Two damning reports in the space of little over six months have highlighted the horrific scale of sexual exploitation of vulnerable children in Rotherham, along with the failures over a long period of time of the authorities who were supposed to be protecting them.
The predictable media frenzy has shone an uncomfortable light on the human consequences of a ‘failed council’ with the wider sector once again looking to make sense of what has gone wrong and the lessons to be learned, particularly regarding leadership when dealing with such complex child protection issues.
The contributory factors in the demise of governance in Rotherham are manifold and while some might be distinct to the character of the place, many others are depressingly familiar.
Both Louise Casey and Professor Alexis Jay point to a clear failure of political governance as to what might be termed the ‘arc of the crisis’, with the bullying and intimidating behaviour of the dominant former leader not being held to account by either his own cabinet or the wider council.
Long-standing political monopolies of any persuasion are seldom conducive to responsive democracy as systems of patronage, combined with the ability to marginalise dissent, tend to suppress genuine and constructive challenge. This often leads directly to poorer quality decisions, diminished accountability to the electorate and in the worst cases, leads directly to managerial and finally service failure.
The perfect storm: those with the ability to ‘escape’ doing so, those left behind becoming increasingly demoralised and the combination of these factors making the attraction of desperately-needed new talent all but impossible.
There are parallels in the banking industry. Just as a bank’s liquidity relies on the confidence of its investors, effective management relies on confidence in sound political leadership. A significant loss of this confidence can quickly escalate into crisis.
While blame for the sexual exploitation of children ultimately rests with the perpetrators, local authorities and their partners have clear responsibilities – both legal and moral – to protect children from pernicious abuse.
We all need to understand the impact of sexual exploitation on children; the physical and psychological effects are both devastating and long-lasting
We must never forget that the bland terminology of ‘poor political governance’ or ‘service failure’ hides the tragic reality of continued sexual abuse and violence suffered by young victims.
In the majority of historical cases, key statutory agencies – primarily local authorities, the police and the CPS, appear to have struggled to comprehend the scale or seriousness of the problem.
While sclerotic political correctness has undoubtedly contributed to an inability to deal with the problem in specific minority communities, it would be equally naïve and dangerous to assume that child sexual exploitation is anything other than a problem that exists behind the veneer of community life across every part of the UK.
Barnardo’s has been supporting children affected by sexual exploitation for 20 years; we currently provide services in 47 areas of the UK. Whenever we open a new service, we quickly find children who desperately need our help, even if sexual exploitation has not been previously identified as a problem locally. This confronts us with two bleak facts; firstly, we are yet to uncover the true scale of this problem across our communities.
But secondly, and much more seriously, there are children being abused today whom we are collectively failing in our duty to identify and support along with bringing their abusers to justice.
Even more worryingly, the failure to intervene is often not occurring in local authorities which might be regarded as ‘in crisis’. It is just as likely to be occurring in areas which might be held up as having otherwise excellent performance. The danger is that false hubris leads to focusing entirely on ‘the Rotherhams’ and worse, that such exceptions simply ‘couldn’t happen here’.
Even in Rotherham the picture isn’t entirely clear cut.
Barnardo’s undertook a brief review of Rotherham’s child sexual exploitation services in October 2013. It focused on the work of the practitioners supporting young people at risk of sexual exploitation.
We made various recommendations for change, including a call to improve the strategy to tackle child sexual exploitation and provide more training of frontline staff. We also found some evidence to show that joint working between agencies was helping to identify more children at risk in the community. We recommended that this approach should be expanded to include links with faith groups, migrant communities and local businesses.
Barnardo’s itself has been running a satellite service in South Yorkshire since autumn 2013, working with both those at risk or already involved in child sexual exploitation, providing crucial emotional and practical support to vulnerable young people.
However, our involvement in Rotherham has come much later than we would have liked
Ultimately, we are a charity which relies either on generous donations from the public or from local authorities contracting us to work for them; we cannot be everywhere.
The fact is, in too many instances, councils have been slow to reach out to partners such as Barnardo’s who have the experience and track record to help them introduce the cultural and managerial change processes necessary to deal with this challenge.
So, there is an urgent need to step outside of our comfort zone and begin to deal with this problem; first with candour and humility and then with ruthless and relentless efficiency.
First, councils need to urgently review the capacity of their political and managerial leadership to address child sexual exploitation – not the usual perfunctory report to cabinet written in the impenetrable lingua franca of local government, but an honest and genuine assessment of the council’s professional ability to deal with this problem and the capacity of the members to constructively hold professionals to account.
Louise Casey spoke about a succession of senior members in Rotherham whose primary line of defence was that ‘they did not know’. This is both inexcusable and reprehensible and must never be repeated.
Second, councils must urgently avail themselves of the facts about the potential scale of the problem in their area. This will be a difficult and demanding process, requiring a forensic review by a wide range of partners working closely together.
Councils must be prepared to act without fear or favour in leading this process; treating the twin impostors of over-zealous and phoney political correctness and the lazy temptation to attribute the problem to a single community with equal contempt.
Third, councils must begin their co-ordinated attack on child sexual exploitation on two fronts: to reduce and recover. This should involve a practical plan to reduce the number of instances of child sexual exploitation by ensuring that individuals, families and communities are equipped with the skills to recognise the danger signs of both vulnerability and grooming and can act on them with speed and purpose.
Concurrently, councils must extend their capacity to help sexually exploited children to recover from their experiences, enabling them to get back on track and return to some semblance of normality as quickly as possible.
Of course, all of this has to be achieved in the midst of ever-increasing pressure on budgets and led by staff for whom the pressure of dealing with all of this is tremendous.
It’s worth recognising that in the case of Rotherham it is the frontline staff who were continually highlighting the risks and calling for action; calls which ultimately went unheeded.
The scale of failings in Rotherham may be extreme and thankfully unusual, but it provides a timely reminder of the consequences of failure and an important challenge to all of us working with children that such mistakes must never be allowed to be repeated.
Javed Khan is chief executive of Barnardo’s
