CAMDEN Council’s chief executive last night (Wednesday) revealed plans for the Town Hall’s biggest ever shake-up in a bid to provide better services for ‘at risk’ children.
In a radical restructuring plan, Moira Gibb told the New Journal that the council’s departments will be merged and a new portfolio for Children’s Services will be set-up.
The sweeping changes are part of obligations coming out of the Victoria Climbie Inquiry, the probe into the murder of an abused toddler in Hackney.
Coincidentally, the plan to put the inquiry’s recommendations comes just two weeks after the shocking killing of six-year-old Ukleigha Batten-Froggatt in a flat in Levita House, Somers Town.
Ukleigha was one of the 186 children listed on an ‘at risk’ register in Camden. Last night Ukleigha’s uncle Jason told the New Journal her family do not hold social services responsible for her death, adding: “Whoever killed her is to blame, that’s it.”
And in a statement emailed exclusively to this newspaper, Ms Gibb said: “All local authorities have to have a Director of Children’s Services to take responsibility for children’s education, social care and play by 2008. To ensure that Camden Council maximise the opportunities to improve the welfare of all children in the borough, I am proposing that the council brings together its children’s services and education.”
Each council is adapting differently to the Climbie recommendations but Camden is planning to funnel its five major departments into three new departments. They will be grouped as “Children, Schools and Families”, “Social Care, Housing and Community Safety” and “Culture and Environment”.
The future of current department directors is unclear and it is understood unrest is growing amongst senior officials wanting to know where they stand.
Unions immediately warned that the sweeping changes should not lead to redundancies.
David Eggmore, Unison’s branch secretary, said: “We are concerned that this will lead to job cuts.”
A council spokesman said last night (Wednesday): “Redundancy may happen when a job is no longer necessary or when the organisation no longer requires the same number of staff to carry out work of a particular kind in a particular place. Camden Council will do what it can to avoid making redundancies and recognises the departments, importance of retaining and developing its skilled and dedicated workforce.”
Tory leader Councillor Piers Wauchope said: “This is exactly what we have been calling for but have previously always been met with hostility from Labour councillors like Phil Turner. There ought to be job cuts, there ought to be savings. It will mean for the first time in a decade, council tax can be frozen or reduced.”
But he added the new system might not have saved Ukleigha.
Cllr Wauchope said: “I know there will be an inquiry into this. She was on the at risk register. One only hopes that that the social workers were following proper procedure.”
Despite the changes, the Town Hall insists that the current social services system is working well.
A press official said: “Camden has extremely robust and well-established procedures across agencies to ensure that children on the child protection register receive the protection and support that they need. There is an excellent track record.”
The widespread changes, due to be put in place over the next 12 months, have, however, divided the ruling Labour group with senior councillors unclear whether their cabinet posts will still exist after the restructuring.
Several were outraged at a recent party meeting and had to be calmed down during a heated debate. They are facing the embarrassing prospect of putting into the place Tory merger recommendations that they have previously shunned.
One senior party insider said: “It is being forced upon us. We do not have a choice. It is like when they got rid of the old committee system. We didn’t like it, we even had a motion against it, but we had to accept it.”
Parents of one in four of the children on Camden’s register of 186 at risk children have drug problems, while one in five is in alcoholic; a key problem in Camden, which has more alcohol related deaths than any other London borough.