Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Childrens Services and council waste
IN the decision by our council not to put Baby P into care, one of the factors at the time appears to have been the extra cost this would entail, thanks to a pinched budget of the Children’s Services department. Putting a child into care is always expensive, but it can make the difference between life and death, as we've seen. Should this area be skimped and was this the council’s Cinderella department?
Some folk haven’t yet made the link between money waste in some parts of the council and money shortage in other parts. Our council is awash with our cash, but its not getting to the right parts.
I for one would be pleased to see the end of the council’s propaganda department (24 strong? Publisher of People magazine?) and every penny of its budget given over to Child Protection. If the council was truly serious about Child Protection they would do this now, immediately.
There’s probably waste in several parts of the council, but one part of their empire with which I have a little familiarity over the last two years, is our charitable trust Alexandra Palace. This exists as a council outpost where unusually, any and all expenses are automatically underwritten, on a nightly basis, by council taxpayers. It operates in a legal grey area between council and charity. It has been described as Haringey’s biggest expense account where senior managers and the endless consultants they employed, enjoyed unlimited spending.
In the misguided attempt to sell our Charity’s asset, the council incurred vast costs. Last year, at the same time as a life-and-death decision was being taken about a poor infant in one part of our Borough, huge legal bills were being run up by council managers in another part. In the 24 months to November 2007, lawyers alone cost almost £800,000. This went to two firms including the Trust Solicitor’s, Howard Kennedy. Additionally, in the same period, £182,200 was spent on the public relations firm Lexington Communications. For just these items, about a million pounds of our taxes – was utterly wasted (the Palace was to be sold for £1.5m).
Last year, thanks to a decision by the current Cabinet Member for Resources, to push for a temporary Licence to the council’s favoured property developer (Firoka), the council lost many millions of pounds in revenue that should have come in to council coffers. The council brought in an independent investigation by Martin Walklate (expensive, but worth every penny). See Walklate Report (somewhere on HoL!).
The Member for Resources (Cllr. Charles Adje, White Hart Lane) is no stranger to wasting our taxes on a massive scale. The failed “Tech Refresh” computer project is thought to have burnt up more than ten million pounds cash.
On Cllr Adje’s watch, £37m was invested with Icelandic banks (where did that come from?). We may yet get some of that back – without the hundreds of thousands of pounds of lost interest. This man is deeply out of his depth – and he is still handling hundreds of millions of pounds ... of our money, to be spent on our behalves.
It is little wonder there have been calls for his resignation.
Altogether, the cash waste for which Councillor Charles Adje is responsible, runs into the millions and possibly into tens of millions of pounds. A Child Protection Order now costs £4k.
Some folk haven’t yet made the link between money waste in some parts of the council and money shortage in other parts. Our council is awash with our cash, but its not getting to the right parts.
I for one would be pleased to see the end of the council’s propaganda department (24 strong? Publisher of People magazine?) and every penny of its budget given over to Child Protection. If the council was truly serious about Child Protection they would do this now, immediately.
There’s probably waste in several parts of the council, but one part of their empire with which I have a little familiarity over the last two years, is our charitable trust Alexandra Palace. This exists as a council outpost where unusually, any and all expenses are automatically underwritten, on a nightly basis, by council taxpayers. It operates in a legal grey area between council and charity. It has been described as Haringey’s biggest expense account where senior managers and the endless consultants they employed, enjoyed unlimited spending.
In the misguided attempt to sell our Charity’s asset, the council incurred vast costs. Last year, at the same time as a life-and-death decision was being taken about a poor infant in one part of our Borough, huge legal bills were being run up by council managers in another part. In the 24 months to November 2007, lawyers alone cost almost £800,000. This went to two firms including the Trust Solicitor’s, Howard Kennedy. Additionally, in the same period, £182,200 was spent on the public relations firm Lexington Communications. For just these items, about a million pounds of our taxes – was utterly wasted (the Palace was to be sold for £1.5m).
Last year, thanks to a decision by the current Cabinet Member for Resources, to push for a temporary Licence to the council’s favoured property developer (Firoka), the council lost many millions of pounds in revenue that should have come in to council coffers. The council brought in an independent investigation by Martin Walklate (expensive, but worth every penny). See Walklate Report (somewhere on HoL!).
The Member for Resources (Cllr. Charles Adje, White Hart Lane) is no stranger to wasting our taxes on a massive scale. The failed “Tech Refresh” computer project is thought to have burnt up more than ten million pounds cash.
On Cllr Adje’s watch, £37m was invested with Icelandic banks (where did that come from?). We may yet get some of that back – without the hundreds of thousands of pounds of lost interest. This man is deeply out of his depth – and he is still handling hundreds of millions of pounds ... of our money, to be spent on our behalves.
It is little wonder there have been calls for his resignation.
Altogether, the cash waste for which Councillor Charles Adje is responsible, runs into the millions and possibly into tens of millions of pounds. A Child Protection Order now costs £4k.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Clive, of course it’s reasonable to ask if budget considerations played any part in the specific decision not to take Court Proceedings on Baby P. This includes a question about the increased Court fee. A very clear answer 'No' was given several times.
Now, you and other people may not believe this answer. You may not have confidence in the people giving the answer; or the people supplying them with the information. Given what we’ve learned in the Joint Report, scepticism is understandable.
But, you simply repeat the assertion - as if it was a self evident truth – that:
". . . one of the factors at the time appears to have been the extra cost this would entail, thanks to a pinched budget of the Children’s Services department".
I want to know the truth about this tragedy as much as you, Clive. I may be wrong about the budget issue; and willingness to acknowledge error is at least at the root of progress. But I want truth based on facts and evidence. Not more opinion, however angrily and genuinely felt and expressed. So can you please refer me to some facts and evidence which support your assertion?
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About Cllr Charles Adje, as you well know, I am not among his fans. Two months ago I called for him to stand down over the Walklate Report. After the Standards Board Report on the Welbourne Centre, I repeated that call. I have not changed my mind.
But please let’s not try to build some link between the Baby P tragedy and criticism of Cllr Adje. It belittles the former; and can easily distract from the latter. We need a careful, fair and scrupulous consideration of what Cllr Adje has done or failed to do as Cabinet Member and former Leader. Again, please let's stick with evidence and facts.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Alan you took the words out of my mouth! I do not beleive the answer we had. We have had 'clear' answers before. The death of Baby P appears to have changed some practices within the council without outside intervention. Figures for children taken into care climbed after the baby's death and it appear that some more money is going into Services for children.
The reason that I have no confidence in this, is that Haringey has been here before with Victoria Climbié, after which all sorts of promises were mouthed. We had a poster campaign called "Better Haringey" to suggest that lessons had been learnt. I'm sure you know why some in the public might be skeptical. Once the much-needed media spotlight moves on in a few weeks, the temptation to return to complacency will be strong and all councillors must try to ensure this does not happen.
I'm sorry to use graphic analogies that might be worthy of the Red Tops, but if a limb has gone gangrenous, it needs amputation for the sake of the body. The deepest cleansing this time must result in fundamental change in the care of vulnerable children, including the removal of individuals who are obstacles to progress: the sole criterion must be a gold standard for the welfare of children and no other considerations. No one must shrink from this and it needs to be carried through with real political will. Do you detect any sense of urgency in the council about this?
I'm afraid the council will receive more opinion from the outside public on this subject until and unless they are confident that that there exists a Childrens Service in this Borough fit for the 21st century in one of the richest cities in the world. The council drift, and perverted culture finally hit the buffers of the morality that still exists in the wide public. This was given voice by our still free press, which the council spends time reacting to, abusing and defending itself from, instead of getting on with the job.
I call again for the council propaganda department to be shut and its budget transferred to Child Care.
As far as Cllr. Adje is concerned, I am not trying to build a link between him personally and the Baby P tragedy, although I see it might have appeared so. As far as I can tell, Adje had no responsiblity in a line manager sense, nor otherwise had influence on this particular case.
But he is a member of the Council who holds the purse strings for the whole council. You will know that I have been interested in his particular responsiblities (over Alexandra Palace) since well before the Baby P tragedy and this man needs to be held accountable. I also know that you are aware of Cllr Adje's failings; I respect the fact that you were prepared to state these publicly. Your stand is principled and obviously not one made out of any sense of careerism. (I'm also glad you've taken an interest in some of the things that have been going on at Alexandra Palace).
Anyone who causes waste, let alone massive waste like Adje with taxpayers money, will indirectly crimp bugets in other departments.
Particularly if he remains in office after the current resuffle, Cllr. Adje is likely to get the careful, fair and scruplulous consideration of what he had done and failed to do as Cabinet Member, as you mentioned – we can both agree on that.
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Tom, I mentioned the £37,000,000 of our taxes in the freezer, almost as an afterthought, only because this cash does come under Cllr Adjes long list of responsibilities. We don't even know if he knew what was going on, let alone expressed any views about it. I haven't yet heard any explanation of how and why the council came to be in possession of such a large amount of cash. Can they be trusted with large amounts anyway?
As for the choice of banks, the Icelandic banks were paying above-average interest rates (a possible warning sign), were offshore and our council even managed to put in one or two million more, days before the collapse. Can we not expect the highly-paid expert financial officers underneath the "Cabinet Member for Resources", to keep their ears to the ground?
I have made elsewhere comment about the council getting around the guideline intended to limit exposure to any one bank, to £20m.
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Permalink Reply by Joe on
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Haringey and all other councils hold significant cash reserves, this is generally considered as correctly prudent .
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I think the figure for cash reserves is typically somewhere in the region of 5% of revenue.
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Shouty bold tabloid-style quiz: which is the odd one out:
– Correct
– Prudent
– Haringey
All that cash might have been better managed in one place, by central government where it came from, until it was needed, rather than by various local bodies of variable competence – but that's another story ...
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Permalink Reply by swift on
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I am far away and know very little about how the affairs in Harringay are run, and I am really sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong but here are my thoughts anyway. Why tell the public about this exhorbitant waste of money. Unless its apublic "hanging" public apathy is notoriously rampant. Someone must be resposible for giving this man the money to spend. They are the ones who should be doing something about the situation.
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For anyone wanting to learn more about the state of Childrens' Services in our Borough, they may wish to know that the council is holding a scheduled meeting of the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership Board (HSP) at the Civic Centre at 6.30pm this evening.
The Agenda includes item (5) "Child Protection in Haringey: Initial Reactions to the Joint Area Review"; (9) Performance Monitoring: Local Area Agreement and National Indicator Set -Quarter Two Report (July to September 2008/09) and (13) Are We There Yet? Improving Governance and Resource Management in Children's Trusts.
Curiously, the list of expected attendees still includes the name of one Sharon Shoesmith. This reflects either balls, hide or more likely, an oversight. George Meehan and Liz Santry's names on the list were expunged last week ...
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