members lacking the confidence to tackle difficult issues for fear of being seen as
racist or upsetting community cohesion. By failing to take action against the
Pakistani heritage male perpetrators of CSE in the borough, the Council has
inadvertently fuelled the far right and allowed racial tensions to grow. It has done a
great disservice to the Pakistani heritage community and the good people of
Rotherham as a result.
We have concluded that RMBC does not have strong enough political and
managerial leadership to guide the borough out of its present difficulties and put it
back on a path to success.
RMBC’s Children’s Services are failing, with a lack of clarity over priorities,
repeatedly missed deadlines for the assessment of children in need of care and
protection, poor decision-making, drift and delay. The dedicated CSE team is poorly
directed, suffers from excessive case loads, and an inability to share information
between agencies.
Perpetrators are identified, but too often little or no action is taken to stop or even
disrupt their activities and protect children from harm. One of the most important
partners is South Yorkshire Police, with whom inspectors expected to find a robust
and equal relationship. Instead, RMBC demonstrated an excessive deference to
police assurances and a failure to recognise their own role in pursuing perpetrators.
This prevented the use of council powers to tackle perpetrators and a lack of scrutiny
over the police’s actions – actions which inspectors would also call into question.
Partnership working is ineffective. The structures are overly-complicated and do not
drive action. Partners are critical that the Council is not providing a lead in these
troubled times for the town.
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The Council does not use inspection to learn and improve. Members are overlyreliant
on officers and do not challenge tenaciously enough to ensure improvements.
Meeting and action plans are numerous but unproductive, with a tendency towards
inertia.
Some Members have not set and modelled the high standards expected of those in
public life. Historic concerns around conduct have not been effectively tackled.
RMBC has a culture of suppressing bad news and ignoring difficult issues. This
culture is deep-rooted; RMBC goes to some length to cover up information and to
silence whistle-blowers.
RMBC needs a fresh start.
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The good people of Rotherham and beyond
Inspectors found many committed, hardworking and dedicated staff working for
Rotherham Council including frontline staff and social workers. Inspectors
acknowledge that it cannot be easy for them to go into work every day intending to
do a good job, amid a stream of criticism of their organisation, let alone marches
from the English Defence League (EDL) in their town centre.
During the course of the inspection we came upon various individuals and
organisations who were worthy of particular mention and praise by the inspection,
however we were conscious that to list them in this report may cause them
difficulties either professionally or personally.
However, our sincere thanks must go to two particular groups of people who spoke
to us under the most testing circumstances; the individuals and whistle-blowers who
came forward bravely to give evidence to us and of course, the victims of child
sexual exploitation and their families who courageously recounted the awful things
that happened to them.
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WHAT HAPPENED IN ROTHERHAM AND WHY IT MATTERS
“I think it’s quite sad, not just what happened to my daughter but how the system has
responded. I was brought up to believe that when something bad happened, you told
the police or social services and they help you - something would be done about it -
that isn’t what happened.” A victim’s father
Professor Alexis Jay’s report in August 2014 set out a history of child sexual
exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over 16 years. The Council commissioned the
report following mounting concerns from outside bodies about CSE in the town.
Over 2012 and 2013, Rotherham had been on the front page of The Times
newspaper. RMBC’s Chief Executive and Strategic Director of Children’s Services
had appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee as had the police and
Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police. The then
Police and Crime Commissioner had requested three reports into the poor handling
of CSE by South Yorkshire Police and sexual exploitation in Yorkshire and the North
West was a live issue.
The Home Affairs Select Committee report on 5th June 2013 on CSE criticised
RMBC and South Yorkshire Police.
“Both Rochdale and Rotherham Councils were inexcusably slow to realise that the
widespread, organised sexual abuse of children, many of them in the care of the
local authority, was taking place on their doorstep. This is due in large part to a
woeful lack of professional curiosity or indifference.”2
“We have heard evidence that South Yorkshire Police Force have previously let
down victims of localised grooming and child sexual exploitation— as a result, we
would expect the force be striving to redeem their reputation.”3
In August 2013, The Times ran a story regarding the Deputy Leader of Rotherham
Council as having been involved some years previously in the handover of a girl to
police who had been a victim of CSE.
In September 2013, the Council commissioned the Jay Report and the long standing
council Leader apologised to the “young people and their families [who] have been
badly let down by the Council in the past.”
Professor Alexis Jay was commissioned to establish what had happened in
Rotherham. Her review’s terms of reference were very wide ranging. She was to look
back at the past and see whether and how things had changed today.
2 Home Affairs Committee: Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming. Volume I., p. 27
3 Ibid., p. 36
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Commissioning Professor Jay to come in and look at this very difficult issue
appeared at face value to be a brave action by the Council. She spent over eight
months in Rotherham and the published report was the result of her relentless hard
work. The Leader of the Council immediately stepped down.
The commissioning of the report and later, the resignation of the Leader, are actions
suggestive of a council that:
• accepts the need to examine its past
• accepts that it may have got things wrong
• has an intention to put right those wrongs
• wants to challenge its shortcomings
• and wants to ensure that nothing like this would happen again
Except that’s not the Rotherham we found upon arrival for this inspection or have
seen since.
15
WHAT IS CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION?
“I want you all to...look for the child that is unhappy, that doesn't want to be at school,
that has no friends, that seems to be going out an awful lot, that could be driving
around in cars, has more than one mobile, that has an attitude, that seems to have a
lot of boyfriends and ask yourself, is this a victim of CSE?” From a presentation
given by a victim of CSE
In order to look at how effectively RMBC was tackling CSE, Inspectors needed to
have a working understanding of the issue. It is, undoubtedly, a very difficult problem
for public services to deal with and there are many complexities involved. But that
should never be used as an excuse for inaction.
CSE is a form of child abuse in which perpetrators develop total control over their
victims. It starts with a grooming process, in which victims are showered with gifts
and attention. They are treated like adults, for example, by being taken out in cars.
The young person can believe that the perpetrator is their boyfriend and that they are
in love. This is a powerful thing, especially for young children or young people who
may have difficult family backgrounds and crave love and attention. As a result, they
do not complain. The grooming process isolates the victim from friends and family.
At some point, drugs, alcohol and sex may be introduced. They are forced not only
to have sex with their abuser but sometimes other men too. This is coupled with
more overt coercion, threats and violence. By now, victims may be dependent on
drugs and alcohol, afraid of their abuser, isolated from their family and scared that
they will not be believed or that worse may happen to them or their families if they
make a complaint.
The consequences of CSE are appalling. Victims suffer from suicidal feelings and
often self-harm. Many become pregnant. Some have to manage the emotional
consequences of miscarriages and abortions while others have children that they are
unable to parent appropriately. The abuse and violence continues to affect victims
into adulthood. Many enter violent and abusive relationships. Many suffer poor
mental health and addiction.
The predators often target children with difficult backgrounds, including those in care,
who are particularly vulnerable to grooming. But they are also sometimes able to
exploit those from stable backgrounds. That families, despite their very best efforts,
are unable to prevent the abuse reflects the power of the abusers and the degree of
control they exert.
Tackling CSE is incredibly difficult. No one should underestimate this. It requires
spotting the signs, helping young people to recognise their experience as abuse and
16
getting them to trust public services instead of their abusers, often in the face of
serious threats.
Then it requires supporting victims through the criminal justice system, where they
may have to ‘relive’ the experience again. There are challenges in gaining sufficient
evidence for prosecution. When child sexual exploitation is happening on the scale
that it did in Rotherham, there will be multiple perpetrators and victims, and
establishing a complete picture by fully appreciating all the links and connections, will
be difficult.
CSE embodies issues which are incredibly difficult to deal with. First, serious sexual
violence. Second, victims who may reject help. The grooming involved is a form of
brainwashing, which means that even though the victims are being abused
emotionally, physically and sexually, they can be loyal to their abuser, rather than
their family or social worker. Third, the age of the victims involved. Teenage sexuality
is a confusing issue for adults and adolescents alike. Many of these girls are on the
cusp of adulthood and want to behave like adults but do not yet have the emotional
capacity to do so. Abusers exploit this uncertainty.
Many local authorities and other services are struggling with this complex crime and
as the OFSTED report4 on CSE found few have got it right. Given all the difficulties
involved, this is not surprising. But CSE is a horrifying and brutal crime with
devastating consequences for victims and their families. Councils and their partners
must not give up on them.
Tackling CSE effectively requires a council and its partners to mobilise their services
and powers together. The Council has a duty to safeguard the victims. It also
governs the landscape in which CSE is played out including many schools, care
homes, parks, taxis and take away food shops. Councils have powers of licensing
and regulation which can be used to disrupt illegal activity in these places and keep
the community safe. This is in addition to the duties and powers of the police.
We accept all these challenges make tacking exploitation difficult. But they cannot be
used as excuses. Fundamentally, this is about the rape and abuse of children by
adults. Victims cannot be abandoned to their abusers. Authorities cannot claim they
are powerless to act.
4 OFSTED, Sexual Exploitation of Children: OFSTED Thematic Report, 19 November 2014
17
CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION – A PICTURE IN ROTHERHAM
From a review of case files and files on police operations, information from Risky
Business5, and from victims, parents and professionals, it is possible to present a
picture of sexual exploitation in Rotherham as it developed.
Vulnerable girls, most frequently those with difficult family backgrounds, and or a
history of being in care, were particularly affected. Girls were as young as nine when
they began to be exploited.
Perpetrators in Rotherham appear to have been largely from the Pakistani heritage
Community. Perpetrators used what is known as ‘street grooming’ to prepare their
victims for exploitation.
Some of the exploitation was connected to a nucleus of men or gangs of men who
were already involved in criminal activity, including supplying drugs, trafficking,
sexual exploitation and prostitution across Rotherham and South Yorkshire.
There were other less organised groups of predatory men who would seek out young
girls and form emotional bonds with them. Girls would be contacted initially by phone
or by text, often by a young adult male who they had met on the street, or in the
shopping centre or park. These younger men who carried out the grooming weren’t
always the abuser. Girls were misled into believing these men were their boyfriends.
Once their trust had been gained, the girls were vulnerable to sexual abuse and
were even shared and passed around other men or groups of men. Victims would
start to receive phone calls from numerous other males wishing to meet them and
engage in sexual acts, and be pressured by their ‘boyfriend’ into doing what was
asked. They would be picked up in taxis and cars, from schools or children’s homes
or from their own family homes. Girls would go missing from home regularly and for
extended periods. They would be taken to restaurants or to other properties where
they would have sex with one or more men.
They were given drugs and alcohol which they then had to ‘pay for’ in sex. If they did
not concur, they would be subject to rape, multiple rapes, rape with physical
violence, and threatened with weapons.
Perpetrators in Rotherham generated real fear. They were often perceived to be
connected to other forms of criminality and violence and victims and their families
were too frightened to speak and did not feel the police could protect them. They
were threatened and intimidated into silence. Victims and their families speak of
groups of men in cars waiting outside their house or outside children’s homes,
5 A youth project – detail given later, in Section 1, of this report.
18
sometimes attempting to break in. Phone calls and texted threats, including threats
to rape other members of the family, were described to us.
Fear was also evident at times among professionals, teachers, hostel workers and
youth workers.
Some children needed to be placed out of the area and others in secure units for
their own protection. The grooming was so effective that, despite the abuse and
violence, victims would continue to attempt to return to their abusers.
Other patterns in Rotherham involved lone offenders targeting under 16’s. Adult
males, and on occasion females, with dysfunctional lives allowed girls and boys to
gather at their properties, supplying them with drink, drugs and cigarettes.
Vulnerable children often became subject to sexual abuse in these environments.
19
RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR JAY’S REPORT - DENIAL
Professor Jay’s Independent Inquiry into CSE in Rotherham was treated with
disbelief and evasion of the issue.
When Inspectors commenced work in Rotherham we were struck by the
overwhelming denial of what Professor Jay set out in her report. This attitude was so
prevalent that we had to go back through many of the aspects of her work in order to
satisfy ourselves that the Council had no grounds upon which further action could be
delayed. We soon discovered, however, that RMBC has a history of denial. We deal
with this later in the report.
Inspectors noted four distinct forms of denial which arose in interviews with both
Members and officers. These were striking in their frequency and their similarity.
Even some of the same expressions were used.
These were:
1. Denial of the accuracy of Professor Jay’s methods and findings.
2. Denial of the extent of the issue of CSE, particularly in Rotherham.
3. Denial of culpability and belief that CSE was ‘being dealt with elsewhere’.
4. Denial that CSE remained a significant problem, although acknowledging that it
may have been in the past.
Denial of the accuracy of Jay’s methods and findings
The clearest manifestation of denial was that Member after Member and officer after
officer disputed the methodology of the Professor Jay’s report. The numbers of
victims were challenged, the cases she referred to were questioned and the
interviews she had undertaken were queried.
When asked, 70% of the current Rotherham Councillors we spoke to (including
those in the Cabinet) disputed Professor Jay’s findings.
Officers complained that Professor Jay had got their employment dates wrong, or
used the wrong job title, that she had got the attendance list for a meeting wrong,
that she had not spoken to someone they considered important or had spoken to
someone who had an axe to grind, or that she had not spent enough time with
others.
One officer, when called to interview, brought a copy of the Jay report which he had
scrutinised line by line. He then proceeded to emphasise what he believed were its
flaws and inaccuracies.
20
Others said:
“I would challenge lots of the Jay report, we feel bruised by it. Where is our right of
reply? Who is fighting our corner? People are rolling over and just accepting the
report.” An officer
“Some people would query the methodology behind the number.” A police officer
“Too limited a source base affects the credibility of the report.” A Councillor
“[I wonder] where some of the facts and figures in the Jay report came from. There
were people that should have been spoken to and weren’t, such as a wider group of
Cabinet Members, as they’re the hub of the council.” A Councillor
“I don’t know whether that [Jay’s methodology] was right or wrong – I’m not an expert
– but the least the Council should have done was get an independent verification of
the report.” A former Councillor
“I don’t think it was a good report – while the findings were good, it skips around a bit
on the details which makes it difficult to read.” A Councillor
“Some of the things in Jay aren’t right – things have been watered down, or we didn’t
get the minutes that it says we did.” A Councillor
“I’m not convinced by the [report’s] rigour but I recognise the themes.” A senior
officer
Denial of the ‘scale and scope of the issue’
Person after person said that they knew about CSE but not the ‘scale and the
scope’, and questioned the numbers of victims in Professor Jay’s report. Professor
Jay estimated that there were at least 1400 victims of CSE between 1997 and 2013.
She states this was a conservative estimate. It was this figure that received most
condemnation by Rotherham Council.
If the 1400 figure is broken down to an annual average over the period Professor Jay
looked into, it comes to just under 85 children a year. Although Professor Jay did not
derive her estimate from Council records as she found them too unreliable (as did
we), these figures should not come as a surprise to Members or senior officers in
Rotherham. In 2013-14, Rotherham’s published CSE cases totalled 1076, a similar
figure to the average Professor Jay calculates over 16 years.
6 Note that this figure is the number of CSE cases published by RMBC for 2013/4. RMBC also provided the Inspection team
with a figure for their total CSE caseload, which was 207 in 2013/4.
21
When put like that, some officers suggested 1400 was definitely an underestimate. It
does not take much to put the figure in perspective in this way. But few had. This is
because refuting the numbers of children affected is not really about the numbers. It
is about denial of the problem.
Inspectors were told that the numbers were an extrapolation, that they had been
generated by a computer programme, and that the 1400 must have referred to the
number of ‘contacts’ (that is, the number of people getting in touch with the Council
about CSE) rather than people actually experiencing it.
“1400 is a figure not known to anybody.” A Councillor
“I struggle to accept the number, but I’m not a mathematician.” A Councillor
“I certainly didn’t know what scale [CSE] was.” A Councillor
“[is] the 1400 figure based on real girls or an estimate?” A senior politician
“We keep saying 1400 victims. But where are they?” A Councillor
“She [Professor Jay] was wrong about us knowing about [victims of CSE], and wrong
about the numbers. I don’t know where the 1400 number came from.” A Councillor
“I thought it was probably the worst report I had read in my life. It was full of
innuendo, supposition, it made statements not based on evidence; it just didn’t make
sense.” A former Councillor
“I do wonder where some of the facts and figures in the Jay report came from. There
were people that should have been spoken to and weren’t… I don’t feel like I’ve seen
anything that showed where that 1400 figure had come from.” A Councillor
“The 1400 figure never came to me. The Heal report discussed 50-60, a small
percentage of which were CSE.” A Councillor
“[I] feel very angry, [the report is] not accurate, balanced… some parts I don’t
accept.” A senior officer
“…the Social Care team didn’t recognise the 1400 number…The number of people
who were victims or at real risk of CSE was much lower than was being portrayed.”
An officer
“Only in 2011 did I become aware of CSE as an activity, not even as an issue… the
scale has come as a big surprise to me. The figures seem disproportionate with any
other town that is actively looking for CSE.” A former senior officer
22
“I had no idea whatsoever of the scale of CSE abuse that had occurred to young
children in Rotherham over a period of more than a decade. I was deeply shocked
and deeply saddened.” Martin Kimber to the Communities and Local Government
Select Committee
“While I was Deputy or Chief Constable I had no understanding of the scale and the
scope of the problems that have come to light.” Meredydd Hughes to the Home
Affairs Select Committee
“As I indicated, Ms Blackwood, in 2010 I still was not aware of the scale of abuse
that had been taking place.” Shaun Wright to the Home Affairs Select Committee
The dispute over the number of victims identified by Professor Jay led Inspectors to
review the numbers of victims over the period.
Inspectors first looked at the numbers based on the figures that the Council reported
on each year. We found different counting methods and different things being
counted. Some years it was clients while in others it was contacts, assessments or
referrals. Reporting periods crossed over and there were gaps for other periods. So
it was not possible to assess numbers based on RMBCs own records, leaving room
for ongoing and further disputes around the number of victims of CSE.
Those denying the figures could not point to any more authoritative figure. Nor could
they have done so given the very poor records. The inspection team used three
different lists of children’s names which had been linked to CSE and where it was
reasonable to assume the children had been harmed. The three source documents
were:
• A list of children known to Children’s Social Care because of CSE from 2001
2013 provided by RMBC to Professor Jay
• A list compiled by South Yorkshire Police who are reviewing historic files for
current police investigations
• The list of names known to the council’s own CSE service (Risky Business)
from 1999 – 2011
We have concluded that the 1400 figure is a conservative one and that RMBC and
South Yorkshire Police (where some also dispute the figures) would do better to
concentrate on taking effective action rather than seeking to continue a debate about
the numbers.
23
Denial of culpability
Others when asked about CSE in Rotherham appeared to be content to have been
in the dark. They thought that colleagues should have been dealing with it, not them.
“Each year the partnership made a decision on what they prioritised and because
CSE was being dealt with by the [Local] Children Safeguarding Board, Safer
Rotherham’s view was that with its governance in that board, and issues being highly
confidential, it would not get involved.” A senior officer
“No, you think there are good people getting on with this. Had a lot of time for XX, if
they are thinking it’s working, then OK. Reliant on people coming to meetings and
saying: ‘this is what happened.’” A key partner
Members and officers seemed content to be told that matters of CSE were
confidential and there could be no details divulged due to police operations.
Inspector found it very surprising that these matters were not questioned. No one
seemed even curious enough to ask for an update, let alone ask why, with all these
police operations, convictions were not being secured.
“Police always said: we’re on it, don’t talk about it because we don’t want the
perpetrators finding out about our operations.” A Councillor
“I understood that the area had a problem with CSE but thought that the Council had
the right things in place to deal with it.” A Councillor
“…but [we] were reassured that Risky Business were working away, and it [CSE] still
wasn’t my area.” A Councillor
“I think we knew that there was a national problem, that there were a few local cases
and that the police were investigating.” A Councillor
Denial of Child Sexual Exploitation is still an issue
Inspectors were also told that although there used to be a problem, “we’re much
better now”. The former CE, Martin Kimber, stated at the Home Affairs Select
Committee and to Inspectors that Professor Jay noted significant improvements in
her report.
While it is true that Professor Jay notes recent improvements in Rotherham’s
services, these are heavily caveated. She cautions that there is an urgent need to
improve risk assessment, manage financial and staff pressures and ensure sufficient
long-term support for victims.
24
“There have been many improvements in the last four years by both the Council and
the police. The police are now well resourced for CSE and well trained, though
prosecutions remain low in number. There is a central team in Children's Social Care
which works jointly with the police and deals with child sexual exploitation. This
works well but the team struggles to keep pace with the demands of its workload.
The Council is facing particular challenges in dealing with increased financial
pressures, which inevitably impact on frontline services. The Safeguarding Board
has improved its response to child sexual exploitation and holds agencies to account
with better systems for file audits and performance reporting. There are still matters
for Children’s Social Care to address such as good risk assessment, which is absent
from too many cases, and there is not enough long-term support for the child
victims.” 7
Inspectors judged that this was false optimism by the former CE. It is an example of
a wider culture of clinging onto anything positive within RMBC and not facing up to
the truth of the situation.
“But we’re [RMBC] one of the best places for education, how did we have that if we
we’re so c**p? We were just at the place where we were starting to fly.” A former
senior officer
“I’m more confident now than ever - lots of work since 2012 we have a multi-agency
group - a MASH - we looked at Bradford. We can’t compare any national data setsthere
are none. I have to be confident about the numbers - 6-10 being abused at any
one time.” A Councillor
“Historically case-loads had been worse.” A Councillor
“There’s a feeling of things becoming more positive. They’re making progress.” A
Councillor
Denial – the national spotlight
Like other local authorities, RMBC’s services are subject to reviews and inspections
and monitoring from OFSTED, the Audit Commission, and Central Government
departments and have also been more recently subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.
However, Inspectors found that Rotherham’s reaction to this scrutiny is defensive.
RMBC is unable to look at itself critically and can put the reputation of Rotherham
above actual services. These are patterns of behaviour which go back over time and
which are as relevant to CSE as they are to the functioning of Children’s Social Care
7 Alexis Jay OBE, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham, p. 2
25
as a whole and, no doubt, other departments. An analysis of previous inspections
and reports on RMBC is contained in Section 2 of this report.
This attitude of denial however was not restricted to inspections and reviews. The
media - and in particular Andrew Norfolk, whose articles in The Times did much to
bring CSE to public attention - also took a lot of criticism.
CSE in Rotherham, in some guise, was covered by The Times from 2010. It was on
the front page of the Times in 2012 and 2013 on 6 separate occasions:
• 7 June 2012 – second story on front page: ‘Officials hid key facts over girl’s
abuse’
• 24 September 2012 – full front page: ‘Police files reveal child protection
scandal’
• 25 September 2012 – front page: ‘Revelation of child-sex scandal prompts
calls for public enquiry’
• 10 June 2013 – second story on front page: ‘Child abuse failings must lead to
new law, MPs say’
• 23 August 2013 – main story on front page: ‘Grooming scandal of child sex
town’
• 30 August 2013 – second story on front page: ‘Police face inquiries on
grooming case failures’
Rather than considering the basis upon which media attention was formed, the
Council preferred to assume that all negative attention was politically motivated and
unsupported by any genuine evidence or concerns. This attitude was noted in
several interviews:
“The accusations in the press appeared to be biased, political accusations from a
newspaper – Murdoch press, with little evidence. They had felt that The Times was
picking on a Labour authority on the back of Rochdale. There was no sense that it
was backed up with concrete evidence.” A Councillor
“In response to The Times article in September, she was told that Norfolk had a thing
about Pakistani men, and that the story was exaggerated… In the early days the
message was that ‘Norfolk’s got it in for us’.” A Councillor
“There were rumours that because it was a national paper, could you really believe
what it was saying, etc…? But I wasn’t on the scrutiny board where it ought to be
discussed.” A Councillor
“There was some resistance about the article, I remember there being a discussion
about it being a Murdoch press story - not to take it all as read.” A Councillor
26
“Most of the people in Labour group were astonished – thought, it’s not true. Is this
bloke after some headlines that aren’t there? Is it political Murdoch press?” A
Councillor
“Andrew Norfolk became involved during the trial for Operation Central…Ian Hislop
gave him an award for it but it is only one side of the story and it’s ten years old –
that’s not investigative journalism…he’s got his own agendas…” An officer
“Norfolk’s a reporter and is aiming to sell stories, and at first I just didn’t believe it. It
was a shock. But it needed to be done; I don’t doubt that it’s the truth now.” A
Councillor
Even if The Times articles had been politically motivated (though we found no
evidence in the Norfolk coverage) the fact was that Rotherham Council, rather than
addressing or investigating the abuse of girls and the suggested failings of the
Council and police, preferred to ignore what was being reported and declare it was
untrue with no apparent grounds for doing so.
Indeed, in a report about the CSE team in 2012, the Council states: “[in the] first of
the cases referred to in The Times, [the] young person involved [was] given
appropriate assessments and counselling along with support by Risky Business.”
This reveals extraordinary complacency in the face of very serious allegations. It is
also untrue in relation to the victim concerned.
The ‘scale and scope’ was clear
Inspectors concluded from reviewing previous case files, from undertaking interviews
with current and former staff, Members and people who had worked in Rotherham
but not for the council, from interviews with police officers and with victims and their
families, that the numbers of victims and the type and the extent of the CSE problem
was clear to the council.
Many of those raising the problem of CSE with the Council did not do so quietly.
There were reports to senior staff, to Members, to Scrutiny committees, to
Safeguarding Boards. There were externally commissioned reports about CSE that
were not acted upon. Anyone who wanted to know more only had to ask.
Yet when Professor Jay brought forward the undeniable and cohesive facts of CSE
in Rotherham, her report was met with denial and challenge. That children had been
exploited and abused, that perpetrators had not been brought to justice, that the
Council had not been able or willing to protect them was not, with some exceptions,
at the forefront of many people’s minds.
27
RMBC had commissioned Professor Jay, provided her with the terms of reference
and indeed paid her to undertake her inquiry. But what we found was a case of
‘shooting the messenger.’ The attitude was ‘it’s not us at fault, it’s her report.’
As we highlight later in this report, RMBC’s Audit Committee risk register of
September 2014 cited Professor Jay’s report as the second highest risk facing the
council. It is striking that the risk identified focusses not on the problem of CSE or its
victims, but on the potential for ‘major reputation damage and loss of confidence in
the borough’ and ‘potential impact on inward investment’.
28
AN UNHEALTHY CULTURE
Inspection looked at whether there was an unhealthy culture in RMBC amongst both
officers and Members. Culture is hard to ‘inspect.’ However we conducted extensive
interviews where we asked about and probed into the relevant issues. Inspectors
came away with the impression of a place where some had outdated attitudes.
Several people commented to us that going into Rotherham council, despite the
impressive new council building, was ‘like going back in time’. This is also a matter
dealt with in Section 2.
Members
Historically, the political leadership of Rotherham faced little opposition in a solidly
Labour town. With limited political challenge, its culture became more embedded and
dominant.
Inspectors heard evidence of sexist, bullying or intimidating behaviour, attributed to
some of those holding leadership or senior roles. Key figures were often talked about
in interviews. Inspectors were mindful that sometimes people try to rewrite history.
However, some aspects came across too strongly to have been solely revisionism.
Roger Stone dominated the political scene in Rotherham from 2003 until he stood
down after Professor Jay’s report in 2014. He declined to be interviewed for this
inspection, but provided a personal statement to the inspection team in which he
outlined his priorities for Rotherham and his leadership. These included several
projects focused on encouraging regeneration.
Many interviewees agreed that his strong and decisive leadership had been very
important in driving through change. However, in the same breath, many officers and
Councillors reflected that he sometimes shouted and bullied to get what he wanted.
The move to what is called a ‘strong leader model’8 served to cement his hold over
the Council and ‘fitted his personality perfectly’.
Members and officers said the following:
“The last leader [Roger Stone] was a bully.” A former senior officer
“[Roger Stone is] also a bully in my opinion… In Labour group he would impress
himself on people, male or female. A lot of women have felt a sense of suppression
and macho culture.” A Councillor
“What Stone said, went. Everyone was terrified of Stone.” A senior officer
8 This model emerged from the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and removed the right for smaller
local authorities to retain their committee systems meaning that all councils have to be run either by a directly-elected mayor or
through a leader and cabinet.
29
“In council, the biggest culture shock was the level of power Councillors had over
senior officers. They would say ‘if they say jump, you ask how high’.” A key partner
He was clearly an authoritative figure. He would contest that he was determined to
drive through the projects that would be good for Rotherham. But that came at a
cost.
We were told that he decided what went to the council’s cabinet, and that issues
came to the Labour group only afterwards and then finally to a scrutiny committee.
“He didn’t want debate.”’ A former Cabinet Member
In addition, Jahangir Akhtar, Deputy Leader from 2011-2014, also featured as a
powerful figure in politics in Rotherham. The Labour group in Rotherham votes for
the Deputy Leader, and some we interviewed were complimentary about him.
However, several other Members, officers and others spoke about him with a level of
fear. Some were concerned when speaking to Inspectors that what they said would
get back to him. Even though he was no longer on the council, he continues to have
a presence and some felt he would be returning.
It was widely known that in 2003, Jahangir Akhtar had been arrested for assault
when he and his brother become involved in a fight in a restaurant. He pleaded guilty
to affray and was convicted. In 2013, The Times ran a front page story about his
historic involvement in the handover of a victim of CSE. After this, he ‘stepped aside’
while the police looked into the matter.
“No one was surprised by the 2013 articles… Nobody was surprised… Nobody was
surprised that he got suspended.” A senior officer
It appears little debate was had within the Council about whether or not he was a fit
and proper person to be a Councillor.
“The whole ‘stepping aside’ thing seemed a bit of a fudge - it wasn’t clear. No special
meeting was called. There was a Members’ meeting that he was present at…. After
[the police investigation]… he just popped back - there was no discussion.” A
Councillor
The problems with culture in RMBC are however wider and deeper than two former
Councillors no matter how prominently they are cited. There was a degree of obvious
factionalism both within the Labour group and across the Council and not enough
evidence of colleagues pulling together to take a new or fresh approach. Divisions
and back-biting were evident despite the serious events that unfolded in Rotherham,
not only within the leading group but across the political divide.
30
Sexism and bullying across the organisation
The problem of sexist and bullying behaviour came up across the organisation not
only regarding Members. Throughout the inspection, many female staff past and
present reported witnessing or enduring sexist behaviour from senior male
colleagues and from Members.
“One Mayor said that in his year of mayoral office it was his right to kiss all the pretty
ladies in the office – I remember thinking, ‘this is so Rotherham.’” A former senior
officer
“There was a crude, macho, sexist thing. It was disappointing that it wasn’t
challenged by the men I respected. I was told to put up with it.” A former senior
officer
“I experienced sexism at RMBC, and the choice is either to make a formal complaint
and possibly end your career, or find ways to deal with and just get on with it, which
is what I have done.” An officer
“When Professor Jay’s report came out, the one thing that we found funny, that had
us in stitches, was the idea that those old bunch of politicians could have a problem
with political correctness! Ha ha! They couldn’t be further from politically correct.
They were bullies, they were sexist.” A senior officer
“But I’m feeling that it’s more of an issue now than it was before. I’m on the receiving
end of it [sexism/bullying] now with the leadership team. Where do you go from that
then?” A Councillor
In relation to the former Leader Roger Stone: “I only went to his office once, and I
knew that I wasn’t going to get anywhere by raising things with him. It was common
knowledge that he wasn’t a fan of female Councillors – although he’s not against
women, he just sees Councillors as being men.” A former senior officer
Partners from outside the organisation also commented upon witnessing senior
officers swearing at other officers during meetings and people being told “you will do
that whether you think that’s right or not”. A key partner
This was a culture where bullying and fear of repercussions if you spoke out was not
met by any concerted challenge. However, some reported that the culture of
shouting and abuse had improved with the arrival of Martin Kimber as Chief
Executive in 2009, who attempted to stop people swearing in meetings. Martin
Kimber highlighted occasions to Inspectors when he had to press the Leader to
31
apologise after he had shouted at officers and some interviewees gave him credit for
that.
32
THE ‘RACE ISSUE’
“The issue [of CSE perpetrators] was predominately Asian men and they were
scared that would cause a problem. We would tell them that in the forums and they
were uncomfortable. Stats on ethnicity were taken out of presentations. There was
resistance to focusing on who the perpetrators were.” A voluntary sector worker
There is a small but established community in Rotherham which is of Pakistani
heritage which accounts for around 3% of Rotherham’s population. This is referred to
as ‘PHC’ in the Council, standing for Pakistani Heritage Community. Other ethnic
minorities, including the Czech and Slovak Roma, in total account for 8% of the
population.9 Inspectors heard evidence from a range of quarters that indicated
RMBC struggled historically and into the present day with the issue of race. It seems
that with an intention of not being racist, their ways of dealing with race does more
harm than good.
“Rotherham isn’t a very PC place, I think that is why the Council overcompensated
too much. It doesn’t want to be accused of being racist. It is known that this happens,
perpetrators have been known to say ‘I’ll use the race card.’” A former officer
Some interviewees talked about a historical context in which RMBC were concerned
not to do anything that might be seen as ‘offensive’ to a minority community.
“We weren’t allowed to hold forums near pubs because it might upset the Muslim
people…Muslim colleagues thought this was silly…” A former officer
The problem has been that that so called ‘political correctness’ has cast its shadow
over the actions in subsequent years.
“They (the politicians) wanted to use any other word than Asian males. They were
terrified of [the impact on] community cohesion.” A current officer
“[My] experience of council as it was and is – Asian men very powerful, and the white
British are very mindful of racism and frightened of racism allegations so there is no
robust challenge. They had massive influence in the town. For example, I know all
the backgrounds to the Asian Councillors… but don’t know anything about white
Members. Not about race only but the power and influence – the family links in those
communities are still very strong. Definitely an issue of race.” A current officer
Inspectors heard a range of views and thoughts from interviewees about attitudes to
race and culture that caused them concern and reinforced the conclusion that the
Council could not deal sensibly with the issue. Indeed, some Councillors held racist
9 Office for National Statistics, Census Data 2011
33
or wholly outdated or inappropriate views. Many of these views were known about
but not challenged.
“The girls, the way they dress, they don’t look 14-15 years old, the way they make up
– they look more adult. They go into clubs, get served in bars, It’s very difficult for
me, very modern dress…..They have been fooled definitely [men in Asian
Community]. The British Asians. If you have identified so many perpetrators, why
have there been so little arrests? They feel British Asians have been hit by Jay.” A
current Councillor
“They’re [people of Pakistani heritage] some of the nicest people you could meet.
But there are a dozen rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel, which you have to
keep a close watch on.” A current Councillor
“It’s difficult to ask questions regarding Pakistani heritage.” A current Councillor
There was a sense that it was the Pakistani heritage Councillors who alone ‘dealt’
with that community. Inspectors believe this is inappropriate. It would not of course
have reflected Rotherham’s equality policy or indeed the ‘One Town, One
Community’ campaign. 10
There was a view among Members that relations with the Pakistani heritage
community needed to be ‘brokered’ through the Pakistani heritage Councillors.
“I have listened to Mahroof and Shaukat. I’m quite happy to go into an Asian house
and deal with issues.” A Councillor
There was a sense that Pakistani heritage Members were handed a ‘community
leader’ role by white Councillors who weren’t sure or didn’t want to deal with the
issues around the Pakistani heritage community. They then were able to rescind
their responsibility for their constituents as a whole.
“They weren’t challenged in their views by other Members because they were seen
as the experts on Pakistani heritage issues…..” A police officer
The former Deputy Leader, Jahangir Akhtar, was sometimes seen to be able to
‘deliver’ on difficult issues for the council. Inspectors were told that he had been able
to stop young ‘Asian’ men coming out on the streets when the EDL wanted to march
in the town.
“Given the town’s problems with the EDL, someone with this kind of reach and
influence into the local population was extremely helpful.” A former senior officer
10 ‘One Town, One Community’ is a campaign with the aim of developing good interfaith relationships.
34
Pakistani heritage Councillors had and have (whether acquired or taken) a
disproportionate influence in the council, particularly on issues which appeared to
affect the Pakistani heritage community such as the taxi trade.
“I think what we’re probably talking about [is] the disproportionate influence one
particular community has, how it punches above its weight and the power these
politicians have.” A Councillor
Some claimed that Jahangir Akhtar’s influence extended to the police:
“There was once a situation where a girl from a Pakistani heritage family went
missing, they [Asian Councillors] went straight to the Chief Superintendent and that
influenced our operations, they held a lot of power.” A police officer
The key matter of concern here for Inspectors is that RMBC’s inability to talk about
race and the different communities in Rotherham had implications for their approach
to dealing with CSE.
In Rotherham, the phenomenon of CSE emerging from the late 1990s onwards
concerned a majority of white, female, adolescent or teenage victims and a majority
of Pakistani heritage adult male perpetrators. Early concerns raised about CSE by
youth workers and others had also repeatedly mentioned taxi drivers.
This predominant involvement of Pakistani heritage men was certainly the view of all
those who Inspectors spoke to who had been close to operational work around street
grooming and CSE in Rotherham in the previous 15 years. Victims shared this view.
Our review of case files and strategy meetings held about perpetrators and victims
as well as other information we came across, confirmed that perpetrators were
usually described as being Pakistani men. This was a matter of fact.
However the wider culture in Rotherham we have described meant that from the
outset the added dimension of the ethnic background of perpetrators was an
awkward and uncomfortable truth which, in the view of the inspection team, affected
the way that the Council (and the police) dealt with CSE.
“Everyone here will say it’s not a race issue, that white people abuse too. That’s true,
but there is a race issue here.” A social worker
“I got my knuckles rapped by [manager] on that occasion for mentioning Asian taxi
drivers… she had been told [what I’d said] was controversial and not to mention
ethnicity.” A youth worker
Staff perceived that there was only a small step between mentioning the ethnicity of
perpetrators and being labelled a racist.
35
“They were running scared of the race issue… There is no doubt that in Rotherham
this has been a problem with Pakistani men for years and years… People were
scared of being called racist.” A former police officer
On the ground, individual professionals felt under pressure. “We had specific
instances where taxis were involved [in CSE]. We tried to follow it up with taxi
licensing, but I can’t remember how far we got. We were constantly being reminded
not to be racist.” A former social worker
Another social worker recalled a strategy meeting about an exploited young person
where Pakistani heritage taxi drivers were referred to as “men of a certain ethnicity,
engaged in a particular occupation.”
“If we mentioned Asian taxi drivers we were told we were racist and the young
people were seen as prostitutes.” A former social worker
“…you couldn’t bring up race issues in meetings… or you would be branded a
racist.” A key partner
“The number one priority was to preserve and enhance the [Pakistani heritage]
community – which wasn’t an unworthy goal but it wasn’t right at the time. It was
difficult to stand up in a meeting and say that the perpetrators were from the
Pakistani Heritage community and were using the taxi system - even though
everyone knew it.” A former key partner
Frontline staff were clearly anxious about being branded racist. Whether there was
an element of self-censorship or otherwise, the impact of this was clear. The Council
was not dealing with a serious problem right before its eyes.
Certainly this was not limited to frontline officers. There was also a clear perception
among senior officers that the ethnic dimension of CSE in Rotherham was taboo.
“They wanted to use any other word than Asian males. They were terrified about [the
effect on] community cohesion. I got this sense from overhearing conversations
between [senior Member] and [senior officer] ….they were terrified of the BNP.” A
former senior officer
The background threat of the BNP (British National Party) or EDL (English Defence
League) exploiting the problems in Rotherham for their own divisive ends may have
been a rationale for not talking about the ‘race issue’ openly. But in fact this made it
worse. Even if at some point, by some people, this was well intentioned, it has not
served any positive purpose at all. It has in effect suppressed a problem that should
be dealt with openly and properly.
36
Staff in Licensing felt that some Councillors made representations on behalf of taxi
drivers. Councillor Mahroof Hussain suggested he had done this in his capacity as a
ward Councillor owing to the large number of Pakistani heritage drivers in his ward.
He states this may have given the impression that he was overly representing the
community or the trade and that he would not place undue pressure on officers.
Staff felt that Jahangir Akhtar and Mahroof Hussain suppressed discussion for fear
of upsetting community relations.
A police officer who spoke to us about a police operation said:
“We’d be at [community] meetings talking about community issues. When there we
discussed targeting taxi drivers and the Pakistani heritage community in relation to
CSE, we were even discussing particular families we had concerns about. These
members would push back. Neither believed the extent of the problem that we were
trying to communicate… They were saying to us ‘it will cause a lot of community
tension if they are targeted specifically’… We wanted their support…” A police officer
Other Members contributed to this silence:
“It’s difficult to ask questions regarding Pakistani heritage. Never got a response
from Stone.” A Councillor
“They weren’t challenged in their views by other Members because they were seen
as the experts on Pakistani heritage issues…” A police officer
Rotherham’s suppression of these uncomfortable issues and its fear of being
branded racist has done a disservice to the Pakistani heritage community as well as
the wider community. It has prevented discussion and effective action to tackle the
problem. This has allowed perpetrators to remain at large, has let victims down, and
perversely, has allowed the far right to try and exploit the situation. These may have
been unintended consequences but the impact remains the same and reaches into
the present day.
“People were afraid that they’d get into trouble if they said something that was
perceived as racist….that was probably why the issue had been allowed to escalate
so far, and that if someone had had the guts to stand up and say ‘I don’t care what
colour you are, that’s a child’, then maybe they could have dealt with it.” A police
officer
37
THE ROLE OF RISKY BUSINESS IN TACKLING CSE IN ROTHERHAM
Rotherham’s history of tackling CSE has been closely tied into Risky Business. This
was a small youth project established in 1997 in response to what was then called
‘child prostitution’. The approach that Risky Business took – in reaching out to
victims and in collecting evidence about perpetrators – was ground breaking.
In Rotherham, a group of like-minded professionals came together (some of whom
still work for RMBC) raising concerns about ‘child prostitution’, as CSE was then
known, and wanting to take action.
Based in youth services in the council, Risky Business provided outreach work to
girls and young women who would not naturally approach services for help. They
provided training and undertook preventative work by talking to children about the
risks and how to keep safe. The scale of their work depended on their funding but it
was always small, if not ‘shoestring’, consisting of around 4 to 5 full-time employees
at its height.
Around the same time, Irene Iverson established an organisation called Campaign
for the Removal of Pimping (CROP), now Parents Against Child Exploitation (PACE).
It was designed to support parents whose children had become involved in ‘child
prostitution’ and a campaign to get authorities to take action against perpetrators.
Irene’s daughter Fiona had been murdered in Doncaster. Irene always held two
people responsible for her daughter’s death: not just her murderer, but also the pimp
who groomed her daughter.
In 2001, CROP and Risky Business received Home Office funding to undertake
research on supporting the victims of CSE and collecting intelligence about
perpetrators to secure convictions. The project also developed training and support
for specialist foster carers, introduced a ‘stay-safe’ scheme to protect victims and
families from perpetrators at home, and developed the use of legal notices under the
Child Abduction Act 1984.
Risky Business developed a picture of CSE in Rotherham. Girls they supported gave
the staff information about where CSE took place and the people involved, including
their names or nicknames, the cars they drove, their friends, phone numbers and
involvement in drug dealing. Staff began to keep files on both the victims and the
perpetrators.
But while they could collect information and support victims, they did not have the
powers to tackle perpetrators or give the victims all the help they needed.
They needed social workers to intervene to protect the vulnerable girls. They needed
the Council to make the known ‘hotspots’ safer. They needed the police to tackle the
perpetrators.
38
Staff at Risky Business constantly and relentlessly shared what they knew with all
these colleagues. They produced maps which showed the places CSE was
happening, wrote reports on the victims involved, and drew on national evidence to
draw attention to what was happening in Rotherham. They met with social workers
and police to pass on relevant information about individual cases, particularly
through a ‘key players’ group, and later the Sexual Exploitation Forum. In 2004 and
2005, presentations were made to senior officers in the Council and to Members to
draw their attention to what was happening. By 2006, their work was informing a
council-wide action plan on CSE, and Risky Business was expanded.
Risky Business was critical to the success of Operation Central, a joint operation
between police and RMBC which ran between 2008 and 2010, and led to the
conviction of five men for offences including rape and other sexual offences with
children11. A ‘lessons learned’ report produced after this operation praised the role
that Risky Business had played. The report noted that there were increased
expectations on an already overstretched service and that an expanded multi agency
service should be formed around Risky Business.
Operation Czar which followed swiftly on from Operation Central was run very
differently. A choice was made that Children’s Social Care would take the lead in
working with the victims not Risky Business. The outcome was that the girls involved
would not give evidence and the operation was unsuccessful. Following this, the
murder of Child S and the subsequent Serious Case Review12 also had a significant
impact on Risky Business and therefore the treatment of victims and action on CSE.
This is dealt with elsewhere but the result was the closure of the Risky Business
service.
In 2011, Risky Business was moved fully into Children’s Social Care with the
apparent intention of bringing social workers into the project and creating a colocated,
multi-agency ‘CSE’ team. However, instead of adding to the team, the social
workers replaced the youth workers. The philosophy and approach behind the work
no longer reflected the youth work model which had been so successful in
supporting victims and in gathering information. The CSE team became an
amalgamation of separate services, located in the same place, but not integrated.
There is no longer effective, assertive outreach provision. The database of
perpetrators was removed and given to the police.
11 Further detail of joint police operations is described later in this section.
12 Further detail of the Serious Case Review is described in Section 2 and Annex A.
39
The strengths of Risky Business
Inspectors identified three particular functions of Risky Business which seemed to be
essential to an effective CSE team:
• They collected information about the victims and the perpetrators and
through this, had a clear picture of CSE in Rotherham. This was not police
intelligence but information passed on by victims. They were the only
organisation who systematically collected this information. It was regularly
passed on to police and council staff.
A former Police District Commander in Rotherham reflected to Inspectors that
intelligence and information is imperfect, and that police couldn’t always look
for clarity from people with complicated lives. They had learned from Risky
Business the need to deal with soft intelligence, rumour and concerns. In the
past the police looked for solid, actionable evidence, rather than fragments
that could be pieced together. He felt that if he had relied on the police
systems, let alone the Council ones, to feed him information, Operation
Central probably wouldn’t have taken place. In that sense, he said,
engagement with Risky Business was a ‘game-changer.’
• They developed relationships with the victims. The trust they developed
meant that the girls involved would talk to Risky Business staff, and staff in
turn encouraged them to talk to the police and Children’s Social Care who had
the powers to protect them. These relationships were vital to the success of
Operation Central.
• They took a proactive approach to finding victims. The girls involved in
CSE were girls who are traditionally labelled ‘hard to reach.’ These are not
girls who would approach public services looking for help. Risky Business
staff were prepared to go out and find them.
“What was happening with the girls was too complex, they were so at risk. Lots were
actually being abused. We were a youth project, we weren’t a child protection
project. That was social care’s responsibility. Our responsibility was to work with
them, not to do their job. Risky Business built great relationships with the girls. That
was their job. And they referred the girls, they always followed procedure in that
sense. But straight away, we were having issues with getting things done once the
information had been passed on. It was about ignorance and lack of awareness of
the issues. Resources were an issue: there was a focus on children rather than
teenagers. The girls weren’t easy to deal with. They were resource intensive. They
were expensive. For a long time, there was denial. There was a lot of: ‘Who are you?
You’re Youth Workers, that’s not your job’ and also, there was an issue with
40
managers, with higher-up police. You couldn’t talk to them. You couldn’t convey
information to them.” A current officer
But the strengths of Risky Business were actually considered weaknesses within
RMBC. The contribution that the youth workers made was not properly appreciated
or valued. They were not accorded the professional respect given to social workers.
Too often, the information they gleaned was ignored and not acted upon. They
spoke uncomfortable truths that no-one wanted to hear.
Risky Business and those that established it, supported it and worked alongside it
had, in the course of a decade, gone from a progressive and innovative project to
one that was marginalised, reshaped and eventually closed down.
The critical work they undertook is now missing from RMBC.
The uncomfortable truth of CSE
The demise of Risky Business reflects the ambivalent attitude towards tackling CSE
within the council. On the one hand, the Council wanted to be considered as a
national leader on the issue. To that end, RMBC held conferences, delivered
presentations at national and regional forums, and entered for awards. Yet on the
other hand, they refused to look at what was really happening in the area and
acknowledge either the nature or the scale of what was going on.
The inspection team identified occasions over the years where there were real
opportunities to broaden and deepen the understanding of CSE but these
opportunities were not only missed but closed down. Inspectors identified an ongoing
imperative to suppress, keep quiet or cover up issues relating to CSE which
stretched across the years.
This was a constant refrain from a wide variety of voices, including serving officers,
former staff, voluntary sector employees, police officers and Members:
“There was an attitude at the time of wanting to deal with CSE, but there was a
general feeling it was best done without publicity, so there would be no ‘bad’ publicity
to Rotherham.” A former senior officer
“x didn’t want (the) town to become the child abuse capital of the north. They didn’t
want riots.” A senior officer
As far back as 2001, a headmaster wrote to parents asking them to take notice of
the issue of CSE. This made national newspapers and witnesses said that he had
‘got in trouble for it’.
41
A publicity campaign to raise awareness of CSE among people in Rotherham has
consistently been part of RMBC’s action plan to tackle CSE since 2006. It has never
taken place.
“We put things to them, ideas for campaigns, but they were never allowed. I
remember in 2006/7, a campaign we proposed, they wouldn’t let us do it. They
wanted to give a certain impression (of Rotherham)”. A current officer
Having invited parents of victims onto the Local Safeguarding Children Board
(LSCB) Members found it difficult to ‘manage’ them and politely asked them to leave.
“I got a phone call from him ‘I think we need a chat, let’s just call it a one to one.’ I
thought it was to see how things were going. He told me to move on. He said, ‘we
think you’re rocking the boat.’ I did a resignation letter about a fortnight later.” A
Father of a victim
42
CHILDREN’S SOCIAL CARE FAILURE
Children’s Social Care in RMBC seemed to misunderstand CSE. From very early on
there was an unhealthy tension between the ‘social care’ aspects of helping children
at risk of or experiencing CSE and that of a youth or community services approach.
There are often tensions between statutory Children’s Social Care and youth
services. They have different roles to play and different responsibilities. In RMBC
however, the tension got in the way of looking after children.
The context is that, of course, Children’s Social Care has an important role in
tackling CSE. As corporate parents for children in their care and as the safety net for
the most vulnerable children they have statutory duties to protect children, to remove
them when they are not safe - including from their parents - and powers to provide
services to promote their well-being. Child protection work is framed within the
context of intra-familial abuse, or neglect of younger children or protection from for
example, domestic violence. Their expertise, procedures, systems and resources
tend to reflect that family context.
CSE presents a different kind of picture, which necessarily involves different
specialisms and expertise. The children are older. They are often seen as
‘uncooperative’ or ‘difficult’ or ‘hard to engage’. The process of grooming and
exploiting a child does not sit easily against an assessment process geared towards
protecting a young child in a family abuse situation.
Children’s Social Care did not have the monopoly on understanding how best to
tackle this form of child abuse. But this was something that they either did not
recognise or could not accept. Children’s Social Care services operated in a
straitjacket of assessments and thresholds which they were determined to fit CSE
into.
Inspectors were told of attitudes such as:
“[The] message was that teenagers can run away and babies can’t.” An officer
“There was an attitude that we had to protect the younger children first as they were
more vulnerable, and teenagers should be able to make their own decisions. And
there was an element of they are choosing to do this, getting into cars in the
evening.” A former officer
We also heard, as Professor Jay highlighted in her report, that abuse and neglect of
babies and younger children takes up a much higher proportion of Children’s
Services caseload.
43
'I know grooming goes on, and that there are gangs of males involved, but it seemed
to be an overreaction as most abuse happens within the home. It’s about percentage
too. If 1400 have been abused by Asian gangs, what’s that as a percentage of those
who’ve been abused in their home? I worried that we’d be taking our eyes off the
latter to focus on the former.” A Councillor
These attitudes and views survive into the present day and are dealt with in more
detail in Section 2 of this report.
Cases of CSE were not seen as a priority and they were also considered high cost. If
girls needed to be accommodated for their protection, placed out of area or in some
cases in secure units, this was seen as a strain on budgets. In particular, where girls
were trying to get away or return to abusers, so becoming more vulnerable, these
placements would not be seen as a good use of resources.
Over the years, Rotherham’s children social care budget was often overspent and
there was a significant pressure to keep the budget down. Financial pressures
should always be considered, but the issue for Inspectors was whether there was
evidence that decisions about children’s safety were unduly affected by financial
decisions.
We heard and saw examples of frontline social workers saying that out of area
placements would not be sanctioned due to costs. Over the years, and particularly
around 2009 and 2010, reports highlighted the significant costs of helping these girls.
Whilst the Council invested in Children’s Services in recent years, it has not properly
used CSE data to ensure their resources are adequate to meet their legal duties to
victims and those at risk of harm.
For girls who were involved in one of the few police operations, early strategy
meetings made it clear that “'The allocation of resources by both the police and
social care will depend on the demands and progress of the investigation; the
situation will be monitored. Resources are dependent on the young people giving
best evidence interviews. ”
The lack of understanding of CSE in Children’s Social Care meant they got the law
wrong, and they got the practice wrong. Inspectors judged that this constrained their
ability to help these children.
There was a professional jealousy of youth services by social care which was very
clear to the Inspection team. This attitude persisted despite the obvious contrast
between the power and size of children social care as opposed to a small team of
youth workers.
44
“The social care line was that these were non-social workers who didn’t know what
they were doing.” A former senior officer
“She [social care manager] was the professional, they were the statutory service,
who knew what they doing and we were just youth workers…. That attitude is not
uncommon, but is not generally seen to this extent. The roles are different, there are
tensions - and that’s not always inappropriate - but not to this extreme. My relations
with [social care manager] and [social care manager] were very frosty”. A former
youth service manager
“There was professional snobbery….. I was advocating for a young woman at a
meeting and I was just shut up, I was told that I could sit in the meeting but that I
wasn’t allowed to participate. That’s how you were treated.” A youth worker
The issue of professional boundaries was reinforced by a lack of understanding –
deliberate or otherwise – about the type of information gathered and held about the
girls and the perpetrators. The information that Risky Business had was deemed ‘not
good enough’ by both social care and the police. Information they passed on was
often discredited.
“We spent months gathering information… This was in response to the message
from Social Care, that we were making things up, that the problem wasn’t as bad as
we were saying… Risky Business used to record every detail we got from the girls!
We referred them all.” A youth worker
“I’ve sat in a meeting with police where they’ve said, ‘we need to stop making stories
sound worse than they are’.” A youth worker
‘the way in which [RB] collate and share information…. is very much embedded in
their status as youth workers and the approach they take to sexual exploitation is
similar to that they would take in incidents of anti-social behaviour or the setting up of
a youth club. That is by over time mapping out networks of young people and
identifying their needs and perceptions. Whilst this will fit with the intelligence
gathering model of the police it may not necessarily fit so well with the social care
model of thresholds and priorities.’ Serious Case Review into the death of Child S
The value of the relationships Risky Business staff had with the girls was discredited
by social care and the police. It seemed to Inspectors that this attitude betrayed a
real undervaluing of the relationships the project had developed with the girls who
were at risk of or were involved in CSE and, by extension, a real undervaluing of the
girls and their experience and the information they were providing. Staff were
discredited in both professional and personal terms.
45
‘This is the type of report I would expect from a student or newly qualified worker. It
places the writer at the heart of ‘saving’ the [young people] where all others have
failed. It shows v limited understanding of the complexity of psychological damage
associated with long term abuse, and takes at face value what the young person
says without considering the psychological overlay.’ RMBC comment written on
Risky Business report
46
WHERE WERE THE POLICE?
How the police dealt with CSE in Rotherham over the years was not explicitly part of
Inspectors’ remit. However, it was not possible to review what had happened in
Rotherham without also considering the police’s role.
For every victim, there is a perpetrator or multiple perpetrators for which the police
are responsible, particularly given the very serious crimes being committed. The
police are a significant part of the response that should have been expected in
relation to CSE in Rotherham.
The police were a constant presence in the development of services tackling CSE.
Police staff were present at the early ‘Key Players’ meetings, at the Sexual
Exploitation Forum and at strategy meetings about individual girls and in relation to
perpetrators. From 2002, there was a police officer who had a particular focus
on sexual exploitation. The police are also represented on the Rotherham Local
Safeguarding Children Board (RLSCB) and would therefore be party to information
reported in to them. They also participate in the Safer Rotherham Partnership which
received information about CSE.
Police would also have had access to intelligence reports on CSE in Rotherham,
including, from very early on reports by Dr Angie Heal, a police analyst based at
South Yorkshire Police. She noted the connections between drugs and sexual
exploitation in Rotherham. As well as two significant reports in 2003 and 2006, she
also produced six-monthly updates. This should have put the police ahead of the
game.
But between 1997 and 2013 – the period covered by Professor Jay – there were five
convictions of men sexually exploiting girls and young women. In 2007, a man was
also successfully prosecuted and convicted of offences against 10 boys, with 70
alleged victims identified.
The phenomenally low conviction rate came despite ‘ongoing police operations’
appearing as a continual theme in discussion of CSE at RMBC.
“…the message from the police was ‘we’re doing all we can, leave it to us, hold fire,
we’re working on it’. There didn’t seem to be anything ulterior.” A current Councillor
“Police always said: we’re on to it, don’t talk about it because we don’t want the
perpetrators finding out about our operations...they asked for things, and they were
told that it was a need to know basis.” A current Councillor
“[Director] stated that there were a number of ongoing cases with the police, who are
wary not to give away evidence on live issues…..this operation has been going on
47
for a long time, but officers may not have wanted to speak… for fear of blowing the
operation’s cover.” A current senior officer
Inspectors were left wondering what these ongoing investigations amounted to.
Because, from where victims and some organisations working with them stood, there
seemed to be lawlessness in relation to CSE in Rotherham. Perpetrators seemed to
face no consequences. Nor were their activities disrupted. Where perpetrators are
not tackled, they are likely to become emboldened and become more extreme in
their behaviour.
In one victim’s account, a police officer told her: “Nothing good will come of it. I’ve
seen your files. You lied about that man all those years ago.” He then pulled the
police car over and persuaded her to drop the charges against a perpetrator. After
ripping up some paperwork, he dropped her off at a restaurant where girls, including
victims of CSE, and suspected perpetrators used to gather.
Inspectors wondered if some of this inaction was rooted in the attitudes of some
South Yorkshire Police officers to the victims. They did not seem to believe the girls
or their families or those who reported problems. They did not treat them as victims.
“The girls were blamed for a lot of what happened. It’s unbelievable and key to why it
wasn’t taken seriously as an issue.” A police officer
“There was no awareness. The view was that they were little slags.” A key partner
“They didn’t understand the situation, and thought that the girls were happy, or
complicit in it. The sense was that if there had been any offence it had been by the
girls, for luring the men in.” A key partner
There were numerous occasions in which girls were not believed. They were
threatened with wasting police time, they were told they had consented to sex and,
on occasion, they were arrested at the scene of a crime, rather than the perpetrators.
Police did not understand the terror which many victims lived in and their consequent
fear of testifying and their anxiety over whether police could protect them. Some of
the crimes we were made aware of included rape with a broken bottle and girls being
ordered to kiss perpetrators’ feet at gun point.
“[X] was terrified when she was in the hostel. She got a text saying that if she didn’t
come out they’d shoot her. We called the police… Kids [staying at this hostel] are
always seen as naughty kids and you could sense it as the police were coming in,
‘oh, here we go again’. They said, ‘well why doesn’t she just switch her phone off?’ I
said if she switches her phone she’s going to be in massive trouble. There was no
understanding of the danger they were in. They were also saying, ‘right then, what’s
the number we’ll ring them.’ I said ‘No way, she’ll be killed!’ ” A key partner
48
Police failed to act on information given to them by victims and by Risky Business,
by parents and by schools and even by their own police intelligence. Risky Business
passed on all their information but were invariably told it was not good enough and
that it was information and not intelligence. When police actually looked at the
information that attitude changed, as evidenced by the successful police work that
went on around Operation Central.
“[Risky Business] produced good information. It wasn’t [their] job to turn it into
intelligence, that’s the police’s job. …. Out of the information, our analyst was able to
create a huge chart about the perpetrators”. A police officer
There was an absolute reliance on children to give evidence or cases did not
proceed (Abduction notices were served on perpetrators if girls did not give
evidence).13 In the view of the Inspectors, this placed an enormous, often impossible,
burden on fragile and vulnerable children who believed that these men were all
powerful. They believed that they could not be protected. Some of the police actions
suggested they were right.
From what Inspectors saw, South Yorkshire Police:
• did not use alternative ways to gather evidence
• did not use alternative strategies to protect victims
• did not make use of other tools and powers available to them
• did not work effectively with either the community safety or licensing arms of
the Council to develop strategies for tackling perpetrators
These are failures which continue to date and we address these in section 2 of this
report.
Even when evidence and intelligence was available, police did not follow this
through. For example, while five men were convicted of offences through Operation
Central, Inspectors established that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Around 80
perpetrators were identified through the intelligence and mapping of perpetrators
carried out for the operation. One police officer told us that he came under pressure
to hand the case on:
“….I think as a police service we could have done a better job. I remember having a
conversation with someone and I said, ‘what about everyone else on that chart?’ I
was told, ‘we’ve got to cut it off somewhere’.”
13 Abduction Notices are covered in Section 2 of this report, under Policing.
49
“From a policing point of view, back then if a girl said I’m not taking a complaint
forward then that would be the end of it… Back then we wouldn’t go look for crime.”
A police officer
Inspectors felt this summed it up.
Operation central and Operation Czar – Lessons learned
Inspectors reviewed two operations in relation to CSE. We looked at social care and
CSE strategy files and spoke to a range of individuals including parents, school
safeguarding officers, former Risky Business staff and police and social care staff to
understand what occurred.
Operation Central
Operation Central led to the conviction of five men for rape and other offences In
November 2010.
In 2008, safeguarding officers at Clifton Park School alerted Children’s Social Care
about one of their pupils. She gave them information about men she was seeing and
threats she was receiving and named other victims.
Files reveal that the four children who eventually gave statements to the police had
been known to Children’s Social Care for a long period. All were vulnerable girls with
troubled backgrounds. The girls were being targeted by different men and being
sexually and physically assaulted, threatened and abused. (Strategy meeting files
also indicated that 10 to 15 other girls were also discussed as likely victims).
Information provided by Risky Business to the police enabled a police analyst to
establish links between victims and perpetrators to help the police construct the
case. There were enormous hurdles to overcome before arrests could be
undertaken. For example, the girls only knew the men through nicknames and the
police had to check 500 phone numbers as part of the process. The children were
moved out of the area to protect them from threats. Risky Business provided ongoing
victim support in the difficult build up to court proceedings, to help the girls stick with
the process.
Nine months after the first disclosure, eight men were arrested. Charges included
rape and unlawful sexual activity with girls aged 13 to 15. Exemplary work had been
done by the Crown Prosecution Service, the police, Risky Business and Children’s
Social Care staff to support the girls in the eighteen months before trial. This trial
50
lasted two and a half months and was extremely traumatic for the girls owing to
relentless cross-examination by eight barristers. For example, the girl whose first
disclosure had led to Operation Central had to attend court for seven days running.
Understandably this caused her a great deal of distress.
Ultimately, the jury found one of the defendants guilty of rape, and others found
guilty of sexual activity with a child. They received sentence of 32 years in total.
Three other men who had been charged were cleared of all charges.
Operation Czar
As Operation Central was drawing towards a close, Operation Czar was starting up.
A review of social care strategy meetings on CSE reveal that throughout 2008 and
2009, multiple meetings were being held discussing 18 girls linked to one Asian male
perpetrator and up to three other males. Intelligence on perpetrators came from
information derived from Risky Business and a Safer Neighbourhood Team. In
December 2009 the police confirmed that they had created Operation Czar.
The sexual and physical violence being perpetrated on the girls involved was
extremely shocking. At one stage a girl had a gun put to her head.
File notes state: “the identified males are assessed as predatory violent and
demonstrating that they are prepared to bribe and intimidate victims/witnesses.'
At the outset, it was felt that Risky Business should have undertaken the victim
support work, as they had done so successfully during Operation Central. Many of
the victims had been working with Risky Business for some time and had established
relationships with staff. However, meeting minutes reveal that it was then decided
that Risky Business would not be part of the joint investigation team. Instead,
Children’s Social Care decided to set up a team of three social workers to support
the 18 victims to ‘provide consistency.’ The manager of this team also had to
continue her existing responsibilities, so was stretched very thin. Risky Business
were ‘taken off the case’ and it was decided to place those most at risk in care. This
was done without developing a trusting relationship or preparing the girls for what
would happen.
As a result, the message went round that ‘if you speak to the police, they’ll take you
into care.’ The girls then refused to give statements.
The operation was closed down just weeks after it had been set up. By March, police
resources were withdrawn.
51
Analysis of the operations
Inspectors judged that Operation Central illustrated what can be done when the
specialisms and expertise of different agencies and services are recognised and
harnessed to support victims.
The police and Risky Business worked closely together on the two vital aspects – the
relationship with the victims and based on that, the wider picture of the case. These
were vital to the success of the investigation.
“[Risky Business] brought me a huge amount of information to look at - it wasn’t
intelligence but there was lots of information. When you read the stuff you became
horrified. Clifton Park was half a mile from our office but if people didn’t know what to
look for they would walk straight past it.”
“...The lucky break with Central was that we were able to build a relationship. [Risky
Business] was really helpful, everyone contributed and we built the rapport with the
girls. I got a call [one day] from [them] saying ‘[victim 1] wants to talk to you’ and it
snowballed from there.”
Following the arrests (but before the trial) a Lessons Learned review was
commissioned by the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB).
The review identified the role of Risky Business: ‘what RB has achieved is significant
competence in specialist high profile and complex CSE work’.
It also emphasised however that Risky Business could not and should not be the
answer to everything to do with CSE. Therefore, Risky Business needed to be part of
a multi-agency setting which ensured that ‘the traditions of supportive youth work be
sustained.’
However, rather than following the approach adopted in Operation Central, and
building on the Lessons Learned review, social care staff took the different and
totally ineffective approach outlined earlier. The Lessons Learned report was ignored
and the available expertise was disregarded.
It was suggested that professional jealousy between Children’s Social Care and
youth services which shaped the attitudes to Risky Business lay beneath this
extraordinary change of strategy. Whatever the motivation, this action led to the early
collapse of the case involving very dangerous and predatory men. A case which was
expected to be bigger than Operation Central was thus doomed to fail before it had
even got off the ground.
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Inspectors did not see evidence of action being taken against the perpetrators in the
absence of ‘best evidence’ interviews from victims. Inspectors found no evidence
that any meetings were held to discuss why the operation had failed. Nor was a
Serious Case Review undertaken as would have been expected. No review of
Operation Czar was held, and there are no records of any discussions taking place
over whether a review was needed.
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WHERE WERE THE REST OF THE COUNCIL?
RMBC also let down victims. Inspectors saw little evidence that RMBC actually
challenged their police partners about the lack of prosecutions, or followed up what
was happening with ‘ongoing investigations’. Nor was there evidence that they had
raised the undoubted difficulties around getting CSE cases into court with the Crown
Prosecution Service.
Tackling CSE is a community safety issue. Street grooming was happening in the
community of which RMBC is the custodian including parks, takeaways, taxis, at the
Interchange14, in hotels, in houses, in alleyways and in the town centre. These are all
areas where the local authority has a presence and has powers and responsibilities
which could have contributed towards disrupting perpetrators and protecting victims,
such as injunctions and powers to tackle nuisance behaviour.15
These powers were not mobilised. Instead, it seems the Council accepted the police
assurances that they were undertaking investigations and left Children’s Social Care
and Youth Services to deal with CSE. This was an abdication of duty as neither
social care nor Risky Business had the powers, skills or resource to disrupt
perpetrators.
In Inspectors’ view, the Safer Rotherham Partnership and the Community Safety
Division of RMBC should have taken a much more proactive role in prevention,
disruption and enforcement action against perpetrators.
In 2005, the Leader of the Council called on the community safety partnership to
make tackling CSE a priority for the next three years. There is no evidence that this
was taken forward. Indeed CSE does not feature in the board minutes until 2008,
even after receiving the police and local authority priority reports (Joint Strategic
Intelligence Assessments) which highlighted CSE as an issue from 2007.
The Partnership’s Joint Action Group minutes in August 2011 note that an Action
Plan from a Sexual Exploitation Group would be presented at future meetings. This
was deferred three times over a six month period before a detailed discussion took
place.
This corporate failure extends to taxi licensing and enforcement who failed to use
their powers to tackle links between CSE and the taxi trade. Inspectors found the
licensing and enforcement sides of the taxi regulation service to be unable or indeed
uninterested in gripping the issue and using their powers to good effect.
14 A bus station located in Rotherham’s town centre.
15 This issue is addressed further in Section 2 of this report.
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Furthermore, the Council failed to make use of the information it had in front of it
which could have been used to support concerted action against perpetrators and
CSE activity. Information on CSE hotspots, on businesses of concern, on suspected
perpetrators and on the links between them were all available within the Council on
Risky Business’s information database. There was also information about
perpetrators and CSE in social care case meetings held under their procedures. This
information appears not to have stepped out of the files and gone any further within
the Council. The database was closed and handed over to the police in 2011/2 when
Risky Business became part of social care over concerns about its compliance with
‘data protection laws’. This information could have been valuable in tackling and
disrupting perpetrators.
Inspectors found this to be an abdication of RMBC’s duty to victims.
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TREATMENT OF VICTIMS
"It’s almost as if they were second class citizens...The girls were blamed a lot for
what happened. It’s unbelievable and key as to why it wasn't taken seriously as an
issue." A former police officer
The treatment of victims of exploitation by the authorities in Rotherham has been
historically poor in the extreme. In particular, their treatment by South Yorkshire
Police and the various professionals that work in Children’s Social Care has meant
that they have been failed in many ways. Ultimately, they have not been given the
attention, help and protection they deserved, and perpetrators have been left to
flourish.
Victims who bravely spoke to Inspectors alerted us to the irrevocable harm that has
been caused. They still carry what happened to them and are still suffering trauma.
In many of the historic cases we reviewed, girls had ended up having babies at a
very young age, some made pregnant by a perpetrator of CSE. These were children
having children who they unsurprisingly struggled to care for, although some have
managed well despite the odds. Many of their own children were taken into care or
were the subject of child protection measures. Many victims entered violent and
exploitative relationships as adults. Many suffered poor mental health and addiction.
Their experiences of exploitation and abuse need to be seen in the context of their
already troubled backgrounds. Many had suffered neglect and abuse within the
home.
Children’s Social Care attitude to victims:
The attitudes of Children’s Social Care towards the victims of CSE and consequently
the treatment of them over the years betrays a failure to adapt services according to
the nature of CSE, a disinclination to learn from past experience and a concerning
tendency to blame the victims for the abuse they had experienced. This report
covers current practice elsewhere.
Inspectors reviewed case files and carried out interviews with victims, the parents of
victims and the professionals working with those who had been sexually exploited as
children. Our aim was to understand what had happened to the girls and see how
they had been treated by services at the time.
A number of similar issues and themes emerged from the evidence in the files, which
point toward overall service failure:
• There was either no understanding of the law or a failure to apply it to the
children being abused;
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• There was no recognition of what CSE was, and how and why they should
intervene;
• There was huge inertia in dealing with cases which were left to drift for too
long, allowing the problems to escalate. When services did intervene, it was
often too little too late;
• Social care thresholds were too high so that children were not getting help
when they needed it. As a result their vulnerability and increased risk was not
recognised;
• There was a normalisation of pregnancies, miscarriages and terminations in
children under 16;
• The victims were themselves criminalised. There was no understanding that
their difficult and challenging behaviour was a manifestation of the
exploitation;
• Perpetrators were not pursued. Often they were believed over victims and
their families;
• There was no understanding of the level of intimidation victims were
experiencing and neither was this accounted for by professionals;
• Overall, there was inadequate recording in case files with no chronologies and
no case summaries.
“…they dumped her there, she has no money, no food and no one from social care
had been in touch' hostel in red light district, all adult women hostel, no staff at
weekends or evenings, no money, no food, no support.” A former officer
‘Child 3, aged 13, was found by the police at 3am…in a semi-derelict house alone
with a large group of adult males. She was drunk, the result of having been supplied
with alcohol, and there was evidence that her clothing had been disrupted. She
alone was arrested for a public order offence, detained, prosecuted, appeared before
the Youth Court and received a Referral Order for which the YOT arranged
‘reparation’, drug and alcohol counselling, art psychotherapy and victim awareness
sessions.’ Lessons Learned review following Operation Central
“Don’t worry- you aren’t the first girl to be raped by XX and you won’t be the last.” A
police officer to a victim
“I’ll never understand why they didn’t try and have a conversation with us to find out
why we were dropping the charges.” A father of a victim
“I was told the next day by social services what had happened and I asked ‘why are
you not following up’ they said ‘that’s for the police’. They [police] said ‘You need to
liaise with social services… There has been no mediation or support package from
social services, it has been forgotten and the care plans have nothing for the future.”
A parent of a victim
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The Law
The age of consent is 16.
A child under 13 does not, under any circumstances, have legal capacity to consent
to any form of sexual activity. Penetration of any kind would amount to rape which is
punishable by up to life imprisonment.
Any sexual activity with a consenting child under the age of 16 is unlawful.
It is an offence for an adult to communicate with a child and arrange to meet them
with an intention to commit a sexual offence against them, either at that meeting or
at a subsequent meeting. The offence is committed when the adult meets the child
or travels with the intention of meeting the child, or arranges to meet the child, or the
child travels with the intention of meeting the adult.
It is an offence to arrange or facilitate sexual activity with a child under 16.
The law is clear on what constitutes unlawful behaviour with a child but this was not
reflected in the attitude shown by Children’s Services or the police in Rotherham.
The following is taken from a case file of a child who was being groomed and
abused: K was only 13 years old yet the excerpts from her social care files plainly
show that professionals did not see her as a child and neither did they see her wholly
as a victim:
‘K has willingly gone with N, M and unnamed man in their car to a flat in XXX. She
has admitted use of alcohol and drugs and to have consented to sexual activity...’
‘... K gave information about N, M and Z who drove them around and taking her to a
flat in X. N put her in a bedroom and made her give blow jobs to about 5 men
sending one in at a time.’
‘... K presents as knowledgeable and aware of what she is doing, however, she has
problems sticking to her resolutions when offered the excitement... I suggest she
needs more appropriate friends and interests to fill her time.’
A section 47 report (an investigation when a child is considered at risk of harm) was
written which put the responsibility for K’s behaviour fairly and squarely with her.
There was no reference to her age and or that the sexual abuse was unlawful let
alone any understanding of grooming or sexual exploitation. It was clear that from
this victim’s care files that there were repeated attempts by the family to get
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protection and support for their daughter. Yet the documentation shows that the
social worker assessed that there was no statutory role for social services. Between
September 2003 and May 2004 the social worker made five home visits. No support
was offered. In the end her family ended up moving overseas to escape the
perpetrators.
The files Inspectors looked at made grim reading:
U is 15 and her case is referred from a Children’s Centre following concerns that
young person is at risk of CSE. It is reported there is a constant stream of older
Asian men coming to the house. Her sister has a history of CSE, her mother has a
history of domestic violence and her father is in prison. The young person is not
attending school regularly. A youth worker completes a CSE Risk Assessment and
rates her as low risk. The file note states that targeted family support work will be
offered when it becomes available. There is no strategy meeting, no multi-agency
discussion despite history and current risks. No support is being offered.
H discloses to her Learning Mentor that she has been assaulted by adult male and is
having sex with another adult male. Mother told to ensure all children are safe and
not allowed out. H is 13.
M had a termination at the age of 14 and was pregnant again at 15. She was
removed from her parents to protect her and yet was allowed by her foster carer to
continue the relationship with the perpetrator, even permitting him to accompany her
on holiday. There was nothing on the file to suggest that the young person may
continue to be at risk of suffering significant harm. Removing her from her family did
not afford her better protection and in fact enabled the perpetrator greater access,
K is 18 and exceptionally vulnerable. Concerns are reported that K has gone to
Oldham with 2 men known to be involved with sexual exploitation. Leaving care
services do not follow through. She is not reported missing and her whereabouts are
unknown.
G’s parents need help to protect their daughter from CSE. They inform agencies of
the circumstances, which include allegations of multiple rapes and threats of
violence. They desperately want support and advice. They are told by social care
that there was nothing they could do and that she had consented to sexual activity.
G is 14.
I is identified as vulnerable and is known to be sexually exploited along with other
girls. She is deemed high risk by police. As she has recently turned 17 she is placed
by social care in a hostel in a red light district in Sheffield. She remains there
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throughout the Christmas period despite police concerns. Social care say nothing
can be done until the new year.
Lack of swift action to protect children and pursue perpetrators
The following case involves three sisters, X, Y and Z, and is taken from their social
care files. This case exemplifies the failings of both the police and statutory agencies
to take swift and decisive action against known perpetrators of CSE against
vulnerable young girls. These agencies failed to protect those children despite pleas
from their parents.
Case of X, Y and Z sisters, aged 14,15 and 17
X Y and Z are frequently missing from home and drinking heavily. They are behaving
badly at home and in school. They are frequently in the company of older males and
females.
Rotherham social care decided that X and Y were children in need of a child
protection plan under the category of sexual abuse. A key worker was allocated to
them in August 2009.
A day later threats were made to kill X by one of the perpetrators. The police
interviewed X but did not act. Workers from Risky Business argued that X should be
placed in care out of the area given the seriousness of the threats. Instead X was
placed voluntarily in a local facility.
A parenting worker for the family states: ‘I have expressed...deep concerns about the
safety of both these children. I have asked again why they are not being placed in
care out of area. I have been told that it was down to money - no surprises really, but
just not acceptable.'
Y goes missing again in September. When she returns, the parenting worker is
there. She asks the police to conduct a ‘return to home’ interview with Y and serve
an abduction notice on the men she has been with. The police refuse, stating it
would all be logged as ‘intelligence’.
In the meantime, social care senior managers learn that the children’s parents have
told their MP that not enough is being done to protect their children.
At the end of September 2009 a strategy meeting is held. X is assessed at being at a
very high level of risk and Y is assessed as having '...been successfully groomed for
sexual exploitation purposes'. 10 other young people are also named as being
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victims of these same men. A note is made to see if X will talk to police.
Mum says she cannot protect her children. Y is missing every night and is returning
home with bites on her body. She has also been assaulted by an adult female.
In the face of continued inertia, a senior practitioner from the voluntary sector writes
to all the senior managers at RMBC and sends copies of her letter to the police and
a local MP.
The letter points out that a vast amount of intelligence has been shared by Risky
Business with South Yorkshire Police about the perpetrators but this information had
not been used to stop them. The letter challenges RMBC as to why, despite the girls
being identified as high risk, the Council had not placed them in care out of area for
their own protection. All professionals apart from social care agree this should
happen.
The letter then states, ' I am writing this letter to advise you… that children under
your care are not, in this instance, being protected from violent sexual abuse…[they]
are…associating with men and women known to the police and known to exploit
young people. I am confused as to why there is not more urgency regarding the
response to this… before one of these children or another get seriously hurt'
The letter also questions why the police are not doing more. They are not
intervening, not proactively watching the residential home where X is accommodated
and not arresting perpetrators.
X is not moved out of area until nearly three weeks later following a series of
escalating incidents. In the meantime 10 other children continue to be exploited. One
perpetrator is remanded in custody following a breach of his Sexual Offences
Prevention Order. No action is taken to stop other perpetrators.
A subsequent strategy meeting records that the 'males identified are said to be
predatory with information suggesting that they could become more proactive if
young people speak to the police. Different factions of the police focusing on these
males for different activities...' This explains why these young people are too
frightened to speak, given that there is information about these men in connection
with drugs, weapons and physical violence along with sexual attack on Z.
The girls do not give evidence. No action was taken against the perpetrators.
This case, and many other cases we reviewed, showed that there was no dispute
that harm had been done to these children. It was recognised that they had been
attacked, raped, and abused physically and emotionally. This resulted in
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pregnancies, injuries, complaints by parents, reports to the police, police surgeon
examinations. But the remarkable fact is that none of this galvanised action. The
failure to provide attention, help and protection to these children and prosecute those
that had perpetrated these crimes is all the more shocking because of this.
‘I noted two purplish bruises over the top of the lateral right thigh which were 4cm
and 3 cm respectively and a yellowing bruise approximately 10cm on the inner
aspect to the left thigh…Upon the posterior aspect of the right buttock there were
three linear purplish bruises approximately 9cm long.’ Police Surgeon witness
statement
‘A threatened D… and informed her he will rape her worse than he did B… E
confirmed A raped B.’ Email from police officer to Children’s Social Care, taken from
Section 47 meeting minutes
‘Other significant males: C (present when A attacked B) - left when bottle was used
covered in blood.’ Note from Section 47 meeting
However, upon talking to victims, Inspectors found that the lack of action – in terms
of professionals offering support and protection from harm, often combined with a
lack of police action – has left victims feeling that they weren’t believed or taken
seriously, or deemed important enough to be taken care of, or that they were to
blame.
The court process
Operation Central is rightly hailed as a success in bringing about convictions of
perpetrators. However, that was not the end of the story for victims. The criminal
justice process itself can be humiliating and terrifying for already damaged children,
and little support is on offer to help victims through it:
“I went to court I gave my evidence and they went to prison and you can read about
that in the newspapers what you didn't read is the time I collapsed before I was cross
examined and was sick, the tears the nightmares, checking under the bed and in the
wardrobe every night and the belief I may have done the wrong thing as no matter
what he had done I knew if I could just see him he would say sorry and it would be
okay, as maybe he never meant to hurt me. I have worked with risky business for
nearly three years now and last year I understood that I had been groomed and
abused but no matter how much everyone tells me all that no one told me how to get
over him I had loved him so much and thought he loved me too.”
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SECTION TWO: ROTHERHAM TODAY
1. IS THE COUNCIL TAKING STEPS TO ADDRESS PAST WEAKNESSES AND
DOES IT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO DO SO?
The inspection was directed to consider whether the local authority is now ‘taking
steps to address effectively past and current weaknesses or shortcomings in the
exercise of its functions, and has the capacity to continue to do so’ in other words,
whether the Council is fit for purpose.
We have been objective about where RMBC is today, but have also had to
acknowledge and recognise the long shadow of the past which is still cast across
much of what we found.
Background
Councils are expected to develop a strong vision for the place and the people they
serve, deliver good quality universal and specialist services together with their
partners, and to ensure both the highest standards of conduct and good stewardship
of resources. To do this requires strong political leadership by the Leader of the
Council and the Cabinet, supported by Members; and strong managerial leadership
by the Chief Executive and the Senior Leadership Team, supported by officers.
These leadership teams must also be working effectively together. The Leader and
the Chief Executive are jointly responsible for ensuring the Council is fulfilling its
responsibilities and that Members and officers maintain healthy relationships.
Judgement
To reach a judgement on RMBC’s overall leadership, governance and management,
we have inspected:
• governance arrangements
• how the Council operates
• how some vital services are performing
• use of resources
• the role and conduct of Members and senior officers
• the Council’s capacity to tackle the failings that have been identified.
Inspectors found that on paper Rotherham has reasonable arrangements within the
expected range. There is a constitution and codes of conduct, agreed decision
making processes, and arrangements for undertaking statutory, scrutiny and
regulatory functions.
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However, we found that the overall culture, the lack of a shared strategic vision, the
complexity of partnership structures and the lack of strong political and
managerial leadership at RMBC were severely inhibiting its ability to tackle failings
and lead the transformation of the borough.
Inspectors have concluded that the Council is failing and does not have the capacity
to address past weaknesses.
We do not attribute these failings to single individuals. They rest on the collective
responsibility of the Council's political and managerial leadership as a whole.
Through their action or inaction, many senior managers and Councillors have
allowed failings to persist over long periods of time.
The Council has taken some steps to address past weaknesses and in the last few
weeks there has been an improvement in pace. We note that an Improvement Board
has been jointly established by the Council and the Local Government Association to
provide oversight, support and challenge.
However, such welcome progress has to be viewed in the context of:
• no current shared strategic vision
• no permanent chief executive
• no cohesive senior leadership team and several key vacancies
• a structure which does not work and is being changed
• a weak and inexperienced Cabinet
• no sense of collective responsibility to tackle CSE
• a poorly directed tier of middle managers, some of whom did not demonstrate
that they had the skills, drive and ability necessary to turn the organisation
around
• a history of poor performance and a tolerance of failure in Children’s Services
• a denial of past failings.
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Leadership and Governance
The Council has many issues to address but lacks the necessary skills, abilities,
experience and tenacity within either the Member or senior officer leadership teams.
This judgement is based on the evidence we have seen, referred to in other chapters
of this report, about the way in which the Council operates and responds to
challenge, in terms of:
• the way in which it has responded to inspection outcomes and issues of
performance to date
• the way in which it has failed to tackle the prevalence of CSE
• the culture of the Council and its values
• Member and officer working relationships
• the management culture and performance of the Council's services
specifically Children’s Services and Licensing
• the inability of the political leadership to hold officers to account and for senior
officers to provide appropriate information to Members
• the inability of all Members to properly represent the interests of local people
and businesses, particularly by failing to effectively challenge to ensure
improvements in outcomes
Rotherham Council lacks political leadership in that it is not clear what it wants to do,
what kind of organisation it wants to be, and how it will get there.
The Improvement Board has recognised the need to articulate a clear vision,
supported by the right people, structures, policies, plans and processes. This may
mean being clear about what the Council will stop in order to do the things that it
wants to do. With finite resources, tough choices have to be made and determined
political leadership will be required to steer the Council through the current difficulties
and a further period of very significant change.
Whilst competence might be enough to do a reasonable job in a stable authority,
Rotherham Council needs outstandingly talented and determined managers to drive
the changes required.
Failure to listen, learn, challenge and improve
Since 2000, Rotherham has been the subject of regular inspection and judgements
by external assessors including OFSTED and the Audit Commission. Apart from a
brief period in 2005/7, these have indicated significant failings and weaknesses over
the period. In some cases, false assurances were taken from inspections, but
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significant concerns were also raised and not addressed. The Council has not used
inspection as a tool to drive improvement.
Too often, the Council has been content to settle for ‘adequate’ where in reality this
meant residents, including vulnerable children and young people, were not being
served well. The Council’s response has been to develop voluminous action plans
and monitoring reports. But there has also been a propensity for plans to slip or be
ignored and not be implemented at all, while monitoring reports are obscure and
over positive.
Inspectors saw regular reports to the Cabinet and Scrutiny committees, but not the
effective challenge we would expect from elected Members. The notion of challenge
has been misunderstood and misinterpreted as bullish questioning. Challenge
means setting aspirational targets, knowing how far to stretch the organisation,
asking searching questions, drilling down into information and data, ensuring targets
are kept to and agreed actions implemented. It also means recognising
organisational inertia and doing something about it; identifying when people are
struggling, finding out why and getting alongside them, overcoming barriers and
working out solutions.
Children’s Services have not been subject to appropriate challenge and have been
allowed to decline and fail.
Failure to tackle CSE effectively
The first part of this report describes how RMBC has historically dealt with CSE.
Inspectors have found an organisation which seems unable to face up to the reality
of CSE; unable to hold a frank and honest dialogue, either internally or with partners
and the community about the nature and consequences of CSE; and unable or
unwilling to take the action necessary.
Inspectors have seen evidence of meetings, reports, strategies, action plans and
operations for more than a decade and yet we met senior officers and Members who
expressed surprise at the scale and scope of CSE described in the Jay Report. The
numbers of children affected by CSE were regularly reported to various officer and
Member forums.
It is hard to accept that over these years no-one questioned the scale and scope of
CSE. No-one seems to have asked why there have been so few convictions of
perpetrators, nor what could be done about the perpetrators who were known to be
at large and operating in the community.
The Council's managerial and political leadership did not effectively challenge the
police on this issue. Nor did they take steps to identify what could be done to disrupt
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the activity of perpetrators and to prevent young people becoming victims. Where
concerns were raised, action was inadequate and, even today, too little has been
done to support historic victims who are known to the Council.
The culture of not following up actions had profound implications for the failure to
grasp the challenge of CSE. For instance, the former leader of the Council
personally chaired a task and finish group in 2005 in an attempt to tackle CSE. This
agreed a range of actions, such as a zero tolerance campaign, but officers never
implemented the plan. Three years later, Councillors commented that the 2008 CSE
action plan was almost identical to the 2006 plan with the dates changed and sent it
back. But even then, not enough was done to maintain focus and sustain progress.
Inspectors found that a contributory factor was the prevailing climate of concern for
community cohesion and the lack of clarity of leadership in terms of CSE and race.
In January 2015, months after the Jay report was published, Inspectors found the
support for victims to be sadly lacking. Whilst the Leader should be commended for
making additional funds available, the lack of a strategy to support victims, any
proactive outreach, and contact with known survivors is lamentable. Inspectors have
seen improvements in very recent weeks, thanks to new managerial leadership, but
it is unclear whether this will be sustained.
Poor culture and values
It is too easy to blame a single individual or small number of individuals for the
culture and poor public service values in some parts of RMBC today. Many of the
staff we met were exemplary and tried their best in difficult circumstances. Many
wanted to feel proud of the borough and felt ashamed of what had happened.
As outlined in section one, the former Leader and his Deputy were not universally
popular but did bring some positive dividends to the borough. Inspectors witnessed
too much retrospective political point scoring and scapegoating rather than the
necessary learning required to lead Rotherham to a more positive future. Too many
officers and Members have sought to apportion blame to others rather than to accept
responsibility themselves.
However, it was publicly known that the former Deputy Leader had a conviction from
2003 and had been subject to a further police investigation in 2013 although this had
led to no action. We heard that some Members and officers felt intimidated by him
and that he had made threats. He denies this. Inspectors heard that he had made
representations on behalf of taxi drivers to speed up the issue of licences in advance
of CRB checks. On another occasion, officers felt he had brought pressure to bear
on them which resulted in proposals to undertake unannounced safety checks on
taxis being stopped. They were replaced by checks after giving ten days’ notice and
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the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) withdrew from the plans.
Whether rightly or wrongly, some officers and Members felt they could not raise
matters relating to Pakistani heritage taxi drivers and perpetrators because of
community cohesion implications.
The former Deputy Leader was summonsed to court and had a liability order issued
against him for non-payment of council tax. This cannot possibly be seen as setting
the high standards rightly expected of those in public life. Two other Members also
faced action for non-payment of council tax.
Inspectors found that the conduct of some senior officers and leading Members was,
at times, inappropriate but went unchallenged. People claimed to have been shouted
down, silenced and intimidated. This undoubtedly had wider implications in terms of
what was seen as acceptable in Rotherham. However, we also note that the Council
received ‘Investors in People – Gold’ which indicates that in some parts of the
Council the culture may be healthier.
The management and performance of Council services
Inspectors found an organisation which is not corporate and which operates in silos.
The inspection has not been able to look at all services and we acknowledge that
some may be operating well. But there is no sense of shared ownership, particularly
of the difficulties facing Children's Services. This is clearly demonstrated in relation
to CSE. This is why the Safer Rotherham Partnership, the Council's community
safety, taxi licensing, regulatory functions and legal tool kit have not been used to
disrupt the activities of perpetrators of CSE in order to protect children. Too many
senior figures sought to distance themselves from the issue.
Despite the appointment of an excellent interim CE, even since the publication of the
Jay report we have found insufficient evidence of clear managerial leadership to
tackle the issues it raised, nor of political leadership to ensure officers were held to
account for delivering. The lack of a clear overall strategic vision has contributed to
the silo culture of the Council, and one where Children’s Social Care has been
marginalised. The complexity of the partnership structures, the profusion of
meetings, action plans and monitoring reports and the propensity to fail to follow
through on agreed actions exists beyond Children's Social Care. The culture of
'keeping your head down,' of cover-up, and the level of anxiety amongst those
interviewed was above what might normally be expected.
More generally Members blame officers for failure for progress and officers blame
Members for lack of leadership.
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There needs to be a shared ethos that no department or team can regard itself as
serving its community well if the Council is failing its most vulnerable people. All
parts of the Council must play a role in tackling that failure.
Can the Council tackle identified weaknesses?
Rotherham Council has failed to achieve and maintain an acceptable standard of
performance over the past 14 years. Corporate governance, leadership and
management have been mixed, improving at times but unable to sustain momentum.
Social services’ performance has declined from a high point in 2001 when it was
among the top ten performers in the country. Children’s Social Care maintained a
good but declining performance to 2007 when it experienced a significant decline
from which it never recovered. During the last seven years it has never moved above
an adequate rating which in modern assessment terminology would be seen as
‘requires improvement’. It hit a low point in 2009 when it was rated as poor and
subject to a government notice to improve. It managed to get itself up to an adequate
rating by 2011 and the improvement notice is lifted. It did not improve further and by
2014 had declined again into ‘inadequate’.
Conversely, over the same period, from receiving a highly critical corporate
governance report in 2000 the Council as a whole has improved at least in parts.
Inspectors asked themselves whether the corporate focus on improving overall, and
on winning awards for some services, has been at the cost of services for vulnerable
children.
It is also possible that the improvements in educational attainment, which in part
contributed to Children’s Services achieving adequate overall from 2010 onward,
masked the evident decline in Children’s Social Care. There are some key features
in the performance picture since 2009 which suggest that the notice to improve may
have been lifted too quickly.
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All of the concerns listed below have been found in this 2014 inspection. The table
shows when and how frequently they have appeared in the past.
Area of criticism Date(s) of inspection report
Lack of vision, leadership and effective
management
2000, 2002, 2009, 2013, 2014
Personal development reviews and
supervision
2002, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014
Core assessments for children,
procedures and timeliness
2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,
2014
Concerns re teenage pregnancies 2006, 2008, 2014
Weaknesses in social care
management/safeguarding
2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014
Plans, pace, not embedded 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Confused governance, too many groups,
confusion and increased risk
2009, 2011, 2013, 2014
Access Team 2009 (x2), 2011, 2012, 2014
Social care
capacity/resources/prioritisation
2009 (x2), 2012, 2014
Information/data/analysis 2009 (x2), 2011, 2014
Domestic violence 2011, 2012, 2014
The Corporate Governance Inspection of 2002 found it was: ‘Not always clear how
decisions are made…the quality of information provided to Members was observed
as poor. The Council operates in silos…We were unable to find clear plans to
reprioritise funding areas…the Council needs to be much clearer about what its
priorities are. There is no link between service planning and human resource
planning. There is not yet a climate of robust risk management. Financial
management is sound.’
These findings are identical in almost every regard to those of today’s inspection.
Recurring weaknesses have been identified in Children’s Social Care. The Serious
Case Review following the death of Child S, published in 2012 notes: inadequate
assessment, lack of clear and timely case recording, slow and inefficient response,
inadequate supervision and review, children not heard and risk assessment poor,
among 22 weaknesses. The author noted that all 22 weaknesses had been features
in previous Serious Case Reviews. And they remain today. Clearly Rotherham
Council does not use inspections to drive improvement.
Rotherham does not learn, even in the most tragic circumstances, and it has not
improved. Without sustained support and scrutiny, there’s a strong likelihood it will
fall back.
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Top to bottom – translating political leadership into action
Organisations as big and complicated as local authorities need to have some basic
arrangements in place to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
Plans and decisions
The Council’s approach to strategic and corporate planning is generally in line with
expected norms. The plans and strategies are much as you might expect on paper
but they do not connect with reality on the ground. It is the Council’s failure to drive
through its actions that makes Rotherham stand out.
One illustration of this disconnection between vision, plans and practice is the
Council’s equalities plan and single equality scheme. The documents are clear,
aspirational and include a summary of good practice. However, we found that this
was not rooted in the day-to-day experience of staff. We set these matters out in
more detail elsewhere in considering political correctness and race. The point here is
that whilst plans and policies look appropriate, or even good, they bear little
relationship to what inspectors found at the frontline.
There are too many plans and priorities and these are insufficiently connected to
each other or day-to-day operations. Where decisions are made, there is insufficient
oversight to ensure they are acted upon, or have the desired effect. Inspectors found
evidence that Member decisions were sometimes ignored, and plans just left on the
shelf.
Plans disconnected to staff
Inspectors were told that in Children’s Services only “60-80% of staff are having
Performance Reviews, with HR spot checking more than anything”. Inspectors did
not find this to be at all adequate. We would expect the vast majority of staff, with
few exceptions, to be having performance reviews so they know what is expected of
them and how their work contributes to the delivery of the Council’s plans. Inspectors
concluded that some staff did not understand the Council’s vision; a number were
clearly confused about what was expected of them and this hampered their
performance in terms of day-to-day service delivery.
Plans not delivered in a timely way
Across the Council’s plans, we found many examples of slippage, which
demonstrate that there was, and is, inadequate managerial and political oversight of
key deliverables. Reporting arrangements to the senior leadership team are not
adequate and scrutiny of performance data by Members is not systematically
ensuring that slippage is picked up and officers appropriately called to account.
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Where slippage directly relates to capacity (human or financial), and we saw
examples where this was cited to be the case, then Members need to understand
the deficit and be presented with realistic options to enable them to prioritise
effectively. They also need to step up to the mark to make sure they fully understand
what is happening.
Reports are poor; Member challenge is ineffective
Inspectors found very little evidence that service failings were identified and
addressed. The signs that Children’s Social Care services were failing had been
there for a very long time but the senior leadership team did not act, and Members
did not look hard enough. We saw some evidence that some officers sought to keep
Members at arms-length, and direct them away from concerns.
Certainly, officer reports did not always present the facts in an easily accessible way,
sometimes failed to set out the full position and at times could be seen as
misleading. We considered that Members did not ask probing questions to get
underneath the skin of reports and data.
An example would be the Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board (RLSCB)
report on the subject of CSE considered by Rotherham’s Cabinet on 24th September
2014. Inspectors found that the document was neither easily accessible nor written
for a lay audience. It was partial and assumed prior knowledge of issues. The report
was not engaging. It did not seek Members’ views, or present options. Instead, it
encouraged Members to accept the recommendations of officers without proper
scrutiny of the facts.
Omitting all details, one line states that ‘all of the recommendations of the Jay report
have been incorporated into the CSE plan and will be subject to future progress
reports’. This approach does not afford Members the opportunity to review the CSE
plan, nor scrutinise how the recommendations have been included and, crucially,
whether the actions proposed are likely to be effective.
Inspectors also found the critical analysis provided by officers in this report was poor.
There were no milestones, timescales, benchmarks, evaluation or reporting on
progress. This was also true in terms of data, which inspectors found was presented
without any detailed analysis or explanation, nor with any real sense of scale, trends
and whether things were getting better or worse. Moreover, the CSE data presented
is partial: for example, indicators of triggers for CSE, including absence from school,
and children accessing mental health services, are not included.
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Monitoring and reporting is inconsistent and, at times, weak
Monitoring and reporting on plans is inconsistent. Officers sometimes painted too
positive a picture of Council performance, or omitted important facts in their reports,
that might have led to greater awareness and scrutiny by Members. For example,
the monitoring report to the Self-Regulation Select Commission on 5th September
2013 on Corporate Plan Outcomes, outturn 2012/2013 reports that 'all children in
Rotherham are safe'. The indicators are green throughout the year. There is no text
explaining how this has been measured.
Figures for domestic violence in the borough are very high and are a known concern.
A series of articles in The Times have raised serious issues about the Council’s
safeguarding arrangements. Inspection reports point to repeated weaknesses in
Children’s Services. Inspectors are therefore at a loss to understand how anyone in
the Council, officer or Member, could accept without challenge a report stating that
‘all children are safe.’
‘People have to understand the role of Members and put governance arrangements
in place which allow Members to fulfil their [leadership and scrutiny] roles.’ A
member of the Improvement Board
Questionable priorities
The Council has not got its priorities right. It puts resources into pursuing awards
when it should be focussing on sorting out the basics. In March 2014, the CSE Team
received an award from the National Working Group Network for ‘the longest journey
under challenging conditions’. We found this extraordinary given the failings in its
core business. Performance in Children’s Services as a whole has not been above
adequate, in other words, meeting the minimum standards, since 2010. Surely this
woeful position should have been the focus of leadership and management rather
than window dressing.
“Badges and awards seemed to be important to the organisation, and they would put
resource into pursuing them – something that seemed a bit out of sync with the
overall reflection of the Council.” A former officer
Loss of public trust and confidence
Rotherham needs to restore public trust and confidence. The need for change has to
be accepted before change can begin. Those closely associated with past failures
need to let others make a fresh start.
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Inspectors judged it important to consider what knowledge Members had about the
CSE issue and what their responsibilities were at any given time over the period that
Professor Jay investigated.
For more than a decade, there have been reports and updates about CSE. These
outlined the nature of CSE, how it was being tackled and the numbers of victims or
young people at risk known to Council services. There have been dedicated CSE
workers employed by the Council throughout this time. The Council has
commissioned at least three external reports into CSE and has multiple internal
reports and plans.
In 2004, the Chief Executive directed the Executive Director of Children and Young
People’s Services to commission the ‘Report on Organisations Delivering Services to
Young People with Experience or at Risk of Experiencing Sexual Exploitation’. The
findings of this report caused the then Leader Roger Stone to commission a Sexual
Exploitation Task & Finish group – consisting of six Councillors and five senior
officials – to get CSE ‘sorted’.
This group held meetings throughout 2005. In 2006, the Children and Young
People’s Scrutiny Panel reviewed a CSE action plan and covering report, in which
the vulnerabilities of looked after children and children in foster care were
highlighted. The Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel and Rotherham Local
Safeguarding Children Board considered progress on the CSE action plan in 2007
and 2008 – although it changed very little throughout this time – and received
updates in 2009. In 2010, the Safeguarding Board established a specific CSE subgroup.
Across the years we found many positive plans, statements of intent and agreed
actions to improve services to deal with what was recognised as a significant
problem as early as 2004. However, while reviewing these reports, a pattern
emerged of plans and reports being the only response to the problem. Nothing much
changed on the ground.
We do not accept that Councillors with a long history in Rotherham did not know
about the scale and extent of CSE. We conclude that they did not act.
The current Leader was the Lead Member for Children’s Services from 2010 to
2014. We found him to be a decent, committed and hardworking Councillor. He has
provided additional funding for victims of CSE (even if we do not find the current offer
to be good enough).
However, we have found that he was aware of CSE, including Operation Central,
and had sufficient opportunity to uncover and act on the scale of the problem. We
acknowledge that he was poorly served by officers, but nevertheless, he could, and
should have done more, sooner.
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As Lead Member, he also knew about the long-standing weaknesses in social care
and safeguarding but did not ensure improvements were delivered and maintained
on a sufficient scale. The fact is that Children’s Services have not been better than
adequate, and have declined under his watch. As Leader since the Jay report, we
have found he has not given sufficiently strong and visible leadership, or put in place
a coherent strategy to deliver improvements, support victims, tackle perpetrators or
restore public confidence.
Overall, Inspectors have not been impressed with the calibre and grip of leading
Members. We have reluctantly concluded that they cannot be left on their own to
lead the Council out of its current responsibilities.
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Scrutiny and Standards
“It is effectively a club which can’t be challenged.” A key partner
In undertaking this inspection, the inspection was directed to consider whether the
local authority allows for adequate scrutiny by Councillors. We have already
commented on whether scrutiny takes place as part of the day to day operation of
the Council (in other words, whether there is sufficient rigour and challenge in the
exercise of its duties) and we have concluded that it does not. This section looks at
the form and effectiveness of the Council’s formal scrutiny arrangements.
Rotherham has an Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB) that draws
up the scrutiny work programme in conjunction, produces the annual report and then
receives reports back on progress and final reports of major reviews that they
undertake. The OSMB would also hear any call-ins. In addition, it undertakes an
annual project with the Youth Cabinet. There are four Select Commissions which
report to the OSMB which are
• Self Regulation (covers financial strategy and budget decisions)
• Health (includes the statutory role)
• Improving Lives (covers children and adult social care and schools);
• Improving Places (covers the physical environment).
Overall, the Council has an adequate structure in place and some individual pieces
of work have been effective. It has some examples of good practice including
undertaking work with the Youth Cabinet to review the issue of self-harm.
However, it is not clear how effective it has been in holding Cabinet Members and
senior officers to account for their individual performance and decision-making.
Inspectors could not find much evidence of how scrutiny had changed practice or
policy making.
In March 2013 the OSMB, the Cabinet and the Management Team met together to
draw up the work Programme for 2013/14. This is good practice. It is unfortunate
therefore that we did not see evidence that this happened 2014/15.
Inspectors reviewed two years of OSMB papers and minutes, plus the work of the
Improving Lives Select Commission. OSMB meets regularly, with reasonable
attendance and agenda range. They seem to adhere to the work programme of
reviews. OSMB has a standard item of report updates from the four Select
Commissions. Chairs of the commissions attend for their items as do some Cabinet
Members.
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The call-in procedure requires six Members to sign a call-in request. This seems too
high a threshold for a Council which only has small opposition groups.
Inspectors could only find one call-in which is not surprising. You would not expect
the Labour Members to call in their own decisions when they have other ways to
raise issues. The call-in was from six UKIP Councillors in July 2014 concerning a
decision to be part of a four Council broadband project. The call-in was heard at
OSMB which spent some time on the issue. This seemed appropriate given the
risks.
The Improving Lives Select Commission has had CSE in its work programme for the
past two years and the issue was regularly considered. The meeting in January 2014
was devoted just to CSE and there was a strong turnout of Members and all partner
agencies attending. The meeting considered the report of the chair of the LSCB and
a suite of the other reviews and reports. Whilst it is clear that matters were
considered in some detail, it is much less clear what happened as a result.
Inspectors saw little evidence of impact.
“We were asking for stuff but we weren’t getting it. I felt like it was a real battle to get
information.” A Councillor
It's difficult to know how Member led the scrutiny function is and to what extent it is
challenging Members as well as officers. Overall, whilst it appears to be a very active
programme and within the normal range you would expect in terms of effectiveness,
there are some concerns.
Senior officers described a difficult relationship with overview and scrutiny, a lack of
detailed information to back benchers, and an in-built self-regulation of the process.
Senior Members admitted that Cabinet has been unprepared to release information
to scrutiny. At one point there was an instruction – lasting five months - that no
information could be given to scrutiny without the agreement of the Lead Member.
“The Cabinet had failed in not scrutinising themselves enough”. A leading Labour
Councillor
Inspectors concluded that overview and scrutiny had been deliberately weakened
and under-valued. The structures and processes look superficially adequate, but the
culture has been one where challenge and scrutiny were not welcome.
“People did feel fearful of attending the scrutiny board and intimidated in Council
meetings.” A senior officer
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Where Councillors have scrutinised other agencies, eg aspects of health, they have
been more effective and robust. However, not enough Members really know how to
get underneath information presented by officers, and the organisation has not
properly resourced and facilitated effective scrutiny. It was generally acknowledged
that the scrutiny team was small and disconnected from the Senior Leadership
Team.
The fact that Members’ services are provided informally and are in the gift of each
director leaves the Member position weak and further discourages effective day to
day challenge. Clearly, if scrutiny is unwelcome and only funded at the behest of
those being scrutinised, it is unlikely to be effective. This is not a reflection on the
officers who support the scrutiny function. In fact, despite all the barriers we found
them to be passionate about the value of scrutiny and doing their best despite
obstacles in the path.
Whilst the opposition in Rotherham is small, we saw limited evidence of them raising
concerns and putting pressure on the leadership. In terms of CSE, we could not find
evidence that the opposition had been at all effective in scrutinising and challenging,
or active in getting the matter on the agenda.
Member Standards of Conduct
Member conduct is vital as it is at the heart of what is expected of those in public life
and holding public office.
In Rotherham, with its chequered history, visibly demonstrating high standards in
public life really matters. They need to be squeaky clean.
The Council’s arrangements are generally in line with those of Councils across the
country. It has an appropriate constitution, decision-making and delegation
framework, and committee structure.
However, the Council has some features which are more specific to Rotherham and
worthy of note. Taken individually they may seem minor, but taken together and
viewed in the context of Rotherham’s past, they suggest a culture of patronage and
an unwillingness to tackle unacceptable conduct by some Councillors.
Cabinet advisors:
The Leader may appoint Cabinet advisors who receive a special responsibility
allowance. On average up to three such appointments have been made for each
Cabinet role. Large numbers of Members are therefore receiving an allowance. In
2011, the Independent Member Remuneration panel recommended that the
provision of allowances for these roles together with vice chairs of committees
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should cease. The Council did not accept this recommendation but the reasons for
this are not recorded.
Although there is nothing improper about Rotherham’s arrangements, they have led
to a perception of ‘grace and favour’ and patronage including among leading
Members.
Members’ allowances:
The remainder of the scheme for Members’ allowances is fairly standard. The basic
allowance at £12,130pa is higher than the London basic rate but it is adjusted in line
with staff pay (so has been reduced by 1.5%). This seems reasonable although it
remains on the generous side.
The Monitoring Officer role:
The Monitoring Officer has a specific duty to ensure that the Council, its officers and
its elected Members maintain the highest standard of conduct in all they do. The
Monitoring Officer has a duty to write a report if he/she considers that any proposal,
decision, or omission made by, or on behalf of the Council, is illegal or would be
illegal. This is not a duty to write a report every time an allegation of illegality is
made, but only if in his/her personal opinion that it did, or will occur. Inspectors were
not made aware of any Monitoring Officer reports.
There is a culture where the opportunities to identify potential problems of
governance or adherence to the code of conduct are missed. Inspectors found a
general lack of professional curiosity or tenacity to grasp issues. For instance, we
found that while there is a gifts and hospitality book for Members, no-one has the
responsibility for taking an overview of the content and checking compliance.
Therefore it is not routinely done.
Inspectors examined the register of Councillors’ interests. In one instance we noted
a potentially serious irregularity which we have raised with the CE so that the matter
can be clarified or otherwise dealt with. Again, there was no systematic routine
checking.
We observed that the Monitoring Officer role could be stronger and better resourced,
especially given concerns about Member standards and behaviour. We are pleased
to note that the Monitoring Officer now sits on the top management team.
Non-payment of Council Tax:
Following concerns raised by a whistle-blower, we found evidence that over the
years, there are instances of Councillors not paying Council tax bills until reminders
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or summons are issued. In some cases the Council has had to seek liability orders
from the Magistrate’s Court before payment arrangements have been secured from
Councillors.
Inspectors found this to be entirely out of keeping with the conduct expected of those
holding public office and deeply damaging to the reputation of Councillors and the
Council. It is a matter that political leaders must address. In addition, the Monitoring
Officer should ensure that all Councillors’ Council tax accounts are checked prior to
the Council tax setting meeting to ensure compliance with legal requirements on no
arrears over two months.
The former CE told inspectors:
“I have found many officers and elected Members at all levels who have always
conducted themselves professionally and with the appropriate demeanour in
accordance with officer and Member codes of conduct. On some occasions there
have been a small number that did not always have the same high standards.”
CRB and DBS checks
Inspectors looked to see whether Members had been subject to appropriate CRB
and DBS checks. Since the introduction of the CRB regime in 2003, very few
Councillors had been checked in the role of ‘Councillor’ or ‘Elected Member’. We
found that Members had decided not to submit themselves to such checks, against
the CE’s advice.
Some Councillors have been checked in order to sit on the fostering and adoption
panels but the majority of checks, and certainly all the recent DBS checks, have
been carried out at the behest of the schools or other responsible person in the
recruiting organisation for the role of governor or volunteer. The Council is compliant
with the minimum requirements of the DBS regime and has clearly chosen to take a
light touch. However, there has been no historic, systematic checking of Members
who had access to vulnerable children.
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Senior Management of the Council
“We need your help… point us in the direction of what we need to be doing.” A
senior manager
During the inspection:
• the CE left and an interim started
• the Strategic Director for Neighbourhoods and Adult Services (NAS) took
early retirement at short notice
• the Director for Schools and Lifelong Learning left
• the former Leader resigned from the Council
• a government appointed Children’s Commissioner started
• a new Director of Children’s Services was appointed; and
• an external Improvement Board started to meet once a month to provide
support.
The Children’s Commissioner, Malcolm Newsam, was appointed by the Department
for Education to help Rotherham improve the performance of Children’s Social Care
and safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Inspectors were impressed with
his evident capability and are confident that he will play a major role in helping to set
Children’s Services on the right course. He will chair the Children, Young People and
Families Improvement Board, which met for the first time in January 2015.
The interim CE, who is in post until May 2015, has made a good start in stabilising
RMBC and filling key vacancies. Inspectors were pleased to see early work on a
restructure, an improvement plan and the addition of the Director of Finance and the
Monitoring Officer to the Senior Leadership Team. We also welcome the newly
created post of Director of Resources. Without it, the centre has been weak and
unable to effectively regulate other parts of the organisation. This should introduce
strong leadership to the corporate function, which is essential as effective HR, legal,
finance and communications services are all needed to help RMBC transform.
RMBC has managed budget reductions by taking the path of least resistance and
letting volunteers go. This has delivered the numbers, but at a significant cost. There
has not been clear planning for the future, so good people have been allowed to
leave even though their skills and talents were required. The Council needs to
manage its budget while also investing in talented people and vital services.
Inspectors have met some committed and dedicated third tier officers. However, the
Council does not have the managerial capacity to lead its way out of the present
difficulties. This has been compounded in the short term by resignations and
departures, though in the medium and long term this turnover was no doubt
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necessary. Inspectors were pleased to note that additional managers had been
seconded in to shore up Children’s Social Care, together with a significant
investment in additional frontline social workers.
“We have lost our way.” A current officer
Inspectors found that the Senior Leadership Team did not sufficiently look at the
quality of operational delivery, operational service risks or issues. Some services in
Rotherham are improving and winning accolades and awards, but Children’s Social
Care has been allowed to fail without effective monitoring and intervention. Senior
managers pointed to these achievements in interviews as a means of ‘balancing’ the
picture overall. We believe this is unhelpful. The scale of the failings in Children’s
Services cannot be weighed in the balance against even the most outstanding
performance elsewhere. No council can be deemed to succeed if its Children’s
Social Care services are so inadequate. Officers’ failure to grasp this point was a
real concern to Inspectors. However, we include in Annex B a number of the
Council’s achievements which were highlighted by the outgoing CE and Leader.
Issues in Children’s Social Care have not had the prominence and priority they
should have across the Council. CSE does not appear to feature strategically,
operationally or even as a risk until 2013/14. From 2010, each annual report notes
pressures on the Children’s Services budget and changes being made to get it under
control. But the senior leadership team did not take corporate responsibility for
ensuring issues were addressed.
Inspectors conclude that the CE, the Strategic Director of Children’s Services and
the Senior Leadership Team, as the team responsible for ensuring a good standard
of performance across the Council’s services, have collectively failed in recent times.
The failure to properly challenge and scrutinise data, and to intervene where
services were in decline, has had significant consequences for children and young
people in Rotherham.
By not tackling CSE effectively, senior officers have failed children and young
people, in particular the victims, and allowed the present difficulties to prevail. This
failure to act has had wider consequences, including the recent marches by the EDL
and a reported rise in racial abuse for the Pakistani heritage community, and taxi
drivers in particular.
Finance
Inspectors interviewed the Director of Finance, Monitoring Officer, Director of HR,
external Auditors, other staff and Members, including the Deputy Leader who holds
the Resources portfolio. We also attended the Improvement Board when it
considered the Council’s financial strategy and reviewed financial plans, audit plans
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and a sample of audit reports. We looked at identified weaknesses in more detail
through case file sampling and further interviews.
The Council has appropriate arrangements in place for planning and managing
resources. This is confirmed by annual returns and the audit of accounts. Finance
staff should be commended on ensuring that significant budget reductions in recent
years have been delivered in a timely manner. They have done a good job to
balance the books and deliver relative financial stability. Our summary of the
Council’s financial position is in Annex C.
However, Inspectors found that the overall approach to finance planning was not
based on a clear and political strategic vision. The Improvement Board recognises
this and is working to develop one.
In the absence of this vision, the budget process has been led by finance. All
departments were asked to find a quota of savings, with some protection for frontline
services. This approach has delivered the bottom line, but with serious
consequences. For example, some services no longer have the capacity to function
effectively. We were particularly concerned about the level of funding for central
regulatory functions and those which will drive transformation, like legal services,
organisational development, strategy, and resources to ensure community cohesion.
RMBC did invest in Children’s Social Care during recent years but did so without
really understanding what was driving demand. They lacked, and still lack, the data
to make robust decisions. But they did not address this.
The budget process has not sufficiently considered the overall impact of reductions.
Instead, each cut has been considered in isolation. This has allowed significant
weaknesses to emerge in Children’s Social Care and possibly elsewhere.
“The leadership have already recognised that in many aspects the Council is not fit
for purpose, the approach to the budget of salami slicing is not going to be
sustainable.” A critical friend
Inspectors were made aware of a number of rumours relating to grant giving,
regeneration, and the failures of the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO)
and the BT contract. We were not able to investigate these in any meaningful way
given the time available but were reassured by the auditors that they were satisfied
with the Council’s affairs.
Human Resources
Inspectors tested human resources processes in action. We selected as an example
CRB/DBS checks to ensure that vulnerable people are protected from any unsuitable
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staff. Inspectors reviewed policies, procedures, the posts identified for checks and
then selected staff files at random and without notice.
Ten files were sampled (six individuals in social care and four in Neighbourhoods
and Adult Services). Seven files passed on first inspection, where a screen shot of
an up to date CRB/DBS check was found. The three files where a record of a
CRB/DBS check was not first found on inspection dated back to staff who had been
employed by RMBC for a number of years. Further investigation confirmed that the
CRB/DBS checks were up to date. We were pleased to find the process was secure.
However, Inspectors found several checks in NAS that were more than a year
overdue despite monthly reminders from HR. These important checks and balances
are not being given sufficient priority by some managers working in services where
staff support vulnerable adults. At worst, it leaves vulnerable people exposed to
harm. This matter needs to be urgently addressed.
Higher up the organisation, there was little awareness of the HR implications of the
process of downsizing and change. The greatest risk facing any organisation is that
its people are not up to the job. But this seems to have been over-looked in the
relentless focus on the numbers. It was a serious concern to Inspectors that HR
could not comment on the capacity of the Council to deliver its plans. It clearly must
be their job to help ensure the Council has the right people with the right skills in the
right jobs.
Audit function
We looked at the Council’s audit plans and a sample of audit reports, both internal
and external, over the past decade and found arrangements to be within expected
norms.
We were concerned, however, about the overall approach to audit. For example,
processes that had been highlighted as failing many times over in Children’s
Services (i.e. contact and referral arrangements) would have benefited from the
insight and rigour of audit yet did not find their way into the plan. Some services,
such as the licensing/taxi function and the looked after children’s service, have not
been audited in the last three years in spite of concerns raised in the media.
All areas of known weakness should be audited within a systematic programme that
ensured all Council services, functions and processes were subject to review every
three years, alongside the statutory audit arrangements. A greater use of audit to
support improvements would be beneficial as part of a comprehensible rolling
programme of reviews.
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Rotherham is rife with rumours about impropriety which creates an unhealthy climate
of mistrust. External audit should be directed to look at areas where persistent
speculation arises in order to restore public confidence or tackle the weaknesses
identified, or both.
Risk management
We looked at the Council’s processes for identifying and reporting on risks, including
the probability of them arising and their impact. On paper, arrangements are much
as we would have expected. However, we were told that risks were not really
discussed and owned by management teams.
Inspectors noted that the risk of Children's Services not improving was in the top five
risks after the OFSTED report in 2009. However, it was downgraded in October 2012
and did not appear in the top five after that date. No rationale was given. Clearly,
risks should not be downgraded without a proper analysis and reporting of the facts.
The service was clearly not improving. The risk register should have provided an
opportunity for SLT to identify this and take action. Taking it out of the top five
identified risks meant that it was no longer visible to Members. This should have
been questioned at Cabinet and/or been subject to scrutiny. Inspectors saw no
evidence of this.
“Safeguarding would have been on risk register. Child Sex Exploitation was reported
to SLT but it was down to the lead Director to deal with it.” An officer
There are no legal comments on reports relating to risk. In other words, no formal
view is provided as to whether the Council is at risk of failing to meet its statutory
duties.
The fact that the fall-out from the Jay report was not identified as a risk ahead of
publication, and no plans were put in place to manage it, is just one indication that
the way the Council identifies and manages risk could be strengthened. Even more
significant is the way that the Jay report was handled through the risk management
process after publication.
A report to the Audit Committee on 17th September 2014 identifies the Jay report as
the second highest risk facing the Council. The risk is described as follows: ‘Major
reputation damage and loss of confidence in the Council; demoralising impact on
employees; potential financial claims; potential impact on inward investment; short
and medium term disruption/distraction from services; subsequent OFSTED and
corporate governance inspections.’ It does not set out what it will do to mitigate such
risks and indeed, these risks are now very real issues.
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There is nothing about the risk to children.
The risk of services continuing to fail children should have been the Council’s highest
priority. But it was not. This goes to the heart of the culture of the Council and what
senior leaders think really matters.
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2. IS THE COUNCIL TAKING STEPS TO ADDRESS WEAKNESSES IN
CHILDREN’S SOCIAL CARE AND ITS WORK ON CSE, AND DOES IT HAVE THE
CAPACITY TO CONTINUE TO DO SO?
Inspectors were directed to consider, in light of the Jay report, which highlighted
serious failings in the authority over a number of years with regard to the
safeguarding of children, whether the local authority ‘was and continues to be
subject to institutionalised political correctness, affecting its decision-making on
sensitive issues; undertook and continues to undertake sufficient liaisons with other
agencies, particularly the police, local health partners, and the safeguarding board
and also is taking steps to address effectively past and current weaknesses or
shortcomings in the exercise of its functions, and has the capacity to continue to do
so’; in other words, whether the Council is fit for purpose specifically in relation to
Children’s Social Care and CSE.
Background – OFSTED Inspection
Children’s Social Care in Rotherham was inspected by OFSTED from 16th
September to 8th October 2014 and found to be inadequate. Their report, ‘Inspection
of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care
leavers and Review of the effectiveness of the Local Safeguarding Children Board’
was published on the 19th November 2014. At the same time, OFSTED published a
national thematic report entitled ‘The sexual exploitation of children: it couldn’t
happen here could it?’ referring to RMBC and other areas.
Inspectors did not duplicate OFSTED’s work but checked and verified their findings
by looking at those aspects of Children’s Services most relevant to CSE.
In part, this was necessary because RMBC were resistant to the findings of the
OFSTED report (as well as the Jay report). This was reflected in their complaints
about the fairness and impartiality of the OFSTED inspection to Inspectors.
‘I thought OFSTED was disgraceful when they came in and what they did… it was
bound to be inadequate. [Sir] Michael Wilshaw had already written it…’ a Director
The newly appointed Children’s Social Care Commissioner makes a similar point:
“On my arrival in Rotherham, I was presented by a level of questioning from many in
the organisation as to the “fairness” of these judgements…Given this context, I
purposely met with the OFSTED Lead Inspectors. They impressed me with their
integrity and transparency and I was left with no doubt that their judgements had a
clear evidence base. My own assessment based on the work confirms that there are
fundamental weaknesses in the delivery of Children’s Social Care services and
many of these are long-standing.”
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Inspectors met with members of the OFSTED team, scrutinised their report and
tested some of their findings independently through case work, observation and
interview. We agreed with their findings and concluded that they had been fair in
their assessment. If anything, we found that the position had worsened since they
had reported.
Judgement
Children’s social care will need concerted attention over a prolonged period to reach
and maintain an acceptable standard of performance. It must be a corporate and
political priority, with standards and progress independently monitored.
The Council is not addressing weaknesses quickly or robustly enough through their
current arrangements because they do not have the leadership, managerial or staff
capacity to do so. The ineffectiveness of Children’s Social Care in Rotherham is
clear. The service is failing. Children in need of care and protection are not receiving
it and may, therefore, be exposed to harm and prolonged neglect.
Scope of Inspection
This inspection looked at arrangements specifically relating to Children’s Social Care
and CSE as a litmus test for checking the robustness of Children’s Services
arrangements more generally. We have not considered performance in education
and lifelong learning other than in relation to CSE.
Inspectors looked at:
• arrangements for managing contact and referral
• early help
• partnership arrangements (including with police, the voluntary sector, schools,
missing children, and health)
• use of data and reporting
• management (including supervision)
• systems, policies and processes
• arrangements in relation to missing children and young people.
We sampled 68 historic and current case files and tracked the cases of known
victims of CSE to see what happened to them in transition to adulthood.
We also looked at arrangements for supporting current and historic victims.
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Children’s Social Care Services
Despite many senior officials and Members talking about their concerns for the wellbeing
of children and young people, and the priority this work was being given,
Inspectors (like OFSTED) did not find the concerns translating into sufficient and
effective action.
Work is not effectively joined-up either internally, or with key partners, which means
children are left at risk of harm and actual abuse. Inspectors found that frontline staff
were not listened to, carried too much risk and too often were unsupported in the
decisions they made.
In spite of additional investment in the service, Inspectors found that there are too
many priorities which means staff do not know what to tackle first. There is
inadequate managerial direction which means it is easy to understand why staff feel
adrift.
“When I came in I thought it was great but there are too many actions. I’m sick of
saying ‘there’s too many actions’.” A member of the Safeguarding Board
Without rehearsing the issues raised by the recent OFSTED report we did consider
certain aspects carefully as their performance underpins the effectiveness of the
RMBC CSE service to victims.
We were concerned to find profound weaknesses remaining in the Contact and
Referral Team (CART) which acts as the ‘front door’ to other services. The Council
has been aware of these concerns since at least 2009 but they have not been
adequately addressed and the ‘front door’ remains ‘broken’.
‘The performance in respect of the completion of initial assessments and core
assessments is inconsistent and often significantly delayed.’ 2009 OFSTED annual
unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment arrangements
The deadline set for Multi-Agency Assessments is still being missed in too many
cases. In the OFSTED inspection the authority accepted that seven out of 18 cases
audited were inadequate. In this inspection we found a similar proportion to be poor.
The IT systems supporting social workers are not fit for purpose. OFSTED first
identified this failing in 2009. One of the three ‘priority action’ points they set out
identified Rotherham’s ‘information systems’ as being unable to provide ‘up to date
and accurate information on all contacts and referrals and the status of
investigations, assessments and plans.’ They made the same point in 2011 and
again in 2014. We wholly concur with this finding.
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Work to bring in effective IT systems that support social work practice needs to be
given the highest priority. Information about a child’s history is not always easy to
find on the system and may be missed in making current decisions.
It is hard to understate how frustrating this must be for staff. It took hours for one of
the specialist social care assistant inspectors to track down the details needed for a
case audit. That in itself was evidence of failings.
The rapid appointment of a new Director of Children’s Services is a positive step. But
there is a real danger that this important appointment will be heralded as the ‘fix’ to
solutions which no one individual can fix alone. It will not resolve the leadership,
management and governance deficits which are systemic and exist in many forms
across the Council and the partnership it should be leading. It is important to listen to
staff to fully understand the challenges and concerns before deciding how best to fix
things.
Overall, inspectors found that Children’s Social Care was not sufficiently effective.
Systems to record and manage cases were poor; decisions regarding individual
children were not rigorously or systematically checked and too much professional
practice was poor.
Whilst senior managers and Members claimed they wanted to improve the quality of
Children’s Social Care, we found that it has been a Cinderella service which has
historically not had the focus it requires from political and corporate leaders.
For too long, staff and partners have not been listened to. Even more importantly,
neither have children. Without action which is fundamental, comprehensive and
urgent, it is hard to see how RMBC can fulfil their duties to protect children and
young people in need of help and support.
Children’s Social Care Services and CSE
Inertia is apparent at all levels within Children’s Social Care. There have been a
series of reports highlighting the same problems over and over again without
changes being made. For example, the lack of leadership in the CSE service was
highlighted repeatedly in relatively recent reports without action being taken.
(September 2013 Barnardo’s report, December 2013 LSCB diagnostic report,
November 2013 HMIC Report, August 2014 Jay Report).
The Chair of the Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board carried out a review of
RMBC’s response to CSE just after he was appointed in 2013. But the
recommendations made have not been implemented and many of the concerns
raised, such as the CSE Team’s managerial structure, are still present over a year
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on. Moreover, the regular audits the LSCB carry out have little or no discernible
impact on practice.
During our inspection, we raised concerns about a particular case directly to the
interim Chief Executive. We were told privately that it was an appalling case but
there seemed to be no mobilisation on the part of senior staff in Children’s
Services. The initial response was to criticise the person referring the case for
allegedly getting the procedure wrong (which they had not). After that, nothing
happened to that case for three weeks. At a time of heightened concern about the
safety of children and of CSE, we could not understand how it took so long to
address this child’s case, despite it being raised by Inspectors and following
interventions by the Children’s Commissioner and Chief Executive. This is
symptomatic of the total lack of urgency apparent throughout the system.
Bluntly, senior staff in Children’s Social Care know what is wrong but are either
incapable of putting it right or lack the will or capacity to do so.
Local political leadership and stated commitment to tackling the issue of child sexual
exploitation has yet to translate into any meaningful changes in practice. This is a
sorry position given its public profile and supposed importance to local leaders, not
to mention the devastating impact it has on children and young people’s lives.
Leadership, governance and management of Children’s Social Care are not
adequate to deliver the urgent improvements that are needed. It is likely that the
Council does not therefore have the capacity to improve.
Failings of the ‘social care’ approach to tackling CSE
RMBC see CSE as a matter requiring a ‘social care’ approach only and by doing so
continue to make the same mistakes. An effective ‘social care’ approach still requires
the involvement of the whole Council and other agencies to support proper
safeguarding and this is not the case in RMBC.
This fundamental misconception of how to tackle CSE sits at the root of so many of
the failings we observed. By inappropriately compartmentalising CSE the Council
forces artificial choices about whether children are above the threshold for a
statutory intervention.
“We are trying to squash CSE into a framework where it just doesn’t fit.” An officer
The consequence of adopting a rigid social care model is two-fold. Firstly, too many
children at risk of CSE become clients of social care (over-whelming the statutory
service). Secondly and as a consequence of over-stretched resources, the nature of
help on offer is not proactive in identifying and meeting their needs. The proven
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success of assertive outreach work by youth workers in getting to know the girls,
building relationships with them, and helping them to understand the street grooming
process is lost in the necessary processes and paperwork of social work.
Of course, where children are at risk, or are being harmed, it is a matter for social
care and the police. But street grooming is insidious and needs a more nuanced
approach to get girls to understand what is happening to them and to tell their story.
This is where outreach workers have a vital role to play but an effective outreach
programme is not in place. Outreach might also address the under-reporting of CSE
by boys, and children from the ‘Asian’ community.
Partly this reflects an ongoing debate in RMBC about whether a youth work or a
social care model of intervention is most effective with victims of CSE. In fact, both
are needed; a joint approach building on the professional skills of youth workers and
social workers doing what they do best. Since the closure of Risky Business,
managers have also seen this as an issue of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ which means that
effective joint working isn’t happening.
Challenges faced by the CSE team
The absence of a clear definition and strong shared understanding of CSE in its
different forms, including on-line and street grooming, has led to poor use of
resources and confusion amongst CSE team workers as to the boundaries of their
role. Inspectors found the policy approach confusing and the allocation of case work
between social work teams and the CSE team to be arbitrary at times. The case
work audit showed a lack of clarity as to the criteria a child would need to meet
before receiving support from the CSE team as opposed to other social care teams
dealing with CSE work.
CSE work is under-led and poorly-managed. Staff are often exhausted, over-loaded
and overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge. They have been under a prolonged
period of unrelenting public attention that has taken its toll. They are also sometimes
unfairly made scapegoats for RMBC failures.
Some practice is unsafe. Many children and young people are simply not getting the
support they need. Some staff have lost their sense of direction. Guidance is poor,
basic processes are not secure and changes are not embedded and reinforced,
culminating in a sense of hopelessness and frustration.
The operational team is a multi-agency team in name only. In practice, it is an
amalgam of different services or organisations – the police, social workers, youth
workers and voluntary sector – co-located, but not integrated, still working in their
respective silos.
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Concerns regarding the RMBC team identified by Inspectors included:
• One to one meetings between staff and management are not happening as
regularly as required
• Regular supervision of cases is not always taking place thereby affecting
proper decision-making
• Referrals must be routed through the ‘front door’ CART (a service which
OFSTED and our Inspection found unsafe)
• The dominant use of a social work model in their CSE approach does not
recognise the vital role of youth workers in prevention, which means:
• No effective outreach youth work for victims and poor prevention work.
Inspectors found one consequence of these failures was that similar age young
people sharing inappropriate pictures of themselves on social media are being given
the same initial response as children who are being preyed on by sexual predators.
Inspectors also found that cases are waiting for days at the ‘front door’ (CART)
before being properly assessed.
It is very difficult for individual staff members to overcome these failings, however
well intentioned they are.
In addition, through the case sampling Inspectors undertook, we found examples of:
• poor decision-making
• drift
• failure to adhere to guidance
• poor or no follow up
• assessments delayed or not done
• files incomplete
• children left at risk for too long without an effective intervention.
In addition, Inspectors identified a number of practical steps that staff have raised
before and could be easily addressed. These include a shortage of facilities (such as
confidential meeting rooms) and equipment (too few computers and one police car).
The lack of these resources hampers effectiveness and shows that this work is not
being given the priority it requires by RMBC and South Yorkshire Police (SYP).
Role of the Police and other partners working with the CSE team
Concerns regarding the CSE SYP team identified by Inspectors included:
• Police officers overloaded with cases that are not (yet) a matter for them, i.e.
where no crime had been committed
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• Police officers have not been properly trained in CSE or social care
• Police processes and systems do not join up with social care and there is no
shared understanding of how they will work together day to day
• The police do not understand social worker assessments or thresholds for
intervention
• The social workers do not understand the evidence required for successful
prosecutions
• There was insignificant action to tackle perpetrators (discussed more fully in
our chapter on the police)
Instead of the police being able to easily access social care files via the social
workers they were supposedly working with in a joint CSE team, they had to obtain
information through the Freedom of Information team in an entirely separate part of
RMBC. Waiting for this to be processed caused significant and unacceptable delays.
This is an unusual interpretation of Section 29 of the Data Protection Act (1998) and
could be easily solved by the implementation of a protocol. This sums up the total
ineffectiveness of local approaches to multi-agency working.
Inspectors were told that the police ‘get on with their part,’ while others got on with
theirs; data protection, they stated, meant they couldn’t share an intelligence system.
Inspectors were also concerned about the role of other partners in the team. For
example, voluntary sector staff members within the team have to refer cases via the
‘front door’ of social care rather than passing them on to fellow team members; and
any intelligence they have for police colleagues has to be passed through the police
non-emergency number (101). If there is an information sharing protocol it is not
working in practice.
Young People turning 18 years old
We have serious concerns about the group of young people during their transition to
adulthood: that is, over 18. It was unclear to Inspectors what happens to victims of
CSE at this point. RMBC do not view these young people as victims with ongoing
support needs, and instead see their role in terms of a statutory Children’s Social
Care responsibility which ends when the children turn 18.16
Some interviewees suggested that services were just turned off. Adult services did
not have an effective system in place to ensure a smooth and effective transition for
this vulnerable group. Indeed, the criteria for receiving adult services mean that the
16 The Children’s Act 1989 requires the responsible authority to continue to provide various forms of advice, assistance and
guidance to young people over the age of 18 making the transition from care to more independent living arrangements. The
duties operate primarily until the young person reaches the age of 21 unless they remain engaged in education or training
where support can continue until 24. Duties include providing the young person with a PA; viewing and revising the pathway
plan regularly and keeping in touch. The duty to provide accommodation and maintenance for care leavers ends at 18 however,
duties to provide general assistance and other support continue.
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victims may not meet the need for continued support even though they remain
vulnerable, and in some cases continue to be sexually exploited.
For the past twenty years, RMBC had commissioned Action for Children to provide
services for young people leaving local authority care. The service was brought back
in house as of the 1st April 2014 and is in essence the ‘leaving care’ team. Inspectors
were told that the decision to bring the service back in house was to improve
consistency. It is too early to assess whether the return to direct management by the
Council will improve the quality of the service. Given what we have found about the
ways other aspects of Children’s Services are being managed this has to be a
concern.
“They’ve got a poster with my birthday on it when I turn 18 and then they don’t need
to bother with me.” - A victim of CSE
CSE numbers and analysis
There is much argument in RMBC about the numbers collected by Professor Jay in
her report. Inspectors believe that the ‘conversation and debate’ about the numbers
is part of a wider culture of denying the problem and its scale. Our research, given
the available evidence, leads Inspectors to fully endorse and support Professor Jay’s
findings. It is essential that RMBC stop debating the credibility of these figures and
turn their attention to action.
The Jay report looks at the period 1997 to 2013 and concludes that there were
approximately 1400 victims. This is a conservative estimate. It equates to about 85
children and young people experiencing CSE in each year covered.
During the year 2013-14 (i.e. more recently than the period that Professor Jay
covered) the CSE team worked with 207 children and young people who were
experiencing, or were at risk, of CSE. This figure includes cases where a child had a
social worker but the CSE team was also involved, as well as cases where the CSE
team took the lead.
However, RMBC’s records and data collection is very poor. As such, they cannot
answer questions about the scale and nature of CSE taking place today or
historically. Although they are currently working to put the necessary systems and
processes in place, they have known about this problem for some time and have not
taken action. Inspectors are not confident this will be seen through effectively.
RMBC has also been criticised over many years for the poor quality of its social care
record keeping. The full scale of the problem may therefore never be known.
Although some reasonable assumptions can be made, the scant data is a very
serious cause for concern.
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At Annex D we have provided detailed analysis of the information we have been able
to glean from records and data to support the position that there was a significant
number of CSE cases (and therefore victims) and that it is likely that RMBC would
have been able to account for, despite their poor data collection and analysis.
In addition, police data provides some evidence of the scale and nature of the
present problem, by looking at the number of recorded CSE crimes. During the
period 1 November 2013 to 31 October 2014 there were 273 CSE crimes recorded
in South Yorkshire, of which 75 (27%) were in Rotherham.
The most commonly recorded crimes were:
• sexual activity with a female child under 16 (penetration) - 15 (20%);
• rape of a female child under 16 - 11 (14.7%),
• rape of a female child under 13 by a male – 10 (13.3%)
• causing or inciting a female child under 16 to engage in sexual activity (no
penetration) – 10 (13.3%).
In 2013, there were 68 abduction notices served against perpetrators of CSE or
those who posed a risk to children. In 2014 there were 71.
The RMBC/SYP CSE Strategy
The RMBC/SYP strategy is to some degree developed in a vacuum because
information and data systems on victims are poor. The strategy is a single page
supported by an action plan which is not focussed on impact and outcomes but on
activities and process. Actions and milestones are not specific enough. It has
seemingly been added to over time rather than being properly reviewed in the light of
the Select Committee and Jay reports. As a result, it lacks any strategic coherence
and is therefore highly unlikely to be effective.
As at 7th November 2014, the plan was already slipping. Only 20 of the targets were
green, 25 were amber (at risk) and 4 were red (missed). Some of the targets marked
green had already missed their original delivery date so a later date had been
allocated. The former Chief Executive was still named as the person responsible for
a number of actions despite the fact that he had already left the Council. This shows
that the plan was not being used as a live document to drive improvements.
Inspectors are unconvinced that RMBC has a robust, corporately owned strategy
with all partners signed up to action. The response to the Jay Review contained in
the Cabinet Report on 3rd September 2014 is evidence that they still had not grasped
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the severity of the situation, the need for immediate action, and a wholly different
approach over the long term.
The strategy is not joined up sufficiently across RMBC or indeed with SYP and the
CPS. Rather than critique the whole strategy here in detail there are some specific
issues that are evidence of ineffectiveness.
Prevention Work
There is not enough capacity or expertise to do preventative work well, although
those workers who have their roots in the former Risky Business make valiant
attempts in the present circumstances. The Council and its partners are responding
to new cases without the time to build relationships with children and young people
at risk of CSE.
Training
Resources have gone into training all sorts of people over the years – including
parish Councillors, business representatives, magistrates and voluntary sector
workers. There is, however, no evaluation of the impact of this training which means
that neither the Council, the LSCB, is in a position to judge its effectiveness or
whether the money has been well spent.
Inspectors did wonder whether training – though important – was a default response
and became a substitute for more effective and comprehensive action on CSE rather
than just one part of the overall plan. It is easy to send staff on a training course, but
unless the principles set out in the training are embedded and acted upon in the
whole organisation, then it is ineffective.
“So people just ticked the box with training – if some staff from health have
completed training, then as an organisation you have done it so the box is ticked.” A
key partner
Yet for all the priority given to training, key staff in the Council and the police had not
been trained either in CSE or wider training in social care law or practice when a
thorough knowledge and understanding of these issues was integral to their roles.
And despite the training provided to staff and members outside social care, many
lacked a basic awareness and understanding of their role in protecting children, or as
corporate parent.
Schools
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Work in schools to raise awareness of CSE has declined from a high point where
some young people participated in an accredited course over six weeks in school as
part of the curriculum, to a reliance on one part-time youth worker plus some
outreach by the Integrated Youth Support System. This is a real concern given the
evident risks to young people in the area and the clear benefits of outreach work.
Inspectors noted that the work with schools is of a good quality, but is not sufficient.
Some schools have put their own resources into tackling CSE, which is to be
welcomed.
Outreach
Action to identify victims at risk of harm is insufficiently resourced and the assertive
outreach youth work which was so successful under the former Risky Business
model has ceased and not been replaced. Rotherham’s Integrated Youth Support
Services do have detached workers in Safer Neighbourhood teams, but not with the
degree of resources which has previously been invested building and sustaining
relationships with girls at risk of harm. This means that victims of CSE are not being
proactively identified and helped.
Community
Work with parents and the community is under-developed. No-one could tell us how
the Council was engaging with the community in the wake of the Jay report. Some
work has recently been done to raise awareness of CSE including the launch of a
‘Spot the Signs’ awareness campaign in November 2014. Whilst this is a step in the
right direction, it will not make a difference in isolation.
Protection work
Our summary of Children’s Services and the CSE team clearly shows that
arrangements to protect children and young people are ineffective. The multi-agency
partnerships which have been set up are not delivering results. There were a number
of specific issues that caused Inspectors great concern.
Misunderstanding of CSE by senior management
The nature of CSE is still misunderstood and the severity of CSE has not been
recognised by senior officers. It is seen as statistically less significant than neglect.
While the numbers involved are far smaller, this should not be an ‘either/or’ issue in
which victims of CSE are overlooked.
“X was more focused on other aspects of social care, not CSE. X said: ‘I can’t worry
about CSE; everyone else is.’” A key partner
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“X disregarded CSE, as it takes only 2.4% of referrals, and neglect is the bigger
issue. They’re missing the point, because these kids don’t come to you, and even
when they do the risk element is so high.” An officer
No joint action
Inspectors did not find sufficient evidence of joint action for victims in part because
there is no systematic method of joining up social care and health data. But
information on sexual health, mental health and teenage pregnancies may all be
relevant. Case work showed that children and young people were not always being
appropriately referred for support and where they were, CSE was not being
identified, even where it was known by other staff. This meant that thresholds for
intervention were not being reached and children and young people were missing
out on essential help. Victims of CSE can suffer with health issues, such as Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, and require specialist health interventions. Inspectors
were told that practitioners sometimes simply don’t know what to do with victims of
CSE, because when certain cases were taken to CAMHS they would not ‘fit’ the
criteria.
A robust protection strategy requires action both to safeguard the victim and tackle
the perpetrator. Information is held in different parts of the Council (licensing,
housing, missing children, education, youth and social care) which are simply not
joined up and therefore vital action is not taken. Children are left unprotected, and
perpetrators are not deterred or prosecuted. The lack of action to tackle perpetrators
is dealt with later.
‘Missing’
OFSTED judged RMBC’s procedures for identifying and tracking children missing
from home and care to be inadequate. This inspection supports that judgement. In
particular, we noted problems with processes, systems, software, return from home
interviews and information sharing.
‘Missing’ can be a significant indicator for CSE but there is no consistent process for
systematically considering each child’s case by RMBC or SYP. For example there is
a difference in view between RMBC and Safe@Last (the organisation contracted to
provide the service) about whether information should be shared and what can be
shared. This is unresolved and risks inaction.
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The Offer to Victims
On September 10th 2014, the Leader of the Council announced they would be
making £120,000 available until the end of the financial year, which would be used to
support victims of child sexual exploitation in the short term. The money was
allocated as follows:
• £20,000 to GROW who are currently commissioned by Safer Rotherham
Partnership to deliver services to young people and families affected by child
sexual exploitation. They currently have one full time worker and with their
additional funding will support 1.5 full time posts.
• £20,000 to Rotherham Women’s Counselling Service and Pit Stop for Men who
are a voluntary organisation for adults who have been traumatised by rape,
sexual abuse or domestic violence. This funding will be used to increase the
capacity of the service.
• £20,000 to South Yorkshire Community Foundation who provide funding to
voluntary and community organisations to support victims of child sexual
exploitation; this money simply increases the funding available.
• £49,000 to other voluntary sector organisations to help them build capacity to
respond to the needs of victims of child sexual exploitation.
• £11,000 is being held in reserve to respond to other potential needs in the
voluntary sector
Given that this is all short-term funding, a needs analysis is currently being
undertaken by RMBC Public Health to inform longer term commissioning.
Since the 16th of December 2014 there have been further developments:
• The Rotherham Sexual Exploitation helpline is being run by the National Society
for the Protection of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) on behalf of the council. It is a
24 hour service which is open to people of all ages, for those who have suffered
abuse either in the past or present.
• The Sexual Abuse Referral Clinic (SARC) has been established at Rotherham
District General Hospital. It provides crisis support and has facilities for forensic
medical examinations and video interviews.
• In addition, RMBC has employed a Support Coordinator along with additional
17.5 social workers, three team managers, three new Independent Reviewing
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Officers and one solicitor to increase support for child protective services through
court proceedings.
• The Rotherham Clinical Commissioning Group (RCCG) has appointed 1 new
psychologist to help reduce waiting lists in CAMHS.
Inspectors asked for further details of support arrangements and were told that
£53,000 was being allocated to Youth Start, a young person’s centre that works with
7-25 year olds, to increase their capacity and to co-ordinate the support services
offered to victims of abuse. The clinical commissioning group is also investing
£200,000 to increase capacity in the local child and adult mental health services for
therapeutic support and ‘workforce consultancy’.
Inspectors are clear that victims of sexual exploitation should have access to the
best possible support services: to help them escape exploitative men, to deal with
the immediate aftermath, and to deal with the repercussions and rebuild their lives in
the long term. The results of a lack of support is sadly evident in many of the victims
we met who now, as adults, have struggled to overcome the extreme and prolonged
abuse they experienced as children.
We have concerns that this package, while clearly a welcome first step, falls short of
what is required. It appears to lack coherence and reflects the failure of RMBC to
see the children and young people involved as victims who have been in need of
such support services for a very long time.
More specifically we are concerned that:
• It is not at all clear that Rotherham has identified who and where the victims
are, what their current needs are, and what services they may require in the
future. They have not set out who can access support, or on what grounds, or
stated what they hope to achieve through their services. It is critical that this is
all scoped out properly as quickly as possible, so that the right support is
available to those who need it. We are concerned that without this, the
services on offer may be inappropriate.
• For example, the child and adult mental health services which have been
targeted for the most significant investment have a very high threshold for
referral: in other words, they are services for the most vulnerable people with
acute and immediate needs. There are many other individuals who will not fit
this criteria but will also be in need of support. If the criteria for referral have
been changed, this has not been clear. Inspectors question whether this acute
and specialist service is the right vehicle, capable of the rapid expansion
required.
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• No investment has been proposed in family therapy services, which will be
critical to many fragile victims trying to rebuild relationships with their families,
particularly where the families themselves are chaotic and vulnerable. It might
be appropriate, for example, to ensure that some of the voluntary
organisations are offering family therapy. It may also be appropriate to offer
home visits from psychologists (there is, at present, an assumption that
victims will always be approaching services, rather than the other way
around). But without properly scoping the levels of need, it is impossible to
accurately assess what sorts of services will be most effective.
• The proposals generally lack creativity and flexibility. They are dependent on
victims identifying themselves, asking for support and trusting the very
services which have let them down for so long. It is also important for those
commissioning the services to bear in mind it may take a long time for some
victims to come forward, and it is important they do not underestimate the
long term demand on the services. It is also important for primary health
services - for example, GPs or sexual health clinic staff - to be alert for clients
who may be victims and to respond sensitively and appropriately.
• It is not at all clear that victims have been asked for their views on either
existing or proposed services. The failure to listen to victims and respond to
their needs has been a hallmark of RMBCs approach for far too many years: it
is vital that they start to put this right immediately in this crucial area.
• We are both disappointed in the level of money earmarked for investment and
the fact that only half of it has effectively been allocated, to just three
organisations. Given what we know about the numbers of victims, potential
demand could well outstrip supply, and victims who may need urgent help
should not be made to wait. Again we stress the importance of a robust
scoping exercise, which can be used to develop a broad range of appropriate
provision, both for the short and long term.
RMBC continues to fail to understand the needs of the victims, leaving Inspectors
unconvinced that the current offer will ensure victims get the support they need. To
this day, we know that ex-Risky Business staff are relied upon heavily, by both the
police and victims, to offer the emotional and practical support that should always
have been provided by Rotherham council.
However, yet again those who are closest to the victims, both current and historic,
continue to be undervalued and as such have not received any funding as part of
this offer. We hope that those who have been tasked with ensuring Rotherham’s
victims get the help they need, recognise the value of those who have been fighting
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to get the victims’ voices heard and work with them in the future to gain the trust of
those who have been so badly let down.
Summary
CSE has had a high profile in Rotherham since the Home Affairs Select Committee
hearings in January 2013 and September 2014 and continues as a result of the Jay
report, but the frontline teams trying to deal with it still lack strategic direction,
management support and resources.
CSE is still seen as a social care issue rather than a corporate issue requiring the
combined effort of many Council services, and those of key partners such as
schools, health and the police, to combat it effectively.
These are serious failings and the Council needs to ensure that workers dealing with
children in need, child protection, looked after children, and those children and young
people experiencing CSE, have the necessary skills, experience and support. The
current offer to victims, while welcome, still falls short.
Despite its profile and the supposed political priority CSE has been afforded,
prevention and outreach strategies, efforts to protect children and young people, and
work to pursue offenders are all inadequate. There is no clarity of purpose and
agencies are critical of each other’s way of working rather than agreeing on an
effective joint approach.
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3. DID ROTHERHAM TAKE AND CONTINUE TO TAKE SUFFICIENT STEPS TO
ENSURE ONLY FIT AND PROPER PERSONS ARE PERMITTED TO HOLD A
TAXI LICENCE?
Inspectors were directed to consider whether RMBC took and continues to take
sufficient steps to ensure only ‘fit and proper persons’ are permitted to hold a taxi
licence.
Background
Licensing, regulation and enforcement functions exist to protect the general public
from harm across areas ranging from food safety to houses in multiple occupation, to
licensed premises for entertainment. Safety is one of the principles of licensing which
informs legislation. The safety of the public should be the uppermost concern of any
licensing and enforcement regime: when determining policy, setting standards and
deciding how they will be enforced.
This is nowhere more important than in taxi licensing where sometimes vulnerable
people are unaccompanied in a car with a stranger. For this reason, taxi driving is a
‘notifiable’ occupation, so if a taxi driver is arrested, charged or convicted, or is the
subject of a police investigation, the Licensing Authority must be informed.
Judgement
Inspectors have found that Rotherham has not taken, and does not take, sufficient
steps to ensure only fit and proper persons are permitted to hold a taxi licence. As a
result, it cannot provide assurances that the public, including vulnerable people, are
safe. The inspection uncovered serious weaknesses and concerns.
Licensing at RMBC
The Licensing Authority for Rotherham is the Council. It processes applications and
renewals for taxi licences, operator licences and vehicle licences. As such, it needs
to:
• ensure that taxi drivers are ‘fit and proper’ to drive the public
• investigate any complaints about the conduct of drivers/operators and
• consider complaints when licences come up for renewal – or more urgently if
need be
• ensure compliance with operator and driver licence conditions and vehicle
conditions.
The licensing service in Rotherham reports to the Director of Housing and
Neighbourhood Services in the Neighbourhood and Adult Services directorate
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(NAS). Home to school transport has also been contracted out to taxi operators but
is managed by a separate team.
There is a Member level Licensing Board which reports to full Council, and has
delegated authority to determine policy and applications, suspensions and
revocations of licence. The Board has recently been reduced from 25 to 5 Members.
There is further delegation to the Director to undertake suspensions of licences.
There is a right of appeal for decisions that are made by the Council to the
Magistrates Court.
As at September 2014 there were 86 private hire operators, 840 vehicles, 52
Hackney carriages and 1158 licensed drivers in Rotherham.
In the past 5 years, the service has dealt with a total of 1100 complaints about taxi
drivers. The annual level of complaints has been steady for the past three years at
around 180. In the past five years the service has suspended 33 licences and
revoked 26, with a further 29 revoked due to non-production of appropriate
documentation.
A divided service
The licensing service portfolio covers eight other licensing areas including gambling,
alcohol and licensed takeaways. The taxi service is divided into two branches:
• the Policy team deals with policy, applications, renewals, suspensions and
revocations
• The Enforcement team deals with complaints and investigations
The split of these functions is not common in other licensing authorities Inspectors
found evidence of conflict between the two branches, notably on what kind of
evidence could be presented when the Licensing Board meets to consider whether
to revoke or suspend a licence.
The two branches of licensing use different databases which do not interface, so
information is not easily shared between Policy and Enforcement teams. This means
that driver or operator records cannot be viewed in a single place, requires officers to
request information from each other and has sometimes resulted in a licence being
renewed without question when in fact the driver is being investigated following a
complaint.
Inspectors found that enforcement staff do not always record complaints or
information gathered on these data systems. This inconsistent recording of
information on complaints has the consequence that because data on driver
performance and conduct is not collected, trends are not identified and track record
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data (for example identifying a series of complaints) may not be available at the point
of licence renewal.
Meetings are rarely held across the entire service and some officers said that the
visibility of senior leaders was poor. One officer stated that they had seen them for
the first time at a briefing meeting shortly before Inspectors arrived.
Lack of policy
A number of officers had worked in other Licensing Authorities and commented to
Inspectors that RMBC was behind the times as the licensing service appeared to
have few written policies and attempts to draw those up would be stymied.
Inspectors found that the Council’s bye-laws and conditions relating to vehicle, taxi
driver and operator licences seemed not to have changed since 1976, bearing out
this contention.
And although there is clear documentation around procedure, there is no indication
of what ‘serious concerns around the activities of a licensed driver’ should prompt for
example an immediate suspension of an individual driver. Managers refused to be
drawn on this matter, insisting that each case was different and stating that they
would act on evidence from police.
Trade influence and the role of Members
Inspectors were often told that the private hire trade in Rotherham is vocal and
demanding and some officers expressed the view that the licensing service seemed
more geared towards facilitating the trade than protecting the public.
Members added to this pressure to support the trade. Some who had previously held
taxi licences or ‘badges’ sat on the Licensing Board. At one point, the Board had
been reluctant to hear any cases not related to matters showing up on DBS checks.
That means where there were no actual convictions they would not suspend or
revoke licences.
Licensing officers reported to Inspectors that they had received phone calls from
Members over perceived delays in the processing of individual applications. Officers
would be urged to ‘stop wasting time’.
“The taxi driver is the customer and no thought is given to the passenger.” An officer
There are instances of Members making representations on behalf of the trade or
individual drivers. For example, one Councillor wrote to the Crown Court offering a
reference on behalf of a driver who had his licence revoked. As noted earlier
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Inspectors were also told that ‘no notice’ vehicle spot checks were changed to ‘10-
day notice’ checks after representations from the trade and a Member intervention.
Complaints and Investigations
There are major concerns over the licensing service’s ability to undertake thorough
investigations giving rise to a perception of undue weight being given to the need to
protect drivers' livelihoods over and above the safety of the public.
The inspection undertook an audit of 22 complaints and found 86 per cent to be
inadequate. There is inadequate investigation of some complaints and lack of
tenacity resulting in cases being closed before they are satisfactorily resolved. There
seems to be a propensity for informal resolution of complaints, giving the trade the
benefit of the doubt and not following up all lines of enquiry including the evidence of
complainants. This included a number of cases in which drivers had refused to carry
passengers with guide dogs.
There has been inadequate follow through and information exchange with Children's
Services and with the police on individual cases. This is despite clear efforts by
some individual officers to establish good working links with related services, such as
home to school transport service. Inspectors noted frustrations expressed by
officers concerning feedback from police on cases which had been referred on to
them to pursue. Inspectors also noted – and share – concerns expressed by officers
that the service is not routinely informed by police of potential CSE concerns
including abduction notices.
Officers seemed to lack curiosity over whether there are particular operators where a
large number of vehicles may have fallen below standard, or a large number of
drivers may have attracted complaints. As a result there is no record of the service
exercising its right to place any conditions on individual operator licences where
recurrent issues have been identified.
The service has set too high a threshold of evidence before considering suspension
and revocation of a licence. Officers are entitled to apply a ‘balance of probabilities’
test to alleged offences by drivers, but instead appear to apply a test of ‘whether it
would get past the CPS’. There are examples where the service appears to have
closed cases because it believes the CPS thresholds for prosecution will not be met.
There is an associated concern here that information which the service does not
regard as ‘evidence’ may not be provided to other parties.
In addition, Members of the Licensing Board have not been given sufficient bespoke
training on dealing with taxi hearings moreover after Member complaints the number
and nature of documents being provided to Members in advance of
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suspension/revocation hearings have been reduced which may diminish the quality
of the judgements made and could lead to outcomes which place the public at risk.
‘Home to School’ transport scheme
RMBC operates a ' Home to School' transport scheme enabling qualifying, potentially
vulnerable, children and young people to travel to and from home to schools and
colleges, often unaccompanied.
The use of taxis within this scheme relies on the Council's Licensing service to
ensure that drivers, vehicles and operators are properly licensed and that a driver
passes the 'fit and proper' person test.
Under one of these contracts, a 21 year old taxi driver was transporting a child with
physical health difficulties to and from his place of learning. The boy wrote to the
Council setting out some 20 complaints about this driver including that he was:
• Swearing and shouting abuse at other drivers
• Laughing at him and mocking his disability
• Showing him sexually explicit videos on his mobile phone
• Driving dangerously and at excessive speed
• Urinating in full view of him
• Telling the young man that he was involved in illegal drugs
On receipt of this complaint a multi-agency strategy meeting was held. It concluded
that this alleged behaviour could have upset the passenger and he was offered
appropriate support. The driver’s contract was subsequently terminated and it was
recommended that the licensing service investigate whether the driver was a 'fit and
proper' person to hold a private hire driver licence.
Police investigated the complaint (after a period of time whilst the driver was abroad).
They found no images on the driver’s mobile phone. After an interview with him, they
concluded that he was not a risk, that the complaint had been prompted by a
relationship breakdown and aspects of the complaint were about ‘laddish' behaviour.
In relation to the other allegations there was insufficient evidence to bring any
criminal charges.
The driver was also formally interviewed by the Council’s licensing enforcement
officer who prepared a file to be submitted to the Licensing Board. It was decided that
the boy's allegations relating to graphic sexual images should not form part of case
papers being presented. Only the following complaints were put before the Licensing
Board:
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• Insulting words towards a passenger
• Urinating in view of the passenger
• Conduct of driver
• Driving with an under inflated tyre
The case was presented to the Licensing Board hearing six months after the
complaint was made. The driver was represented at the hearing and he was cross
examined by Members in what can be best described as a light touch fashion.
The Board agreed that the driver was not a fit and proper person but only suspended
his licence for three months leaving him free to operate as a private hire driver after
that time had lapsed.
“...it was strange to have a licence removed for three months. You’re either a fit and
proper person or you’re not – you don’t just become fit again after three months.” An
officer
The details of this case were offered to the inspection as an example of improvement
in licensing practice.
Pressure on staff
Long term sickness has depleted the Principal Officer grade on the enforcement side
for some time. An unresolved contractual issue over late working has meant there is
no enforcement of licensing matters around the night time economy. Enforcement
officer caseloads were unevenly spread and officers clearly felt understaffed, with
one officer commenting that it was sometimes impossible to log off from a telephone
which rang incessantly.
Licensing – a new policy?
The Licensing Board in October 2014 agreed a draft revised policy for consultation.
The policy brings together various existing policies into one document and
introduces some changes including requirements for drivers to achieve BTEC level 2
certificate; extending to five years the requirement for holding a UK driving licence;
tougher knowledge tests; more rigorous standards for the consideration of criminality
including sexual offences concerning children and vulnerable people.
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This new policy is to be welcomed. However it falls short in a number of respects:
1. The Council's general enforcement policy which underpins the proposed Licensing
policy does not, in our view, give sufficient prominence to the need to protect the
public.
2. The guidance suggests that the authority will not normally grant a licence if an
applicant has more than one conviction for indecency or is on the sex offenders
register. Inspectors find this unacceptable. One conviction should be more than
enough to prevent a licence being granted.
In addition, there is no reference to how the service will deal with complaints/service
requests where the complainant does not want to report the incident to the police or
the police decide not to investigate or prosecute because of the criminal burden of
proof. Our audit of complaints demonstrate that allegations relating to inappropriate
behaviour including sexual harassment were not properly investigated. In our view,
the reliance on convictions alone will not provide a strong message to the trade on
acceptable standards or reassure parents and the public that drivers are safe to
transport their children.
The timetable for implementation seems unnecessarily elongated with
implementation not expected until April 2015 with no retrospection of standards. This
will mean that full application of these measures to all drivers will take nearly three
years. Given the high profile of public concerns and real evidence that children have
not been properly protected when using taxis in Rotherham, this seems far too long.
Service Improvement Plan
We understand that as a result of our inspection, the Licensing Service has sought to
address some of issues we have highlighted by implementing a service improvement
and performance management plan. The plans were not part of the inspection and
we are therefore unable to comment on whether the actions identified are sufficient
to address the findings of our inspection.
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4. TAXIS AND CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
‘[I am working with a girl] she caught a taxi to her boyfriends and she was let off the
fare as she didn’t have much money. He took her to McDonalds and bought her
food…she realised he was much older, in his late 30s. He took her out to XXX in his
taxi – she believes another young woman was locked in a room – he tried to have
sex in the car…she has given the details in a statement to the police…...’
‘It’s not safe to use taxis.’
Inspectors were directed to consider whether RMBC, in light of the Jay report which
highlighted serious failings in the authority over a number of years with regard to the
safeguarding of children, was and continues to be subject to institutionalised political
correctness, affecting its decision-making on sensitive issues; to consider whether
RMBC undertook and continues to undertake sufficient liaisons with other agencies,
particularly the police, local health partners, and the safeguarding board and whether
RMBC took and continues to take sufficient steps to ensure only ‘fit and proper
persons’ are permitted to hold a taxi licence.
Concern around taxis remains pervasive in the town. Throughout the inspection,
individual inspectors frequently heard that people did not feel safe using taxis. The
well publicised link between taxis and CSE in Rotherham has and continues to cast
a long shadow over the vast majority of law abiding drivers who make their living
from the taxi trade. So it is not only to protect potential victims from unscrupulous
drivers that RMBC needs to get their house in order and regulate taxis effectively,
but also for the drivers who are damned by association.
Professor Jay deemed the prominent role of taxi drivers in CSE as a ‘common
thread’ across England and noted that their involvement was evident from an early
stage in Rotherham. ‘Residential unit heads met in the 90s to discuss taxis collecting
girls, school heads in early 2000s reported taxis picking girls up to provide oral sex in
the lunch break’ she said.
The Jay report described how the Safeguarding Unit in the Council convened
Strategy meetings from time to time on allegations of CSE involving taxi drivers. She
described meeting minutes demonstrating how a single operator was the subject of
four meetings in a seven week period, girls having disclosed information in 2010,
recording how children were being sexually exploited for free taxi rides and goods
and noted three cases of attempted abduction. She also recorded that RMBC had
advised that taxi drivers had only been involved in a total of four CSE-related cases
(between 2009 and 2012), which had all been dealt with appropriately by the
Council’s licensing authority.
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Licensing Authority – denial that they knew of a CSE problem
When conducting interviews across the licensing service, Inspectors asked for
reflections on the Jay report, on CSE in Rotherham, on work with police and social
care and on the awareness of indicators such as Abduction Notices in alerting
officials that licensed drivers may have developed inappropriate relationships with
underage girls. Inspectors were mindful that Licensing Authorities can
suspend/revoke licences on the balance of probabilities and do not need to prove an
allegation or complaint beyond reasonable doubt, or await a conviction.
In interview, the Director of Housing and Neighbourhood Services, who is
responsible for the licensing service, expressed annoyance at the impact the Jay
report had had on the Council and remained adamant that the four CSE-related
revocations of licences quoted by Professor Jay represented the full extent of taxi
driver involvement in CSE in Rotherham. He said that one of those revocations (in
January 2011) had marked his first awareness of CSE as an issue. Since the
inspection had been announced, he had reviewed a total of 1400 cases (on all kinds
of complaints) and only eight had given cause for concern. He remained confident:
‘our service is compliant with the best in the area’.
Specifically, he stated that the concerns expressed in Strategy meetings about cases
from 2010 described by Professor Jay were unfounded. He subsequently
established that the information was correct; but intelligence from these meetings or
from Responsible Authority meetings had not been fed up to him: ‘I don’t know what I
don’t know’. When questioned about systems to ensure the Licensing service was
made aware by police of any Abduction Notices issued against drivers, he
responded ‘Abduction notices mean no proof’. Lack of ‘proof’ was a continuing
theme: “Rotherham is a village, professional gossip becomes fact the question for
me is “what is veracity?”’ An officer
Less senior staff displayed some ambivalence. Most officers said they would not use
a private hire taxi or allow their families to do so. Concerns were also expressed that
children in residential units could be ordering taxis by mobile phone and that care
workers could be powerless to stop taxi drivers from either grooming young women
or transporting them to be exploited.
However, officers echoed the senior management view that the four cases where
drivers had lost licences for CSE-related reasons represented the full extent of
proven taxi driver involvement in CSE. Officers repeatedly stressed that if presented
with evidence of CSE (preferably by police in the form of a conviction) they would act
on it by suspending drivers. They appeared less able to grasp the notion that in the
arena of CSE ‘evidence’ rarely appears fully formed and may need to be established
by building a composite picture based on different sources of information.
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Evidence that the Licensing Authority knew of taxis and CSE as a problem
In trying to assess the level of concern around taxi drivers and CSE and whether the
licensing authority at the Council knew about it and responded to that concern, the
inspection mainly considered documentary evidence since 2010. All members of the
current licensing team were in position at that point.
Inspectors found that the Licensing Manager and the Principal Environmental Health
officer had attended a meeting of the Exploitation Steering sub-group in 2010 at
which there had been wide-ranging discussions under the agenda heading 'Taxi
Licensing and links to Sexual Exploitation'. In November 2010, it was agreed to '
collate a small short task and finish group... in order to investigate allegations that
taxi and takeaways were using their position to engage with vulnerable children'. In
February 2011, a Safeguarding Manager confirmed a link had been established and
that they had attended a meeting with the Assistant Chief Executive where this has
been confirmed. One of the recorded actions was to invite Members of the licensing
board to a national sexual exploitation conference on the Operation Central lessons
learnt, planned for April 2011. The Exploitation sub-group meeting minutes confirm
that the Safeguarding Board had concerns in relation to taxis and CSE and that
licensing staff were aware of these.
Licensing officers were also invited to attend meetings convened by the Assistant
Chief Executive, which from 2010 had considered CSE. Officers told Inspectors they
had sought permission from senior management when first approached to attend the
meetings. Document bundles provided to the inspection include emails discussing
these meetings; senior managers were aware of the Strategy meetings and the
issues of CSE and taxis raised there. The service director maintains he was not
made aware and Inspectors have seen no evidence to contradict this.
Licensing officers who attended recalled being asked not to take notes and being
given scraps of intelligence and asked to check up on it and report back. They ran
some information through their systems. Some meetings had been general, others
had focused on specific young people at risk.
‘Grid of concerns’
A grid had been produced which itemised issues of concern raised at the meetings.
The grid was later provided to the Inspection team by the Council. It covered
Strategy meetings in 2010 and was accompanied by a letter to Inspectors from a
Senior Licensing Manager stressing that no officials had attended the meetings in
question, but confirming that the Licensing service had been provided with the grid
back in December 2010. This would indicate that the specific cases itemised in the
grid were known within the licensing authority from that date.
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Over ten Strategy meetings were listed throughout 2010. Some were multi-agency.
All the concerns related to named young people, a high proportion of whom were
‘looked after’. There were three or four allegations relating to unidentified vehicles or
drivers, or to premises outside Rotherham. Otherwise, most allegations identified
specific operators (mainly Operators A, B and C) and in some cases named drivers.
Some of the named girls were involved in live police operations then underway, so
information came from the police.
Concerns were raised over:
• Taxi drivers harassing or attempting to abduct young people;
• Taxis behaving suspiciously in Clifton Park (a known hotspot for CSE);
• Taxi drivers collecting or dropping off young people from residential homes in a
drunken state or in possession of skunk marijuana;
• Young people reporting that they or their friends had performed sex acts in
taxis for cigarettes, alcohol or money – or had been asked to do so by taxi
drivers; and
• An allegation of rape and serious abuse.
Examples from the grid:
1. Child protection referral on X, by Y at Z residential unit. X’s peers say she is
giving out large sums of money, sometimes up to £60 to other young people. She
says she is receiving money, cigarettes and alcohol in return for providing sexual
acts for drivers from operator C and others. Her parents have also reported an
operator B taxi waiting outside the house to collect X more than once.
2. A 12 year old girl, part of a live police investigation disclosed rape and abuse of
other young females by X and describes X and his brother as taxi drivers (at
Operator B). She has also made allegations against his brother. Operator B taxis
have also been seen parked outside her school.
3. Park warden reported two Operator D cabs reported outside Clifton Park museum
at 7.30 at night, behaving suspiciously. Registration numbers were taken down and
cars checked out as Operator D vehicles.
Setting aside conflicting accounts of whether officials attended any or all of these
meetings, the Council’s licensing management have formally stated to the inspection
team that the grid of CSE concerns was provided to them in 2010, so the clear tenor
and pattern of allegations and the focus on certain operators should have been clear
to them.
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Responsible Authority Meetings
Responsible Authority (RA) meetings were set up in accordance with the 2003
licensing act as a forum for agencies to discuss matters in relation to licensed
premises such as takeaways. The current Rotherham licensing manager chaired
these meetings from 2010 and presciently chose to include taxis as a standing item
on the agenda. She invited Risky Business to attend to provide intelligence on taxis
and licensed premises in regard to CSE. A member of the Safeguarding board also
attended most RA meetings as did a police liaison officer.
Concerns raised at RA meetings in 2010 include:
• Reports that operator E cabs are using unlicensed drivers who may be
transporting underage girls around.
• Child missing over the weekend, an item of her clothing reported to be left in
Operator B’s office (February).
• Concerns raised by a local Councillor and local residents about a taxi
transporting girls around the area who then indulge in sexual activity (Aug).
• Concerns about children conducting sexual acts for vodka or food at named
shops, takeaways and pubs.
• An allegation made to police by a 13 year old against a named driver.
• A taxi driver taking two ‘looked after’ girls to Sheffield.
• Girls being taken to Clifton Park by taxi drivers again. Abduction Notices
served against driver from Operators B and C.
• A missing 14 year old found at premises on Prince of Wales Road where an
Abduction Notice had been served on the taxi driver.
Responses to concerns
Inspectors interviewed officers about specific cases discussed at RA meetings and
reviewed a selection of incident files. A number of these illustrated issues of concern
to inspectors.
• A customer complained that operator E was using a driver whom s/he knew to
be unlicensed and a criminal. An enforcement officer opened a complaint,
then closed it the following day after calling the operator who claimed the
driver was his son and alleged a malicious complaint from his son’s ex-partner
and family. No investigation was conducted despite allegations at RA
meetings (see above) that the operator’s son could be involved in CSE. No
action was taken for allowing an unlicensed driver to drive a taxi. Five months
later a further complaint was received relating to the operator’s son again
driving a taxi. The complainant further stated that the son had just come out of
prison and that the licensing board had previously rejected his taxi badge
application in 2008 and that he had also been disqualified from driving. The
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operator was said to be allowing three other unlicensed drivers to use his
vehicles. The case was closed on the basis of insufficient evidence to
continue.
• A social worker reported that Z, an Operator C driver, had turned up at 5am at
the house of a vulnerable client with learning difficulties and refused to leave
until she had sex with him. After repeated episodes the client feared she had
contracted an STD and the driver was now pressuring another vulnerable
person. Licensing officers were asked to make interim measures while police
were informed, but no action appears to have been taken.
• A mother complained that when her daughter struggled to open a taxi door
the driver told her ‘you could have been raped in the time it took you to do
that’. The daughter was very upset. The system records the case was closed
after the driver said his comments were taken out of context and notes the
‘informant was happy with that’. It is unclear whether the daughter was
spoken to.
Interviews conducted by Inspectors about licensing investigations coupled with
analysis of documents, demonstrated a failure to follow through concerns and
complaints into action. Inspectors were concerned that when an investigation was
passed on to the police it no longer appeared as active on the licensing
database/system. This means that no record of potentially serious cases could be
built up or taken into account if further complaints were made against a driver.
Investigations also appeared to have been halted on the basis of summary
assessments of the quality of evidence and whether it would satisfy the CPS.
Moreover, where cases had been referred to the police, no further action by police
was used as a basis for closing the case in the licensing team, even though (as has
been noted above) licensing can apply lower thresholds of proof.
Officers demonstrated little inclination to take steps to convert anecdote or
information into evidence, for example, by working with residential care homes to
monitor taxi activities.
One senior manager cited a joint operation between licensing and neighbourhood
safety officers to stand up allegations of CSE related activity in Clifton Park as an
example of licensing ‘going above and beyond’ in its attempts to gather evidence.
The operation had run for several evenings until 10pm and found nothing. This was
unsurprising as officials had held a meeting with the trade to alert them it would be
happening.
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Inspectors were concerned that on the basis of a single, flawed and short-lived
surveillance operation licensing were prepared to give Clifton Park (and the taxis
which congregate there) a ‘clean bill of health’ in perpetuity.
Inspectors noted a repeated downplaying of low level harassment claims, ‘her
mother said she was probably pissed’ an enforcement officer commented, of a
complaint by a young woman that a taxi driver had put his hand on her leg unbidden.
The young woman herself was not interviewed.
Although Strategy and RA meeting notes repeatedly cited the same few operators in
relation to CSE linked issues, when asked if any operators gave particular cause for
concern in this regard, officers could not think of any.
The case of Operator B
Concerns were raised about this operator repeatedly in both Strategy and RA
meeting minutes. Officers built a case (not based on CSE concerns) against the
operator as ‘not a fit and proper person’, which was taken to the Licensing Board,
which revoked both of the operator’s licences (for operating and driving).
A magistrate’s court dismissed the operator’s appeal against the revocations.
However, in advance of a further Crown Court hearing RMBC accepted a deal
whereby the operator relinquished his operator’s licence, but kept his driver’s ‘badge’.
Shortly afterwards a family member of his applied for an operator’s licence, which
was granted and the operator continued trading under a new name. Officials continue
to deal with the original operator on licensing matters. In effect the operator carried
on under a new guise in full knowledge of the licensing team.
Revocations and current practice
Inspectors noted that only one of the four case studies handed over by RMBC
showing revocations of licence (between 2009 and 2012) arose out of the
investigation of a complaint. A mother complained after a driver followed her
daughter home. Inspectors heard that the board initially refused to hear the case
(because the daughter didn’t attend herself) and refused to keep the driver and
complainant separate when the hearing took place. Three others followed notification
from police of arrests so they acted upon that notification.
Inspectors were also concerned at officers’ attitude towards limousines. Limousines
with over eight seats come under the jurisdiction of VOSA, not the licensing
authority, but CSE related concerns had been raised at both Strategy meetings and
RA meetings about one particular company. The Licensing Authority expressed
disquiet that Children’s Safeguarding had written to schools in advance of the prom
season, advising parents that there had been CSE related concerns about limos.
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This was seen as irregular and not based on ‘fact’, rather than an attempt to prevent
a serious issue falling through a gap in RMBC’s jurisdiction.
Inspectors noted that RA meetings are now chaired by a senior manager from the
licensing section, who will exert ‘tighter control’ of the discussion and minutes.
Inspectors also witnessed a discussion at a CSE tactical meeting in November 2014
during which a senior licensing manager challenged whether taxis and takeaways in
Rotherham should be included as possible areas where CSE may be occurring. Both
the Chair of the meeting and the CSE coordinator pointed out that taxi and
takeaways were identified as a risk nationally and there had been a historic link with
CSE in Rotherham. The senior manager did not accept that there was a current
problem with CSE and taxis and takeaways. Inspectors are concerned that the
services' refusal to accept a link with CSE is hampering its ability to take effective
action, investigate complaints properly, share intelligence appropriately or contribute
to building a composite picture enabling others to take action.
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5. DOES THE COUNCIL UNDERTAKE SUFFICIENT LIAISONS WITH OTHER
AGENCIES?
Background
Inspectors were directed to consider whether RMBC undertook and continues to
undertake sufficient liaisons with other agencies, particularly the police, local health
partners, and the safeguarding board.
Councils are required by law to establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board
(LSCB) a Community Safety Partnership and a Health and Well-being Board.
Inspectors looked at the effectiveness of each of these arrangements.
Judgement
Inspectors have concluded that whilst the quantity of liaisons between these
organisations is sufficient, the quality is not. The current structure is ineffective and is
not delivering desired outcomes.
In summary, there are too many boards, too much duplication of effort and too much
talking with little visible impact on services or action on the ground. There is no
corporate management assessing whether the partnerships are effective and no coordination
of activity.
Inspectors looked at liaisons on CSE specifically and found a lack of ownership and
accountability from the Safer Rotherham Partnership. The LSCB hived off CSE into a
sub-group which did not link back to other work on wider community safety issues.
Until very recently, CSE has not been given the priority and visibility it required.
As a result, there have been significant lost opportunities for all partners to actively
tackle the issue of CSE across all local public services, including health, policing and
the criminal justice system; as well as through services like licensing, housing, adults
and neighbourhoods in RMBC itself.
Rotherham’s Local Safeguarding Children Board
LSCBs co-ordinate the work of different agencies working together to safeguard
children and ensure this work is effective. The CE of the Council appoints the Chair
of this Board and holds them to account.
The LSCB Chair should work closely with all LSCB partners and particularly with the
Council’s Director of Children’s Services. This person has the statutory responsibility
under section 18 of the Children Act 2004 for improving outcomes for children,
Children’s Social Care and local co-operation arrangements for Children’s Services.
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The LSCB Chair must publish an annual report which assesses the effectiveness of
efforts to safeguard children and promote their welfare.
The core structure of the Rotherham Board (RLSCB) meets statutory requirements
and is broadly in line with other local authorities’ boards. However the Board is not
as effective as it should be and this has been recognised by the Chair.
Historically, the Board has failed to identify shortcomings within Children’s Services
and ensure action to improve. It carries out the required audits of casework, and
makes effective judgements, but these audits are not used to drive improvements in
practice, and the Board does not follow up or challenge this effectively enough.
The Chair recognises RLSCB has not functioned effectively. In his oral report to
Cabinet in December 2014 he acknowledged the failings of the Board and included
an honest reflection of what he, as Chair, could have done differently. We welcome
his candour and determination to learn. His approach is refreshing given the
prevailing climate of denial.
There are two sub-groups of RLCSB accountable for CSE. These are the Child
Sexual Exploitation sub-group called the ‘Gold Group’ which is responsible for
strategy and the ‘Silver Group’ which is responsible for tactics. The terms of
reference for these groups are currently under review. The groups have not been
sufficiently effective in scrutinising arrangements, driving action and holding partners
to account.
Inspectors reviewed the minutes for the last twelve months. It is clear that a wealth of
information about CSE issues, soft intelligence and activity by different agencies is
shared at these meetings. However, it is unclear how this information informs the
overall strategies and operations for the agencies involved. Senior managers were
involved in the groups but missed opportunities to take robust action on the
information that was shared.
Each set of sub-group minutes is marked at the beginning with an RLSCB agenda
item suggesting they have been presented to the full Board. But there is no
reference to any comments or actions requested by the RLSCB in response. In other
words, it is unclear what the RLSCB does with the records of the discussions.
Inspectors could not see how the information was used to inform service planning,
distribute resources or support partnership working.
OFSTED’s report noted that the Chair had been well supported by partners and the
funding for RLSCB was secure. Inspectors believe this is essential. The recent
increase in funding to support performance reporting is also a welcome investment.
RLSCB now needs to ensure that this delivers value for money. To date we have
seen poor use of evidence to test what is, and is not, working on the ground and
weak lines of accountability.
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OFSTED found the RLSCB is inadequate and we concur with this finding. They
found that while there has been a great deal of activity following the Jay report it has
been poorly co-ordinated and change has been too slow. We note that the Chair is
taking steps to address current weaknesses, but it is too early to say whether the
changes will have the necessary impact. We stress that reform needs to be
accelerated.
There must be clearer lines of accountability between the Board, the Chief
Executive, the DCS, Members, senior leaders of partner organisation and the
Improvement Board. Work needs to connect to tangible outcomes and people need
to be properly held to account for delivery.
The Chair of the RLSCB is now also chairing the CSE sub-group and will lead the
review of the CSE Action Plan, reporting to the Cabinet quarterly. Inspectors
seriously question whether Cabinet oversight of this vital work on only four occasions
a year is adequate in the light of public concern.
The Chair’s initiatives are welcome steps in the right direction but, will not be
sufficient to address the many failings identified. Depending on its other work
programme, and how many Serious Case Reviews arise in a year, inspectors
question whether the RLSCB can be truly effective in overseeing and maintaining the
scale of multi-agency work required for CSE. This is a matter the Council and the
wider partnership needs to keep under close review.
The Health and Well-being Board
Each upper-tier local authority has to establish a Health and Well-being Board
(HWB) for its area which assesses the current and future health and social care
needs of the local community, and develops a strategy which sets out joint priorities
for commissioning services to meet these needs.
Inspectors reviewed the last 12 months’ of minutes and found them to be satisfactory
and in line with other areas. Rotherham had gone beyond the statutory minimum
membership and has included NHS providers on the board. One said “it was great
that they had given the Hospital trust a seat” (which does not happen everywhere).
Their agenda is sizeable, but relevant.
However, Inspectors did hear concerns regarding whether health and the local
authority were really joining up on the ground. Specific concerns regarding CSE,
including mental health, teenage pregnancies and sexual health need to be tackled.
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The Board was going to undertake a peer review which was welcomed by all but put
it on hold until after the Jay report, and now this inspection. Inspectors hope this
review ensures these matters are addressed.
The Rotherham Partnership
Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are non-statutory multi-agency partnerships that
have traditionally worked to local authority boundaries. They bring together
representatives from the local statutory, voluntary, community and private sectors to
address local concerns, discuss strategies and initiatives for the benefit of the
community and drive forward change. They have not been a legal requirement since
2010. Although the Rotherham Partnership has remained, its role and relationship
with other partnership groups is confused.
The last community strategy was published in 2012 (covering the period 2012-15)
with an agreed list of priorities to deliver amongst the partners. The top three
priorities include ‘supporting those that are vulnerable within our communities’ and to
‘ensure the best start in life for children and families.’ This suggests that CSE should
have been relevant to the partnership but we did not find any evidence they had
addressed the issue.
The general view from partners, confirmed by analysis of the structure and the
community strategy, is that this arrangement is largely tactical. Inspectors found that
it had focused on individual projects and initiatives rather than on developing a
strong ambition for the borough. It is not clear if or how the community strategy feeds
into other key plans, and it is seen as stand alone.
The Chief Executive Officers Group
Rotherham has an established Chief Executive Officers Group with Chief Executive
level membership from the police, the Clinical Commissioning Group, the hospital,
the fire and rescue authority, the Chamber of Commerce, Rotherham college, the
voluntary and community sector and Public Health. Participants value this body as it
can make decisions and address issues as well as build good personal working
relationships across agencies. Its positive contribution seems to have been to
promote partnership cohesion, though this does not seem to have translated into the
strategic and political leadership that is required.
The minutes of this group since 2005 suggest it has been focused on delivering
partnership arrangements like the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, Local Area
Agreements and Corporate Performance Assessment as well as working together on
joint bids. It appears to have been effective in this role and this aspect is to be
commended. The group has also considered some issues of strategic importance to
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Rotherham such as the economic downturn, migration patterns, demographic and
deprivation profile, and welfare reform.
From interviews with participants, we understand that this group did discuss CSE
and members undertook awareness training. However, it only features on one
occasion in the minutes of the Chief Executive Officers Group in April 2014, when a
reference is made to Rotherham being a national leader in dealing with Child Sexual
Exploitation. It is hard to see how they could have come to such a view based on the
evidence we have seen, which raises significant concerns about the information and
data which goes to the Group. Indeed, given the press coverage and the
commissioning of the Jay report, we find the minute of this discussion misplaced and
perverse. This group needs to put CSE firmly on its agenda.
Other partnership arrangements
Inspectors were told that there are: “lots of committees and groups…loads of
meetings about meetings… you need some political direction on what the priorities
are.” a strategic partner
There are over 20 groups and sub-groups which are part of the Council’s wider
partnership arrangements in addition to the Rotherham Partnership and statutory
boards. Quite how they fit together was not clear. Arrangements have been subject
to many changes and now lack coherence and a sense of common purpose.
There is too much overlap and the boundaries between the Council and statutory
groups (such as RLSCB) are insufficiently clear. There are too many meetings, subgroups,
task and finish groups and action plans but not enough action. Too many
people sit on different groups, decision making is painfully slow and there is a
general lack of pace. When decisions are made they are often delegated to
individual officers and are not routinely followed up.
The overall partnership arrangements are too complex and confusing. There are
problems both of overlap and duplication and of silo working. No one is bringing
together the outcomes and actions from each of the boards, groups and sub-groups.
The partnership itself has one funded manager who has a limited remit to help coordinate
or communicate between strands.
Partnership working is not focused on achieving outcomes. Inspectors saw examples
of processes being agreed rather than actions. But even these processes were not
followed through. For example, sub-groups were set up to look into matters but
without reporting back.
Some of the groups appear too large to be effective. For example, the RLSCB has
33 members and the Domestic Abuse Priority Task Group has 52 members.
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“Now it is one group with a cast of thousands. The Terms of Reference runs to three
pages and there are so many members that they need to bring together two rooms
for meetings.” A strategic partner
According to partners, the partnership manager is “trying valiantly to pull things
together” but a more fundamental review is long overdue.
Partnerships now
Partners are committed to joint working and want to contribute to Rotherham’s
'recovery'. However, the current ineffective arrangements mean it is difficult to make
this most of this goodwill. The Council does not effectively act as a community leader
and galvanise partners.
“What the town needs to see is some strong leadership from the top. How they are
going to deal with what’s happened. That should instil a bit more confidence.
Leadership has to come from the politicians.” A partner
“Fundamentally we need some leadership from somewhere.” An officer
Partners are disappointed that the joint meeting between the Rotherham Partnership
Board and the Chief Executive Officers Group on 27th November 2014, following the
publication of the Jay report, did not result in a cohesive strategy and plan of action.
This is just one instance of the Council failing to fulfil its community leadership role.
The key action agreed was to form a steering group focused on communicating and
engaging with the community. This is simply not good enough. Too much of the
meeting was spent on discussing the past and there was too little focus on solutions
required to tackle the existing concerns.
Partners are frustrated that the Council did not grasp the need to rebuild its credibility
with the community. Partners perceive the Council as too passive and express
concerns about whether it will succeed in turning leading the necessary changes.
Partners expressed a strong desire to see the Council restore confidence in itself,
and contribute to rebuilding Rotherham.
“All partners agreed that now is the time to go out and talk with communities in
Rotherham. There needs to be a conversation; say you are sorry, support people,
make people feel safe, asking you about solutions.”
The Safer Rotherham Partnership (SRP)
The Safer Rotherham Partnership is the Community Safety Partnership for
Rotherham. It is a statutory body required under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
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Its mission is: 'to make Rotherham safe, keep Rotherham safe and to ensure
communities of Rotherham feel safe.' For many children and young people it has not
succeeded in this mission.
The partnership is jointly chaired by the police and the Strategic Director of
Neighbourhood and Adult Services. It has legal responsibility for tackling crime,
antisocial behaviour, drugs and alcohol misuse.
Its principal business is driven by:
• a Member chaired board called the SRP Board;
• an Officer Executive Group comprising of partners from the statutory and
voluntary sector;
• a Joint Action Group (JAG) with a number of priority sub-groups.
The remit of each group is unclear and we found little evidence of the SRP Board
holding officers from the Executive Group to account for delivering SRP’s priorities.
Both the Board and Executive Group appear to be passive with a large number of
reports being 'noted' or 'for information'. The minutes of meetings do not, of course,
reflect the totality of the work being done and we have no doubt that good work is
being undertaken in relation to crime and antisocial behaviour but this not reflected in
the discussions taking place at a strategic level.
CSE has been discussed at different times by the partnership but senior officers told
Inspectors that they saw it as a matter for the RLSCB. Joint Strategic Intelligence
Assessments carried out by the Safer Rotherham Partnership from 2008/9 flagged
up CSE as being an issue but it was not adopted as a priority until 2014. It is unclear
why.
“I see an absence of community safety on this issue. Apart from the abduction
notices, I can’t see how the Council or the police did anything much” A senior partner
In April 2014, a protocol was agreed between SRP and RLSCB to clarify the
relationship between the two and 'articulate the specific links and reporting
arrangements between them'. In effect, the protocol requires SRP to share its
minutes and any reports on joint priorities with RLSCB. It was also agreed that
annual reports submitted by the Safeguarding Board to the Council's Improving Lives
Select Commission would include a focus on joint priorities. This is a step in the right
direction on paper but does not ensure joint action is cemented.
The Safer Rotherham Partnership has set out four priorities for 2014/15. Priority one
is 'reducing the threat and harm to victims of child sexual exploitation.' However,
RLSCB’s Gold Group has sole responsibility for developing the CSE strategy and
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delivery plans for the borough (working with Silver Group). Its terms of reference
require it to report to the Safer Rotherham Partnership as well as RLSCB. This is
bound to result in unnecessary duplication with the same officers attending a number
of meetings presenting the same reports. We do not find the arrangements regarding
CSE to be appropriate.
More importantly, we are at loss to understand what contribution SRP makes to
tackling CSE perpetrators and to reducing threat and harm to CSE victims. South
Yorkshire Police continue to lead in this area and generate a lot of the activity in
relation to CSE. We are disappointed at the lack of engagement and contribution
being made by the Neighbourhood Crime and Anti Social Behaviour Division of
RMBC and its other Regulatory Services, an issue we explore further in the following
chapter. The lack of accountability and challenge from the Board and Executive
Group is doing nothing to maximise contributions from all partners.
Inspectors found that the SRP had failed to develop a strategy with police to use the
full range of the Council’s legal and regulatory tools to disrupt criminal activities. It
had also failed to work in partnership with the CSE sub-group to ensure that CSE
issues were being properly tackled.
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Community Safety and Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation
Inspectors examined carefully whether there had been effective liaisons with regard
to community safety across the Council, the police and other partners. In a robust
partnership between equals, the inspection team would expect to see evidence of all
parties working together in the interest of victims. Unfortunately, this was found to be
significantly lacking both historically and currently in RMBC’s approach to dealing
with issues of CSE.
Rather, inspectors noted council staff’s preparedness to accept long-term police
assurances of the situation being dealt with, without adequate challenge or scrutiny
of their actions.
While a healthy respect for other services is an important aspect of any partnership,
this level of passive acceptance leads officers to neglect their own responsibilities
towards victims. The Council has a role in holding the police to account, and failure
to do so resulted in a failure to ensure the protection of victims and prevention of
further crimes.
To this day, the Council will not publish the 2003 and 2006 police intelligence reports
highlighting the extent and nature of the problem of CSE in Rotherham, due to ‘ongoing
[police] investigations’; demonstrating the continued excessive deference to
South Yorkshire Police.
RMBC does not recognise that it has an important role in tackling and disrupting
perpetrators. It has failed to understand the value of the information it holds in
understanding the picture of CSE in Rotherham and the identity of perpetrators.
Instead, RMBC does not ask who the perpetrators are, and remains ignorant both of
what tools and powers are available to them, and how to use these to reduce the
risks to young people.
We accept that the police have primary responsibility for dealing with cases of
breach of criminal law. However, RMBC also has an active role to play, in particular
– though not exclusively - where criminal prosecution is not possible.
They have a wide variety of options available including:
• Civil Injunctions under section 1 Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act
2014 (these replace Antisocial Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and Anti-social
Behaviour Injunctions);
• Closure orders associated with nuisance and disorder;
• Application for an injunction under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction;
• Section 222 Local Government Act 1972;
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• Exercise of the council’s regulatory functions including taxis, takeaways,
nightclubs, hotels, B&Bs etc.
Inspectors saw little evidence of the use of such powers to tackle child sexual
exploitation. A list of powers available can be found at Annex E.
Failure to systematically consider or pursue these alternative approaches is a failure
of RMBC’s community safety team but also of the Safer Rotherham Partnership. The
Partnership, using the combined powers of RMBC and SYP, would have been
expected to take a significantly stronger role in prevention, disruption and
enforcement action against perpetrators.
Abduction notices
Abduction Notices are available to the police under section 2 of the Child Abduction
Act 1984 and have been used in the absence of prosecuting offenders. There is no
legal or statutory basis for serving these notices, and the breach of any of the terms
of the notice is not a criminal offence - although a notice can be used as evidence in
support of other criminal offences and/or support applications for injunctions or other
civil orders.
Given the relative weakness of abduction notices, they have been used surprisingly
frequently in Rotherham. Information from the police suggested that approximately
139 Child Abduction Notices had been served in relation to 114 young people in the
two years 2013 and 2014. These figures are all the more striking when compared
with the relatively low numbers of prosecutions for related activity.
Although the information received was incomplete, Inspectors were concerned at
their use in several situations. This included the apparent use of Abduction notices
multiple times on the same individual, the use of Abduction notices where there had
been allegations of rape, and the use of Abduction notices on perpetrators who had
been the target of previous police operations in relation to allegations of extreme
violence and intimidation.
Inspectors therefore question the basis on which Child Abduction Notices are
served, particularly in the light of the fact that adherence to the terms of the notices
is not monitored.
South Yorkshire Police
The role of South Yorkshire Police (SYP) falls beyond the scope of this statutory
inspection, and we have not looked into their past or present actions in detail.
However, inspectors felt that the critical role of SYP in tackling CSE meant that the
organisation could not be ignored in this report. The police are a crucial partner in
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tackling sexual exploitation. Whilst the Council has powers to deal with perpetrators,
the primary role rests with the police. Unfortunately, the impression of Inspectors
was that SYP’s action has fallen short of what would be expected.
There is little argument that crimes of grooming and sexual exploitation are on-going
in Rotherham. The number of current CSE cases being dealt with, the number of
CSE related crimes recorded and the number of abduction notices served by SYP all
point to the active and numerous perpetration of crimes within the town.
It seemed to Inspectors that police activity was unexpectedly low in response to
these issues, and historically has been poor. There has been a flurry of recent action
by the police on criminal investigations and prosecutions, which is to be expected
given the high level of public scrutiny and the focus afforded by the new Police and
Crime Commissioner. However, Inspectors remained concerned that once public
scrutiny wanes there is a danger that historic inertia will prevail.
Without the remit to consider SYP’s practices in detail, Inspectors noted the following
as concerns.
Procurement of evidence
There has been excessive dependence on victims’ disclosure and verbal evidence to
proceed with prosecutions, placing an intolerable pressure on vulnerable young
people. The nature of CSE means that these young people are likely to be
frightened, distrustful, and may still consider themselves in a relationship with
perpetrators, making this reliance on disclosure ineffective and unfair.
Inspectors would encourage the use of other approaches, which are beginning to be
considered – such as so called ‘victimless prosecutions’ – in future.
Treatment of victims
The police’s historic attitude towards, and treatment of, victims has been
unacceptable. Young people’s testimonies are ignored, victims are not offered
necessary protection, and perpetrators are at liberty to continue their activities. This
behaviour by SYP perpetuates the cycle of abuse and psychological distortion
suffered by the victims, by reinforcing the message that no crime has been
committed, and that they are to blame for their own treatment.
Inspectors are concerned that this attitude continues in the police to this day, with
treatment of current victims remaining at an unacceptably low standard.
We welcome the on-going investigations by the Independent Police Complaints
Commission (IPCC) into the historic conduct of some officers. We are also pleased
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to see the launch of Operation Stovewood, by the National Crime Agency, reviewing
major investigations into CSE in Rotherham over the period of Professor Jay’s
report. We hope these investigations help to deliver justice for the victims.
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6. DOES THE COUNCIL TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION AGAINST STAFF
GUILTY OF GROSS MISCONDUCT?
Background
Inspectors were directed to consider whether RMBC took and continues to take
appropriate action against staff guilty of gross misconduct. Inspectors took into
account RMBC’s response to the Jay report.
Judgement
Generally, inspectors found the Council too willing to take the path of least
resistance rather than ensuring it did the right thing for individuals or the organisation
as a whole.
We have concluded that whilst the Council has followed its own procedures, these
have not always ensured that it has taken, and continues to take, appropriate action
against staff potentially guilty of gross misconduct.
Action post Jay report
At the Cabinet meeting of 3rd September 2014, which followed publication of the Jay
report, the then Chief Executive Martin Kimber acknowledged ‘a desire for those at
fault to be held to account’, given the scale of failings which the report had identified.
The Council had taken legal advice to inform how to address this issue in terms of
current and former employees.
The CE said that:
• the Council had shared ‘a list of individuals, currently employed by the
Council, involved in child protection’ with Professor Jay;
• Professor Jay ‘ confirmed that in all cases no adverse comments [were] made
in the course of the inquiry either through interview, written submissions or
case interviews that would warrant investigation’;
• one individual had been asked further relevant questions as to their
knowledge about child sexual exploitation issues;
• preliminary discussions were to take place with one further employee, ‘to be
concluded as swiftly as possible, and may or may not lead to further action’.
During the inspection, the Director of HR advised that the case files for victims A-O
(whose cases were highlighted in the Jay report) were being independently reviewed
to see whether there are any concerns about practice relating to staff past or
present. This is to be welcomed.
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No Chief Officer has faced a disciplinary investigation in relation to the Jay report.
The Council accepted resignations from the former CE and the former Strategic
Director of Children’s Services Joyce Thacker. Both received payments described by
the Council as “only that to which the officers were contractually entitled”. We were
advised that a third Chief Officer has also left on similar terms. Such arrangements
may lawfully be made in order to deliver the required staffing changes. Whilst this
has given the Council the chance of a welcome fresh start, it has also meant that noone
has been held to account for the serious failures Professor Jay identified.
Disciplinary, grievance and severance case files
Inspectors requested all staff disciplinary, grievance and severance case files from
2008-2014. We also asked to see files for the former Director of Finance, the former
Director of Children’s Services, the former Chief Executive and the employee
referenced by the CE on 3rd September because of their relevance to the Jay report.
The former Director of Finance had parted company with the Council under the
terms of a severance agreement. The other employee’s case was still under review.
111 files were provided (excluding those for schools). Of these:
• 38 were categorised as disciplinary
• 42 as grievance
• 23 as severance agreements
• 7 as Dignity at Work (some of which were treated as grievances)
• 2 as Employment Tribunals
Inspectors reviewed 19 case files in detail, including the four staff specifically
requested. The other 15 were chosen at random and included:
• 11 disciplinary/disciplinary appeals
• 10 settlement and compromise agreements
• 5 grievances (including one collective grievance involving 6 staff)
• 2 complaints under the Council’s dignity at work policy.
The numbers do not add up to 15 as some cases had multiple issues, including
racism, bullying and harassment, sexual harassment and sexism. Some cases
included several complainants.
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Severance payments and compromise agreements
Inspectors judged that the Council has appropriate policies and processes in place
for dealing with matters relating to officer performance, conduct and grievances,
which staff know how to use.
However, the case sample indicates that severance payments and compromise
agreements17 were too often used, sometimes instead of hearing grievances or
disciplinary cases, which was not always appropriate.
Further evidence from the Council suggests that the case sample may have provided
a skewed picture proportionate to the whole. Nevertheless, Inspectors still had
concerns about the judgements being made in some of these cases.
Settlements can leave issues unresolved in the case of grievances. For example,
one staff member was offered severance when she complained of being bullied.
There were counter claims against her by others saying she was a bully. Because
the case was not properly investigated, it is unclear whether the matter was resolved
by the complainant’s departure.
Where severance is used instead of disciplinary action procedures being followed
through, it sends the wrong message to the workforce and managers. It may not be
an appropriate use of public funds, particularly where dismissal could have occurred
if due process had been followed. This was acknowledged by the Council.
One former senior manager in RMBC left under a compromise agreement having
faced potential disciplinary procedures following serious allegations made by a group
of staff regarding inappropriate behaviour. Inspectors believe that the disciplinary
case should have been heard and the evidence judged on its merit. If the behaviour
was found to have taken place then this disciplinary process would have sent a
strong signal to the organisation that this behaviour was not tolerated by RMBC.
Equally, had the allegations been found to be spurious, mischievous and vexatious,
this should have led to appropriate action against those making the allegations,
again sending out a strong signal that such behaviour was not to be tolerated either.
Instead, the employee left under a compromise agreement, both parties agreed not
to discuss the matter publicly and due process was not seen to be done.
“It doesn’t send the right signal… [But] this solution avoided a long winded
disciplinary process.” A senior officer
17 A ‘compromise agreement’ is a contract between an employer and its employee (or ex-employee) that can be used in
redundancy and dismissal situations. The employee will typically receive a negotiated financial sum in exchange for agreeing
that they will have no further claim against the employer for any sum owed under the original contract of employment.
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A number of the files inspectors examined were incomplete. Action took longer than
it should in several cases and in some action was so delayed that individuals left
before the matter could be resolved. Trade union representatives raised concerns
with Inspectors about the timeliness of dealing with staffing matters. We concur with
these concerns. Protracted and unresolved processes of this kind cannot be in the
interests of either the individual concerned, or the organisation itself.
Grievance cases were too frequently dismissed on the grounds of insufficient
evidence. In two cases where this had occurred, Inspectors considered there was
clearly some evidence of poor conduct by managers. In another case, Inspectors
noted that the disciplinary process appeared to have been concluded without
seeking evidence from all third party witnesses.
At times, little effort appeared to have been put into seriously exploring issues raised
through grievances. For example, a complaint about potential institutionalised racism
was apparently dismissed without investigation on the basis that it was ‘unsuitable
for a grievance process’. We make no comment on the merit of this particular case,
except that it should have been properly looked into.
Sanctions, dismissals and the role of Members
Sanctions seem generally within the expected range, although there was one case in
which a manager was dismissed, where the sanction seemed severe in the
circumstances. This person was reinstated on appeal but left shortly afterwards with
a severance agreement.
In three of the cases Inspectors reviewed, staff that had been dismissed and were
reinstated through the Member appeal process. Inspectors seriously question
Members’ decisions in two of these cases.
In the first, Members acknowledged grave concerns that children had been left
unsafe as a result of poor decision-making by a social work manager, but chose to
reinstate this manager.
In another, a manager dismissed for racial discrimination was reinstated even though
Members noted that her actions had been completely inappropriate and fell well
below the expected standard of conduct. Inspectors seriously question the message
this decision sent out to staff in general and those who had raised concerns in
particular. Inspectors question whether HR was giving sufficiently strong advice to
Members.
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7. DOES ROTHERHAM COVER UP INFORMATION AND SILENCE WHISTLEBLOWERS?
Background
Inspectors were directed to consider whether RMBC covers up information, and
whether ‘whistle-blowers’ are silenced; and whether RMBC took and continues to
take appropriate action against staff guilty of gross misconduct.
Judgement
Inspectors have concluded that RMBC goes to some lengths to cover up information,
and silence whistle-blowers. It has created an unhealthy climate where people fear
to speak out because they have seen the consequences of doing so for others.
“I’m just worried about reprisals of a personal nature.” A Councillor
“We’ve all been made aware of the (whistleblowing) procedure, but no-one dares
ever use it, because if they did, eventually it would come back to bite them in the
backside and they would be bullied out of the organisation”. A whistle-blower
Cover up?
Cover up in RMBC needs to be looked at within the culture of a Council that, as has
already been described, does not welcome challenge and chooses instead to ‘shoot
the messenger’ rather than learn from mistakes that have been made. Inspectors
found that RMBC, when faced with information about wrong doing or poor practice
often seeks to stamp on that information and silence those who bring forward their
concerns. Inspectors found that the Council’s concern with its reputation leads it to
cover up information which it would prefer not to be in the public domain.
The most high profile and contested example of this is the redactions made to the
Serious Case Review (SCR) of Child S, who was murdered in Rotherham in October
2010 (see Annex A).
The SCR was not published until late May 2012 and was so extensively redacted
that The Times newspaper contacted RMBC signalling its intention to publish some
of the details which had been removed. The Times’ journalist Andrew Norfolk had
extensively covered CSE as a national and Rotherham specific problem from 2010
onwards. He received the un-redacted report from an anonymous source.
The Times contended that the redactions sought to minimise Child S’s involvement
with CSE and mask associated failure on the part of professionals within RMBC.
The Council justified its redactions on the basis of seeking to protect the identities of
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Child S and her family and there is some validity in the claim, although the related
murder trial had been extensively covered in the media. RMBC sought a legal
injunction against The Times to prevent it from publishing. The matter attracted
criticism from the then Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove. A less heavily
redacted version of the SCR was finally published in 2013.
The Inspectors have reviewed both versions of the redacted SCR and found that
while the majority of redactions related to unidentified members of the family, these
were relevant as they would have supported the identification of Child S as at risk of
CSE. They revealed that a sibling of Child S had a long history of involvement with
services and agencies, including the police, in relation to CSE. That references to
this sibling were redacted minimised the visibility of that risk. Given that services
around Child S, save Risky Business, were not proactive in identifying this as a risk,
the redactions could be seen to corroborate The Times’ assertion that this revealed
failures on behalf of RMBC.
Inspectors are of the view that the SCR into the death of Child S minimised her
involvement in CSE in a manner which was overlooked in the furore which
surrounded the redactions.
In chapter 3.3 the SCR clearly stated that the information that linked both Child S
and her sibling to CSE had been discounted for the purposes of the SCR. This
information linked them to alleged perpetrators and included details of vehicles used,
telephone numbers and addresses and other young women who associated with
them. Information of this kind was held in a database and, as the SCR
acknowledged, was of use to the police. However it was discounted and not included
in the account of Child S’s life assembled within the SCR on the basis that the
information was all second and third hand and therefore unverifiable. ‘For the
purpose of this review it has therefore been discounted.’ No reference to CSE was
included in ‘A Child’s Journey’ which summarises what the SCR considered to be a
verifiable account of Child S’s life.
The Council’s legal action against The Times commenced amidst a climate in the
Council that did not want Rotherham to be identified publicly as having a problem
with CSE and its focus was the protection of the Council’s reputation. The Council
and its staff did not see the ongoing coverage by The Times as a ‘red flag’ moment;
an opportunity to get underneath what was happening and galvanise action. Instead,
it went on the defensive and viewed the coverage as a politically motivated attempt
to undermine the Council’s reputation.
More generally, staff told Inspectors of a culture where bad news was not welcome
and difficult matters were ‘taken off agendas’. Inspectors also found that key files
and documents were missing and could not be provided on request. This included
taxi operators’ manual files so up to date information could not be provided relating
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to ownership. Inspectors do not have evidence to prove that this is a cover up but
even in its best light this would be poor record management.
Inspectors were told about missing files, including children’s case files belonging to
Risky Business that the Council could not find. Our inspection established that these
files had been in an office at Riverside House, the Council’s main building, for some
considerable time. Professor Jay also comments on the fact that the minutes of ‘key
players meetings’ could not be found. We are advised that the interim Chief
Executive asked the Council’s internal auditors to find these and within weeks, they
had been tracked down. It seems that when RMBC says things are missing and lost,
that they may not have looked that hard.
Whistleblowing procedures and evidence reviewed
Whistleblowing entails a worker reporting things that aren’t right, such as if an
organisation is conducting illegal activities, neglecting its duties, or covering up
wrong doing. A worker can’t be dismissed because of whistleblowing. If they are,
they can claim unfair dismissal. They will be protected by law as long as certain
criteria are met.
Inspectors reviewed the Council’s whistleblowing procedures, called the Confidential
Reporting Codes (dated 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2013); reviewed
the whistleblowing investigations considered by the Standards Committee, and
interviewed the Monitoring Officer and Director of HR. Twenty people contacted the
inspection team directly to provide information and evidence to the inspection. This
included whistle-blowers, current and former members of staff and members of the
public. Inspectors met with 15 of the 20 contacts. In addition, Inspectors followed up
an anonymous letter and asked senior Council officials about the climate/culture of
the Council.
The Council’s policies and processes appear to be appropriate and there is evidence
that some recent efforts have been made to communicate these to staff.
We asked the Council to provide us with the number of whistleblowing cases over
the period of the Jay report, the concerns expressed therein and the outcomes of
these cases. We looked at 23 files provided which covered a wide range of matters.
Inspectors noted that it was unusual for whistleblowing reports to be considered by
the then Standards Board which is normally reserved for matters of Member
conduct. While it is not good practice to muddle roles in this way, we concluded that
these complaints had been subject to independent investigation and report and
seemed to have been appropriately handled. There was one exception when the
substance of the concern had not been included in the terms of reference for the
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investigation (see case study) and this was not picked up by the Standards Board
when it upheld the complaint.
Staff who blow the whistle
“I stepped forward on behalf of young people … It cost me my job and my career. I
feel it was worth it. I am proud to have done so despite the cost to my health and
financial situation… the machine at RMBC doesn’t care, won’t listen and simply
exists to cover up and destroy.” A whistle-blower
Staff in RMBC have spoken to Inspectors of being afraid to speak out, told to keep
quiet, instructed to cover up, and of a culture where “if you want to keep your job,
you keep your head down and your mouth shut.”
A significant number of people we interviewed were clearly afraid of what might
happen to them if they spoke out.
Inspectors considered detailed evidence in three specific cases where people who
blew the whistle felt they were marginalised, bullied, harassed and victimised as a
result.
In two cases, whistle-blowers claimed they were deliberately restructured out, one
from the Council and the other from a provider working closely with the Council
under a contract. In a third case, following a similar pattern of marginalisation the
person left.
Inspectors recognise that sometimes whistle-blowers may have other agendas and
those who approach inspections can be aggrieved for all sorts of reasons. We have
borne this in mind when reviewing the cases presented to us and have nevertheless
formed a view that in these specific cases there was sufficient truth in the matters
raised to be a cause of public concern.
Inspectors received evidence to show that the Council did not always do the right
thing. Sometimes this was because officers were worried about the impact on the
RMBCs reputation.
In the two instances we have included as case studies, there was evidence that the
risk of potential harm to children was considered by officers to be secondary to
hitting targets or avoiding uncomfortable press coverage. More generally, Inspectors
noted that Rotherham seemed concerned to make things appear better, rather than
be better.
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“Threats have been made towards staff if they don’t toe the line… anyone who dares
say anything out of line will be dealt with at a later date” A concerned member of
staff
“I fear for reprisals I will get if I came forward with the information I hold” anonymous
letter to inspection team
The former CE Martin Kimber told Inspectors:
“The organisation has a well developed whistleblowing policy that was in place prior
to my arrival and which is reviewed annually. It was updated in June of this year.
This is administered by the Director of Legal and Democratic Services. The Council
also has a complaints procedure in place and an audit capability to be able to assist
with both internal and external investigations if necessary. I am unaware of any
whistleblowing complaints that have been discouraged, not accepted or not
pursued.”
The falsification of data and the missing young people
The Council received a complaint in March 2011 that data relating to the number of
young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) was being falsified.
Negative data was not input while positive evidence was, and young people were
being taken off the system to make the numbers look better.
Inspectors reviewed extensive correspondence spanning over a year. It is clear that
the Council was placing the onus on the whistle-blower to provide evidence, rather
than attempting to establish the facts for itself. The complainant was tenacious and
eventually, 15 months after the initial complaint, RMBC acknowledged they had a
point. An internal auditor was asked to look into the matter. Their investigation
supported the allegation that NEETs recordings had been “consciously delayed ….
to positively affect the outcome of the monthly performance calculation”. It continued
“that while this had the effect of positively influencing each month’s calculation the
remaining ‘balance’ was inevitably added in the following month”.
However, the complainant continued to assert that the investigation was flawed: “this
falsification led to children at severe risk not receiving support. RMBC totally ignored
the focus of the complaint…” Inspectors reviewed the scope of the auditor’s report.
The auditor did not look at the systems or track any cases to see whether children
were in fact added after the deadline, or whether others were removed from the
system. In this respect the investigation scope was flawed as the central thrust of the
complainant’s concern, i.e. the well-being of the young people affected, was not
considered.
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By blowing the whistle, the complainant told inspectors they tried to bring into the
light practices they thought could be adversely affecting vulnerable young people.
The matter never got properly looked into, and with the passage of time, we will
never fully know whether the complainant was right. But on the balance of
probability, i.e. having been able to establish that figures were indeed falsified, it
would be reasonable to accept that there may well also have been truth in the other
assertions made. The whistle-blower lost their job in a restructure undertaken by the
Council’s provider.
The case of the missing laptops
Inspectors were contacted by a former employee who alleged that the Council failed
to inform the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the loss of possibly
‘50% of children’s data held by the Council at the time’. The data was held in the ‘H
cache’ of 21 laptops that were stolen from RMBC on 26th October 2011.
Inspectors reviewed all information the Council held in relation to this matter. The
uncontested facts are that:
• there was a theft of 21 laptops from Norfolk House on the night of 26th
October 2011
• there was no sign of a break in
• there was an investigation
• there was a report to Senior Leadership Team
• the Council did not alert the ICO
• the Council responded when the ICO wrote to them, on two occasions
The Council admitted that some sensitive data was lost, including that relating to
victims of CSE. The investigation report shows that the matter was discussed with
the police and information relating to CSE was present on the laptops, including the
names of adults who may have been offenders. This much is agreed between the
whistle-blower and the Council. But what is in contention is what else was on the
lap-tops. The whistle-blower asserts that a large volume of other sensitive children’s
data was lost. He says the matter was discussed at a meeting of the Corporate
Governance and IT Governance Board on 7th November 2011 chaired by ex-
Councillor Jahangir Akhtar. The meeting was told that a report recommending that
the data loss should not be reported was being prepared for the Senior Leadership
Team. The risk of a hefty fine from the ICO was the key consideration at the time.
The Council does not have the minutes of this meeting.
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Inspectors reviewed a report prepared for SLT on 19th December 2011. This
confirms the whistle-blowers testimony, including the loss of sensitive data.
‘It is understood that some of the laptops may have had sensitive information stored
on the computer’s in-built hard drive (known as the ‘C:\ drive’) which includes the
user’s desktop. In addition, information held on the H:\ drive will have been ‘cached’
(copied) to the C:\ Drive to facilitate offline working…’
Due to the sensitivity of the information, it may be necessary to inform the
Information Commissioners Office of the data loss’.
The SLT report considers the risks relating to the loss, including: ‘The safety of
vulnerable persons, particularly children, could be compromised if the information is
accessed. The Council could also fail to meet certain statutory obligations in relation
to safeguarding vulnerable children or adults.’
The SLT report concludes:
‘If we report this breach to the ICO it is likely that we will have to sign a formal
undertaking to encrypt all portable and mobile devices used to transmit personal
information. We may also be fined for the breach. The ICO can now impose fines of
up to £500,000.’
The whistle-blower alleges that he demonstrated how easy it was to get access to
these laptops. He had spent two hours on Google to work out how to get into them
without a password, and he proved it could be done.
There is no minute of the 19th December SLT so we do not know whether the matter
was discussed. Either way, the Council did not report the loss.
The ICO became aware of it from an article in the local Advertiser, which reported
the theft but did not pick up on the data issue. In response to the ICO’s enquiry, in
June 2012, the Council advised him in summary that ‘none of the data was sensitive
personal data’.
This was accepted by the ICO. However further information comes to his attention
and he writes again. This time the Council is more specific about what is held but
again they do not reveal the extent of the loss in terms of the cached H drive. Even
so the ICO concludes that:
‘the type of data involved in this incident appears likely to be “sensitive personal
data”... and has the potential to cause significant detriment to the individuals
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concerned if compromised…We welcome the remedial steps taken by the Council in
light of this incident...Therefore, after careful consideration and based on the
information provided, we have decided not to take any formal enforcement action on
this occasion.’
Whilst it is not possible to prove exactly what was held on the H drive and therefore
what was lost, evidence seen by Inspectors confirms that the Council did cover up
the scale of the loss known at the time.
The whistle-blower claims that as a result of his persistence in raising the loss, he
was restructured out of a role in a restructure of IT services. Our checks show that
he was unsuccessful in securing a job in the restructure of IT, no suitable offer of
alternative employment could be found at the same grade, he turned down a
demotion and was therefore made redundant.
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Annexes
Annex A: Serious Case Review into Child S – published in 2012
Annex B: List of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council achievements
Annex C: Findings from the Statement of Accounts
Annex D: Child Sexual Exploitation numbers
Annex E: Tools and powers available to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation
Annex F: The Inspection Team
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Annex A
Serious Case Review into Child S - published 2012
One of the subjects of the failed Operation Czar was Child S. Six months after the
end of that operation, in the October she was murdered. She was 17 and had a baby
of only a few months old. A Serious Case Review (SCR) was undertaken by
Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) as is expected after such
tragedies because of Child S’s involvement with social care and other services.
Despite Child S’s involvement in Operation Czar, the terms of reference for the SCR
are drawn in a way that excluded broader consideration of CSE in Rotherham. The
reason cited is that this issue had been addressed in a 2010 Lessons Learned
Review following Operation Central – which itself lacked a description of the victims,
having been produced in advance of the criminal trial.
The SCR attracted publicity in relation to the issue of redactions which are dealt with
in Part 2 of this report. However inspectors were keen to look at the serious Case
Review in its own right for a number of reasons: there remained conflicting views
over whether Child S had been involved in child sexual exploitation and remained a
subject of controversy; and the SCR coincided with the Risky Business’ move into
social care.
The review was comprised of a series of Independent Management Reviews (IMR)
of the services which Child S had been involved with: social care, health and
education, police and youth services (Risky Business). RMBC undertook separate
IMRs on Children’s Social Care and on Targeted Youth Services. These gave
narrative outlines of Child S’ involvement with the service or agency in question,
followed by analysis and recommendations.
While the IMR on Youth Services (i.e. Risky Business – they call ‘Project 1’)
acknowledged the difference between youth work practice and social care,
throughout the IMR the distinction between Risky Business and Children’s Social
Care’s respective responsibilities towards Child S are repeatedly blurred. Risky
Business is judged through the processes associated with safeguarding and child
protection, although this is an inappropriate and incorrect basis on which to critique a
Youth Service:
‘...It remains a Youth Service project that does not have the rigour of case
management supervision, procedures, and systems that might be expected within
the child protection system. Its competence therefore as the “Lessons Learned
Review” observes is spread “too thinly in order to be the solution to all things CSE”
(6.3.7)... Project 1 does not sit within the safeguarding framework and as such is not
seen as part of mainstream safeguarding services.’
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This of course is to miss the point that Risky Business was not supposed to be ‘the
solution’ but had a specific and vital role which the IMR appeared to disregard.
The IMR also used social work methodology and standards to measure Risky
Business’s strengths. Its ability, for example, to gather the kind of information which
police had relied on in the successful convictions achieved through Operation
Central:
‘[the way in which] Project 1 collate and share information…is very much embedded
in their status as youth workers….That is by over time mapping out networks of
young people and identifying their needs and perceptions. Whilst this will fit with the
intelligence gathering model of the Police it may not necessarily fit so well with the
social care model of thresholds and priorities.’
In this way, extensive information collected by Risky Business about Child S which
may have confirmed her involvement in CSE was disregarded by the IMR, and
accordingly, the SCR.
‘…how this information can be interpreted by this review is problematic as no context
or sources are cited and no weighting of risk is given. Information pertaining to Child
S is all second and third hand and from single sources and therefore unverifiable.
For the purpose of this review it has therefore been discounted.’
It should be emphasised that the SCR is very critical of other services, in particular
social care in relation to how they supported Child S over the years. However, by
disregarding information which may have confirmed Child S’s involvement in child
sexual exploitation, the basis for that criticism was minimised. Moreover, one of the
three main recommendations was that the Executive Director of Children and Young
People’s Services should undertake an urgent review of Risky Business.
Inspectors did not see any documentation associated with the recommended review,
however by the time the SCR was completed in April 2011 a decision had already
been taken to integrate Risky Business fully into social care. Inspectors consider that
the SCR was used to justify this decision, which appears to have resolved the
traditional tension between youth work and social work models by removing youth
work – and the invaluable outreach work which it enabled – from RMBC’s response
to child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.
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Annex B
List of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council achievements
In their correspondence with the Inspection Team, the former Leader and Chief
Executive each wished to highlight some of the council’s achievements in
Rotherham during their tenure. These included:
• Assisting Government through the Homes and Communities Agency to deliver on
its housing programme in a town which has substantial housing need.
• Revitalising its town centre which was commended by Mary Portas through the
Government’s Portas Pilot programme. This increased footfall and saw a number
of independent retailers open new businesses.
• Building new town centre purpose built offices at Riverside House for better
public access to the council. Introducing its shared services hub at Riverside
House, delivering activity for other public sector partners whilst reducing
overhead costs and driving cash releasing efficiencies.
• Restoring the Town Hall.
• Brokering Rotherham United to move into a new purpose built stadium in the
town
• Maintaining the Rugby Union club in the borough.
• Supporting the Government’s Troubled Families initiative through its Families for
Change programme
• Supporting sector led improvement and development relating to the adult social
care
• Achieving gold standard for Investors in People as well as its Equalities
standards.
• Introducing the Imagination Library to Rotherham (a book a month to every under
5 in the town).
• Establishing the Ministry of Food in Rotherham.
• Successfully managing to retain jobs and services in the face of continued budget
reductions, including stimulating the local economy.
• Both also pointed to improvements in aspects of the council’s performance.
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Annex C
Findings from the Statement of Accounts
Inspectors reviewed the Statement of Accounts for 2013/14. These were submitted
to the Audit Committee on 17 September 2014. The external auditors KPMG issued
a judgement that these were a true and fair view of the financial position and that the
accounts were properly prepared. We found no contrary evidence and therefore
support the external auditor’s finding.
Outturn 2013/14: On the net revenue budget of £375.745m (including schools), the
out-turn was £375.595m i.e. a small underspend.
Reserves: At the end of March 2014 there were available uncommitted reserves of
£10.222m which is 4.9% of spend. In addition, there are earmarked reserves of
£25.467m which are committed for specific purposes. The external auditors consider
this to be prudent and it is within the expected normal range.
Housing Revenue Account: The HRA is in surplus and has an investment
programme in place to meet the needs of local people. They are developing 14,000
new homes over the mid-term.
Capital: The capital programme was £71.769m. This is predominantly for schools,
housing and highways, transportation projects.
Pension fund: An actuarial review was undertaken in 2013/14. The fund is managed
by the South Yorkshire Pension Fund. For 2014/15 the employer contribution
increased to 19.5%.
RMBC is facing a challenging period with a budget gap for 2014/15 of £23m and an
expected further £23m in 2015/16. The Council has a track record of financial
discipline and its external auditors consider it has the capacity to tackle the task
successfully.
Business rate: Under business rate retention, Rotherham retains 49% of growth in
business rates. The Council recognises the need to increase income, including
through business rates, and is currently consulting on a growth plan which will
develop their strategy. The Council is at an early stage of this work but it will be an
important factor in dealing with future gaps.
Treasury management: RMBC has a low risk approach. In 2008 Rotherham lost
£3.75m in the Icelandic banks, Landsbanke and Heritable. So far £1.904m has been
recovered.
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Insurance provision: As at 31 March 2014 funds stands at £5.364m. Provision has
been made in regards to potential for further claims relating to CSE. It is not possible
to assess the adequacy of such provision.
Generally we found the council’s financial practices to be sound with revenue and
capital monitors frequently reported to Cabinet. Overall there is a welcome degree of
financial discipline in the organisation.
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Annex D
Child Sexual Exploitation Numbers
Data capture and reporting in Rotherham Council is poor. This has meant that the
true scale of CSE and the degree of harm to which children and young people were
exposed has not been understood. Arrangements to identify and report on the
prevalence of CSE, trends, patterns and the impact of actions are not yet fully
developed across the council.
There is much argument about the numbers in the Jay report. The numbers are used
to deny the problem or the scale of it. The Jay report looks at the period 1997 to
2013 and concludes that there were approximately 1400 victims at a conservative
estimate. This equates to about 85 children and young people experiencing CSE in
each year covered.
The chart below appeared in the LSCB annual report 2009/10 and covers 5 years
April 05-April 10. CSE ‘clients’ are those children and young people being worked
with by social care because of CSE; contacts are those referred to the council’s ‘front
door’ because of risk and/or harm. The third column has been added to show
children and young people being referred to Risky Business or from April 08 working
one to one with them. For 05-06 there is no comparable data.
Year CSE Client CSE Contacts RB Clients
April 05-06 48 62 -
April 06-07 59 72 67
April 07-08 74 80 59
April 08-09 93 117 148
April 09/10 112 149 293
RMBC does not have comparable reported figures for 2011/12 or 2012/13 but
reported figures show a steady rise.
In 2013/14, the CSE team worked with 207 children and young people who were
experiencing, or were at risk, of CSE. They estimated that at least 10% would have
been in the highest risk, highest severity category of concern.
An audit of CSE cases in January 2014, carried out by Rotherham LSCB, showed
there were 81 cases being supported by the CSE team. These actual figures are
similar to Jay’s estimate of around 85 a year. Of these, 2 children were 9 years old, 2
were 11 years old, 2 were 12 years old, 14 were 13 years old, 19 were 14 years old,
22 were 15 years old and 15 were 16 years old.
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Annex E
Tools and powers available to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation
The following is not exhaustive, but gives an overview of some of the tools currently
available to councils and the police.
Civil injunctions under Section One, anti-social behaviour, Crime and Policing
Act 2014 (previously Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, ASBOs)
These are civil orders which replace and considerably strengthen the powers
previously available to councils through ASBOS and Housing Act injunctions.
The new injunction powers are available against a person aged 10 or over where two
conditions are met:
1. the court is satisfied, on a balance of probabilities, that the respondent has
engaged or threatened to engage in anti-social behaviour
2. the court considers it just and convenient to grant an injunction for the
purpose of preventing the respondent from engaging in anti-social behaviour
Perpetrators waiting in cars outside the homes of victims, perpetrators making
repeated contact by phone and perpetrators waiting outside victims’ schools would
all fall within the definition of anti-social behaviour as defined by the Act.
These injunction powers can be used to prohibit the respondent from committing any
act described in the injunction, such as contacting the complainant, or require a
respondent to conform to conditions described in the injunction, such as the
observation of an appropriate curfew or the establishment of exclusion zones around
a victim, their family, home, or school. Powers of arrest may further be attached
depending on the seriousness of the behaviour.
Properties which operate as an ‘open house’ where perpetrators are allowed to
gather pose an obvious danger to children, who may be allowed – or encouraged –
to congregate there and be supplied with drugs and alcohol.
Injunctions can be used to prevent these behaviours. Where an injunction is housing
related and repeatedly breached social landlords may consider eviction in addition if
it is appropriate to do so.
Closure Orders associated with Nuisance and Disorder
Closure orders are civil orders available in the Magistrates court which stop anyone
entering or residing at a named property. There are three types of closure order:
drug closure orders, brothel closure and anti-social behaviour closure orders.
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In the case of persistent anti-social behaviour and disorder which cannot be stopped
without closing the property in question, anti-social behaviour closure orders may be
used by local authorities. The closure order applies to the property, not to the owner
or occupier and the property does need to be owned by the Council to become
subject to an anti-social behaviour order.
Application for an Injunction under the High Court's inherent Jurisdiction
Applications for an injunction under the High Court’s inherent discretion may be
made on the basis of evidence adduced from professionals and third parties – of
particular use where a young person does not wish to provide evidence.
Injunctions of this kind could be used to stop predatory men from contacting
vulnerable children, being in properties or cars with children, from going to or being
outside residential homes, or from entering specific public places which may be
known as CSE ‘hotspots’.
Evidence is assessed on a balance of probabilities. The case of Birmingham City
Council v Riaz & Others has demonstrated that a High Court is likely to exercise its
discretion and use its inherent jurisdiction to grant civil injunctions against
perpetrators of CSE. The High Court does not have jurisdiction to attach a power of
arrest to the terms of an injunction of this kind, so procedures for bringing committal
proceedings would need to be fully understood.
Section 222 Local Government Act 1972
Section 222 enables a local authority to bring criminal or civil proceedings in its own
name, including applying for injunctions, where it considers it expedient for the
promotion or protection of the interest of the inhabitants of their area. Local
authorities may use this provision to enforce their Children’s Act duties – as such
wide-ranging injunctions could be obtained against known perpetrators. This wide
ranging power has been used by local authorities to prevent repeated breaches of
criminal law and to stop car cruising and street drinking. It has also been used in
cases of domestic violence. The court has jurisdiction to attach a power of arrest to
any injunction made under this section.
Exercise of the Councils Regulatory Functions including Taxis, takeaways,
nightclubs, hotels, B&Bs etc…
It will be evident from this report that in many cases the activities of perpetrators take
place in spheres which are regulated by the Council – taxis have been the focus of
particular concern. Persistent and rigorous enforcement of the regulatory functions
available to the council, including the placing of conditions on private hire taxi
operator licences where appropriate, would send a strong signal that the trade is
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being monitored and would curtail the activities of opportunistic perpetrators whereby
taxi drivers have solicited children to provide sex in return for cigarettes, alcohol or a
fare free ride.
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Annex F
Glossary
ALMO - Arm's Length Management Organisation
ASBO - Anti-Social Behaviour Orders
BT - British Telecommunications
CAMHS - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
CART - Contact and Referral Team
CE - Chief Executive
CPS - Crown Prosecution Service
CRB - Criminal Records Bureau
CROP - Coalition for the Removal of Pimping
CSE - Child Sexual Exploitation
DBS - Disclosure and Barring Service (previously CRB and ISA)
DCS - Director of Children's Services
HR - Human Resources
HRA - Housing Revenue Account
HWB - Health and Wellbeing Board
ICO - Information Commissioner's Office
IMR - Independent Management Reviews
JAG - Joint Action Group
JSIAs - Joint Strategic Intelligence Assessments
LAC - Looked After Children
LSCB - Local Safeguarding Children Board
LSPs - Local Strategic Partnerships
MASH - Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub
MO - Monitoring Officer
NAS - Neighbourhoods and Adult Services
NEETs - Not in Education, Employment or Training
NSPCC - National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children
OFSTED - Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills
OSMB - Overview and Scrutiny Management Board
PACE - Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation (previously known as CROP)
RA - Responsible Authority meetings
RB - Risky Business
RCCG - Rotherham Clinical Commissioning Group
RDaSH - Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation
RLSCB - Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board
RMBC - Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
SARC - Sexual Abuse Referral Clinic
SCR - Serious Case Review
SLT - Senior Leadership Team
SRP - Safer Rotherham Partnership
STD - Sexually Transmitted Disease
SYP - South Yorkshire Police
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VOSA - Vehicle and Operator Services Agency
YOT - Youth Offending Team
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Annex G
The Rotherham Inspection Team
Inspector:
Louise Casey CB
Assistant Inspectors:
Feizal Hajat, OBE
Michele Harris, MBC
Sarah Kincaid, Troubled Families Team, DCLG
Lorraine Langham, CDir, FIoD, FCIPR
Mary Ney, MSc
Sarah Tatham, Troubled Families Team, DCLG
Daisy Yates, Troubled Families Team, DCLG
With thanks to the team:
Paulette Farsides
Florrie Madondo
Kate McDonnell
Jack Minty
Steve Nesbit
Erin Richardson
Lydia Strawson
