Balls should publish the Baby P Serious Case Review
James Forsyth 1:16pm
The Lord Laming review of the progress that has been made in child protection since his report following the death of Victoria Climbie is all well and good. But, surely publishing the Serious Case Review into Baby P—which Ed Balls refuses to do—would do more good? It shows precisely how the bureaucracy made such a dreadful string of mistakes and with that knowledge in the public domain it would be possible to have an informed debate about what reforms could present such dreadful errors happening again.
Michael Gove, who has read the SCR, has repeatedly said that the tale of incompetence it reveals is far worse than what the public has been told. Surely, the public, which after all pay for social services through their taxes, has a right to know how and why social services failed this child?
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mac
March 12th, 2009 1:51pm Report this commentAs a practised New Labour machine politician Balls has mastered the art of kicking the can further down the street to evade responsibility. Presumably the report will be followed by a stakeholder working group - or some other gobbledegook talking shop delaying tactic - which will recommend further confusing deckchair-shuffling reorganisation, more targets, more bureaucracy and more cod 'oversight', all until interest abates.
And then we can wait for the next outraged Sharon Shoesmith . . .
Trumpeter Lanfried
March 12th, 2009 2:27pm Report this commentWhat's the argument against publication? I just don't understand how this can be justified.
RW
March 12th, 2009 3:27pm Report this commentFraser, this is a comment made today by "Augustus Carp" who contributes to PoliticalBetting.com (apologies for length):
This RBS story is a cock-up, not a conspiracy. The AML/CTF (that’s Anti Money Laundering and Countering Terrorist Financing) Guidance Notes published by the JMLSG (The Joint Money Laundering Steering Group) introduced the concept of a “politically exposed person” a few years ago. This required us to do some extra due diligence when verifying the identities of foreigners (not UK Citizens) who might be in positions of influence with their regimes abroad. This was a classic example of closing the stable door after a horse named General Abacha of Nigeria galloped off with a significant amount of his nation’s GDP.
If we think that a non-UK citizen is in a position of political influence, or related to someone who is, then we have to get someone senior to sign off on the client take-on; we also have to study their transactions more closely, to see if any funds transfers might be the proceeds of kleptocratic crime.
Someone at RBS has misread the notes, and applied it willy-nilly. I heard the interview with “Harriet” from the RBS Call Centre on Radio 4 this morning, and it was clear that the poor woman had been mis-directed by the script she was reading from.
Alf Tupper
March 12th, 2009 5:47pm Report this commentIs there a valid reason why we are still not granting this poor child the dignity of using his name to refer to him?
TGF UKIP
March 12th, 2009 7:13pm Report this commentIf the Cameron Tories had the ounce of populist instinct in their blood, which they have so far failed to demonstrate, they re-ignite this story and really stick it to Balls for seeking to bury the issue.
Don't hold your breath, folks!
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