Following a review of Cllr Gary Taylor’s complaint lodged against Cllr Chris Welsford over a child death claim made at one of last week’s Scrutiny Panel meetings, leader of the council, Cllr David Pugh made demands on Cllr Welsford to withdraw the claim.
In his email to the Independent councillor, which he copied to members of the Children & Young People’s Scrutiny Panel, Cllr Pugh demanded that Cllr Welsford issue a formal withdrawal of his claim that a child death had occurred in October on the Isle of Wight.
The statement
Cllr Welsford has shared with OnTheWight the statement which has been sent to the Panel. It’s important to note that this is not a response to the formal complaint made by Cllr Taylor, we understand that will be made separately.
I would like to apologise for providing the Scrutiny Panel last week with the wrong date in relation to the child who tragically died last November. I gave the date in good faith having received a telephone call, following last month’s Full Council meeting, prompted by a resident’s concern on hearing of Cllr Abraham’s making a statement to members and the public that no child had died as a result of the failings identified in the Ofsted Report on the Inspection of Child Protection provision carried out in December 2012.
The date I cited was provided to me in error although I must stress that, contrary to the assertions of some senior members of the Council, all of the other information was completely correct.
I regret any harm that this might have done to any family that suffered a tragedy on the day mentioned in error, however in providing a specific date to members I was attempting to avoid speculation on the part of any other families who may have suffered a child death on another date last year. By being specific it was hoped that there could be no chance of this happening.
This notwithstanding I had very good reasons to raise this matter in the way that I did and did so in the interest of the Council and the wider public interest. These reasons are as follows:
- The fact of the recent Ofsted Report, which described a Service in crisis
- Apparent failings of senior management and political leadership outlined in the report;
- Concerns about weak or ineffective scrutiny and allegations of a repeated failure to respond appropriately to a referral, which may have eventually led to a child’s death,
- The fact that the apparent failures seemed to relate precisely to the concerns outlined by HMI in his report;
- Cllr Abraham’s comments in Full Council;
- The apparent ignorance on the part of Members, about events for which they have responsibility, which is incompatible with their role as a corporate parents and as members of the employing authority;
- The content of my conversation with HMI; and
- Concerns that the Council may not have been completely open with Ofsted regarding the existence of the Serious Case Review.
Overall these factors and the combined effect of them gave me no confidence in raising this matter in any other place, than in public at the relevant Scrutiny Committee meeting.
I give this as response to the allegations made by Cllr Pugh and not in response to the formal complaint made by Cllr Taylor which will be answered separately and in more detail. In issuing this response I have also taken and followed advice from Davina Fiore.
Chris Welsford
12th February 2013
In response to Cllr Pugh’s demands that he withdraw the claim, Cllr Welsford told OnTheWight, “Cllr Pugh should seriously consider his position and devote less time to political sniping and more to ensuring that we do not have essential Child Protection services that are judged inadequate by Ofsted, bearing in mind that Ofsted clearly blamed inadequate political leadership (him) and quality control (scrutiny) for the failings.”
As with the article about Cllr Gary Taylor’s complaint, we ask readers to not comment specifically about the child who died or their family.
Image: Will Merydith under CC BY 2.0
