Council hired £700-a-day consultants on child protection

A council spent £300,000 bringing in experts on £700-a-day rates after its child protection service was branded ‘inadequate’ – only to get exactly the same rating three years later.

Salford’s children’s services has been in turmoil since the death in 2008 of toddler Demi-Leigh Mahon – murdered by babysitter Karl McCluney after being let down by social workers 12 times.

Since then department chief Jill Baker has been sacked and child protection boss Michael Kemp has resigned.

The protection service – first branded ‘inadequate’ by watchdog Ofsted in November 2007 – received the same rating after a snap inspection earlier this year.

Now the M.E.N can reveal that after the first report, Salford council spent £300,000 drafting in two £700-a-day consultants and an interim assistant director to turn the department around.

The consultants started work in June 2008 – just weeks before Demi Leigh died – and remained for nine months.

In June 2009, one of the two consultants was re-commissioned to assess the council’s restructuring of the department – at a cost of another £30,000.

And another outside manager, plus four social workers, were employed for a further £40,000 through the same specialist agency for a few months’ work.

Council leader John Merry said last night the consultants had helped the department meet the terms of a government improvement plan.

He said that without their involvement, the government might have stepped in to run Salford’s children’s services by itself.

But Norman Owen, leader of the opposition Lib Dem group, said: “Considerable expenditure on consultants has clearly not resulted in a successful turn-around of the department.

“The fragmentation of the department with so many departures of senior management has not helped either.

“The root cause of the failure in safeguarding services is woeful political leadership.”

The consultants were brought in after the original Ofsted report gave the safeguarding children unit a rock-bottom rating of ‘inadequate’.

The unit monitors and provides support for children living in the community deemed to be at risk from neglect or abuse.

After Demi Leigh’s death, at a flat in Liverpool Road, Eccles, in July 2008, an official report found police, neighbours and the toddler’s own grandmother had alerted social services with concerns about her welfare a total of 12 times.

Ms Baker was sacked for gross misconduct after saying no one in her department would be disciplined. She intends to take the council to a tribunal.

Mr Kemp resigned after the second Ofsted report – published last month – branded his child protection unit ‘inadequate’ in seven out of 15 categories.

Coun Merry said: “In addressing the concerns raised in the 2007 Ofsted report we took the sensible step, agreed with the minister, of bringing in additional support to meet the targets set us.

“As a result of their contribution we were able to meet every target set us in the improvement plan. I understand why people might question the cost of these consultants but the reality is that it would have cost considerably more had there been a formal intervention to run the service.”

Coun Merry admitted that the ‘depth and pace of improvement’ in the department had been ‘too slow’.

“I have accepted that management changes may cause uncertainty for staff but the changes have been necessary,” he said. “We are now in the process of recruiting permanent employees to these important roles as soon as possible. In the meantime, these posts cannot remain unfilled.

“We have demonstrated that we will do what is necessary to do the best we can for the city’s most vulnerable children and we will continue to do so.”