Letting the children down, Kent County Council. Rosalind Turner, Kent Children Services, Kent Social Services, Safeguarding Children, Every Child Matters, OFSTED

The request was partially successful.

Dear Kent County Council,

A recent review has highlighted has identified more than 500 cases which raise cause for concern. Link provided here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ken... so so called “isolated incident” of "human error". We now have 500 cases so human error is not the cause of these failings.

1) Please explain how parent(s) will be informed if their child is on this list of children failed by KCC

2)Please explain the policy for a person concerned about their own child

3) Please break down the failure to safeguard children figures by the social service offices within Kent

4) Previously your Director described the death of Tiffany Selman Burge to be “ isolated incident of human error”. At this time did she have no knowledge of the 500 cases now of serious concern.

5) Please provide details each failing and the catogory into which it falls into and a synopsis of the failure to that child

6) How does KCC propose to apologise to the children and in many cases the concerned family whose concerns were ignored?

Yours faithfully,

Kev (for all children in Kent you have a voice)

Kent County Council

Dear Mr Reynolds,

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that Kent County Council acknowledges your request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Assuming KCC holds
this information, we will endeavour to supply the data to you as soon as
possible but no later than 21st February 2011 (20 working days from date
of receipt).

We will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/11/0097 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room B.48, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 696075
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...

show quoted sections

Kent County Council

Dear Mr Reynolds

Further to our acknowledgement dated 24 January in which we advised that
a response to your request would be sent by the 21 February. I am very
sorry, but your request is taking a little longer to complete than our
officers anticipated.

Please be assured that the officers who hold the requested information
are doing everything they can to resolve this delay, but in the
meantime, please accept my apologies for the delay and any inconvenience
this may have caused you. I hope to be in a position to send a response
to you in 1 weeks time by 28 February.

Best regards

Michelle Hunt
Access to Information Co-ordinator
Information Governance
Children, Families & Education Directorate
Kent County Council
Room 2.71, Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ
External: 01622 696692
Internal: 7000 6692
Email: [email address]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
From: Freedom of Information - CED
Sent: 24 January 2011 14:12
To: 'Kevin Reynolds'
Subject: FOI/11/0097 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO FOI REQUEST RECEIVED 24th
JANUARY 2011
Importance: High

Dear Mr Reynolds,

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that Kent County Council acknowledges your request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Assuming KCC
holds this information, we will endeavour to supply the data to you as
soon as possible but no later than 21st February 2011 (20 working days
from date of receipt).

We will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this
information or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs
for providing the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/11/0097
- in any communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room B.48, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 696075
http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have....
aspx

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Kent County Council

2 Attachments

  • Attachment

    FOI 10 0396 CFE Response to request received 1 April.html

    6K Download

  • Attachment

    FW FOI 10 0483 CFE Response to request received 21 April.html

    13K Download

Dear Mr Reynolds

Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in sending this
information to you. I appreciate we have not complied with statutory
timescales on this occasion. We have answered your questions below in the
order they were raised.

1) There is not a list of children failed by KCC as suggested. The
review identified a number of cases that needed further action to be
taken by managers and practitioners on those cases.

2) If a parent has concerns about their own child, they can contact
Children's Social Services to discuss this and to establish whether a
referral to Children's Social Services is required.

3) This information is not available.

4) No, the Managing Director did not have knowledge of the cases at the
time of the interview you are referring to. as the review was not
undertaken until December 2010.

5) This information is not available.

6) There is no indication that concerns were ignored but families will
have been notified if appropriate about any remedial action that has been
taken.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...
on our website. Please quote reference FOI/11/0097.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner's website
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Regards

Michelle Hunt
Access to Information Co-ordinator
Information Governance
Children, Families & Education Directorate
Kent County Council
Room 2.71, Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ
External: 01622 696692
Internal: 7000 6692
Email: [email address]

show quoted sections

Kevin Reynolds

Dear Kent County Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Kent County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Letting the children down, Kent County Council. Rosalind Turner, Kent Children Services, Kent Social Services, Safeguarding Children, Every Child Matters, OFSTED'.

[ 1) I reject your response. These children have been failed by KCC. If a case needs “further attention” then that child has been failed. You have been ruled unfit by OFTSED on this matter so why you come onto whatdotheytknow trying to present some rose garden I have no idea. Maybe you can provide that to the dead child due to “isolated innocent of human error” and that is an experienced social worker in Kent with exceptional record who is has disappeared without trace and whose name we do not know. Of interest is this worker does not wish to reveal this so called “exclamatory record.

2) What happens if a Judge rules the Local Authority had failed?

3) This responses is completely unlawful

4) Shocking

5_ This response is completely unlawful

6) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/06...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk...

http://www.heart.co.uk/kent/local/news/d...

]

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/le...

Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds

Dear Kent County Council,

4) No, the Managing Director did not have knowledge of the cases at the
time of the interview you are referring to. as the review was not
undertaken until December 2010.

So your offices were raided/inspected in August 2010 and October 2010 but your Director had no idea at all that there was a review in August and October of that year?

Copy:

I am sorry if I misunderstood your earlier email of 17 February 2011 when I described the matters you were raising as a complaint about Kent Children's Services. Nevertheless, I regret that there is nothing I can add to my previous response. I am afraid that Ofsted has no powers to deal with concerns or complaints about individual child protection cases in a local authority. These are matters for the authority itself to deal with. Our role is to inspect the quality of those arrangements, which we did in August 2010 and October 2010 in the case of Kent. As you state, these inspections identified serious weaknesses in the provision, which the Council will be working to address.

I know you will be disappointed by this response and I am sorry but I am unable to progress your concerns further.

Yours sincerely

Christine Gilbert

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Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Dear Kent County Council,

Do you plan to respond?

Please advise

500 children plus neglected by Kent County Council and you wont even give me a basic figure?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ken...

Isolated innocent of "human error": (problem was he had no conviction as I say???) This person paid 200 hundred thousand pounds makes you sick.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/...

Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Kent County Council

Dear Mr Reynolds

Thank you for your emails of 3rd March 2011 & 9th March 2011. You have
asked for a review of the information that Kent County Council provided to
you in response to your request of 21st January 2011.

Whilst you may not agree with the information we provided in response to
your request, this is not a reason in itself to request a review. The
purpose of a review is to ascertain whether KCC complied with legislation
and any investigation will consider issues such as was the response
provided in a timely manner or whether any exemptions (if used) were
applied correctly.

Ms Hunt already acknowledged in her response that KCC had not complied
with your request within statutory timescales, so I uphold this element of
your complaint and on behalf of KCC, offer our apologies again.

However with regard to your comments about the answers we provided, I
should like to clarify that although the Freedom of Information Act 2000
provides you with a right of access to information held by public
authorities such as KCC subject to any exemptions to disclosure that may
apply, it does not oblige public authorities to create information. So
although your request can be in the form of a question or questions,
rather than a request for specific documents, KCC does not have to answer
your question(s) if this would mean creating new information or giving an
opinion or judgement that is not already recorded. This actually applied
to 5 of your 6 questions (questions 1, 3,4,5 & 6) although comment was
provided to be helpful. Therefore I do not uphold this element of your
complaint.

If you remain unhappy with the decision, you should now appeal to the
Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should you wish to
pursue this course of action, are available from the Information
Commissioner's website
[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom... or you can
phone the ICO Helpline on 08456 30 60 60.

However, if you have a complaint about Children's Social Services; their
actions, policies or protocols, then you should initially follow KCC's
complaints process
[2]http://www.kent.gov.uk/childrens_social_....
If you remain dissatisfied and believe KCC is guilty of maladministration,
you should contact the Local Government Ombudsman
[3]http://www.lgo.org.uk/making-a-complaint/.

The Freedom of Information Act is not the appropriate mechanism for
raising grievances.

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Corporate Access to Information Coordinator, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room B.48, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 221652 - Fax: 01622 696075
[4]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...
2. http://www.kent.gov.uk/childrens_social_...
3. http://www.lgo.org.uk/making-a-complaint/
4. http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...

Dear Kent County Council,

You are not creating information, you already have it in your possession from the review you were ordered to carry out into the Kent Council shameful failings.

Additionally you have released some of the figures to the media. The information is quite clearly held and you are not using a cost exemption for this refusal.

I will therefore appeal this to Information Commissioner.

You have neglected the children for long enough.

Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds

Dear Kent County Council,

Interesting even the councillors have had enough of the lies.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/n...

Cllr David Hirst (Con) said: "There is growing anxiety among members on a number of counts. We are not being kept informed of how we are doing."

Just look at my request. This information is not held - Total pack of lies

SHAME

Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds

Dear Kent County Council,

CORRECTION ACTUAL IT'S "NOT AVAILABLE".

Only thing I can say is: UNLAWFUL

Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds left an annotation ()

Dear Mr Reynolds,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Complaint about Kent County Council

Thank you for your letter of 28 May 2011 relating to the above complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

I wish to inform you that I have now written to the Council to ask for information to help me to consider your complaint. I will provide a further update once I have received and fully considered the response.

Yours sincerely,

Senior Case Officer

Rio left an annotation ()

After his payoff Graham Badman then went on to be Chair of the local Children's Safeguarding Board at Haringey of all places.

Couldn't make it up really.

kreynolds left an annotation ()

This is very old news. It is very common in local government for a Director to leave one area and then appears almost spontaneously in another. If you have an issue with it draw up your own request as mine is for the children. I don’t really care where this person is the name has no meaning to me but if your fascinated with the individual here is his CV: http://www.slaterbaker.com/profile/99

Dear Kent County Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Kent County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Letting the children down, Kent County Council. Rosalind Turner, Kent Children Services, Kent Social Services, Safeguarding Children, Every Child Matters, OFSTED'.

KCC

You have been told to update me on this matter. Your response to the ICO was as follows:

I am sorry if you did not find my email clear. As you know, the council has reviewed a number of cases and more than 500 of those gave cause for concern at the time. It has not been clearly established at this stage how the details of the review were recorded but the council appears to be saying that it would need to look at each case individually. As explained, it has drawn a distinction between a “failure” and a “concern” and it has therefore said it would need to look at each case individually where a cause for concern was identified and determine whether there was a “failure to safeguard” on that case. It is not yet clear what would constitute a “failure” according to the council.

Please expalin?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/le...

Yours faithfully,

Kevin Reynolds

Kent County Council

1 Attachment

<<Case review headline data 16 7 11.pdf>> Dear Mr Reynolds

I am writing in response to your complaint to the Information Commissioner in respect of Kent County Council's response to your request for information under FOIA about case reviews carried out by KCC.

This has been a difficult FOI application to respond to as it hinged on an interpretation of what constitutes a failure to safeguard and you considered this term to relate to all the cases that had highlighted "cause for concern" whereas we believed this to be any cases where there had actually been a safeguarding failure. In addition, KCC did not the information in the way you wanted it broken down.

The case reviews carried out were an immediate review of all children's cases. These were not in depth case reviews, but simply a means of providing immediate reassurance about children's safety and actions needed to ensure that cases were progressed satisfactorily. Due to the time available and the pressures on the Service at the time, they were carried out swiftly and were not supported by consistent recording processes. This meant that we did not have a breakdown of the case reviews in the context of 'safeguarding failures' and that a variety of information was held in different formats. On this basis it was not possible to provide the information in the format you initially sought.

When these case reviews were undertaken, headline information was provided on individual district spreadsheets and individual child level proforma which did not specifically focus on safeguarding failures by the Council, but rather whether there were concerns about the management of the child's case or actions that were needed to ensure that cases were being progressed. It is this distinction that made it impossible to provide the information that you required as the information wasn't held in this format.

Our recent correspondence from the Information Commissioner's Office suggests that we should now respond to your FOI request in the context of your intended interpretation, that is, that "the request should cover all of the cases where a concern was identified and not in relation to those where there was an actual 'safeguarding failure". This new approach does mean that we are able to provide some information to you.

In response to this recent clarification, we have now carried out an extensive piece of work across KCC in order to extrapolate, collate and analyse what information can be provided to the complainant in this context. Any information collated subsequent to your initial request has not been included within the scope of this review, or the Information Commissioner's investigation.

The attached document provides the précis detail of the information that you require for 7 out of the 12 Districts across Kent County Council Children's Social Services. The spreadsheets have been analysed to provide a breakdown of issues across a range of categories as requested. To undertake this work has meant that all spreadsheets have had to be extensively scrutinised and then categories developed in order to identify the different reasons for concerns. This work has been extensive, has exceeded the 18 hour time frame to complete and of course has diverted already overstretched social services resource away from the provision of client care in order to produce these statistics for you.

As already indicated, the information held by the Council on the case reviews is held on either individual district spreadsheets or individual child case proforma. Some of these spreadsheets provide data regarding the concerns identified regarding the management of the child's case or actions that were needed to ensure that cases were being progressed and these are the cases which we have been able to provide a breakdown of the concerns as requested.

There are however, 5 of the district spreadsheets where it has not possible to decipher the information in this way as they provide an overview of the case and the reason for the intervention rather than the concerns regarding the management of the case. In order to provide any data regarding these 5 districts would necessitate the review of the individual child case review proforma for each of the children. Having carried out extensive further work to understand what would be required to extrapolate, collate and provide the information required in respect of these districts, we have concluded that it would necessitate the review of the following individual proforma at an average time of 10 minutes per proforma, which would significantly exceed the 18 hour time frame:

* Dover - 499 proforma will need to be reviewed (83 HRS)
* Swale - 860 proforma will need to be reviewed (143 HRS)
* Ashford - 763 proforma will need to be reviewed (127 HRS)
* Tonbridge and Malling - 10 proforma where spreadsheet is not clear will need to be reviewed to identify categories (1.6 HRS)
* Gravesend - 533 proforma will need to be reviewed (88 HRS)

I hope this information now concludes your request. If you remain unhappy, you should approach the Information Commissioner for advice on what to do next.

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Information Resilience & Transparency,
Business Strategy & Support, Governance & Law
Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone, ME14 1XQ
Tel: 01622 221652, Internal 7000 1652,
Fax: 01622 696075
http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/cont...

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ivanataylor left an annotation ()

Blowing The Whistle - Child Stealing By The State

When: Sun, 23rd Oct 2011 at 10:30AM
Where: Kings Hall, Stoke On Trent

ivanataylor left an annotation ()

Intercountry Adoption Casework Team
Department for Children, Schools and Families
Room 11
Lower Ground Floor
Mowden Hall
Staindrop Road
DARLINGTON DL3 9BG

What is really going on? Are the departments, surestart, Department for children,schools and families all a front for lifting and stealing children. CAFCASS links with Anthony Douglass and Adoption agencies. Severe conflict of Interests? Dame Butler.. Head of Coram Adoption Agency. No wonder the government do not want to address forced adoptions, and stop this evil. Their departments are trafficking children it seems or am I wrong. Foreign adoptions are big business for the crown. By Crown I do not mean the royal family I mean the sqaue mile of London Bankers, who appear to be hands on in stealing children and assets, including our homes. A corrupted secret judiciary commitiing mass fraud against our soverigns?Come to Stoke on trent on 23rd October if you think we may be on to something, megga exposure will be given to these agencies who make their living in the business of destroying families and trafficking children.Intercountry Adoption Casework Team
Department for Children, Schools and Families
Room 11
Lower Ground Floor
Mowden Hall
Staindrop Road
DARLINGTON DL3 9BG

This is a nationwide evil deception it does not just affect Kent. All councils are at it up and down the UK.

ivanataylor left an annotation ()

They are all wearing more than one hat and not declaring it. Severe conflict of interests which do not safguard children at all. Martin Narey Head of Barnardos want more children adopted and younger children. Do Barnardos not make their money and get funding from adoptions?

Who are these people, who collectively and with a vested pecuniary interest are stealing children, under tha charity umbrella, do the charity Common Purpose have anything to do with this? I think we should investigate these corporate criminals in high places, including the government.

ivanataylor left an annotation ()

http://adoptionindia.nic.in/cara-network... go find out for yourselves, and there is more to bring to light. Why not phone these people and ask how much they pay for an English child to be adopted in India and elesewhere, How much do UK couples pay for an Indian or other child, possibly stollen from their loving families and sold like commodities in this modern slave trading set up by our very own company the UK

ivanataylor left an annotation ()

http://www.ukcolumn.org/events/blowing-w...

Open this link and come on mass to this event. this site will give you full instruction as to how to present your evidence.

Now is our chance to bring the monsters down and reclaim our Common law rights, expel corrupt officialdom and expose this mass corruption, treason and tyranny in the UK. Lawful, peaceful, non violent mass non compliance is our weapon against all those responsible for destroying innocent families and abusing OUR CHILDREN. Thank you.