Mum’s Child Protection Attack On Moray Council

OFFICERS of Moray Council, from the lowest to the highest, do not have the ability to take on board the importance of their responsibility to keep children safe, an angry mum believes.

After watching councillors debate on Wednesday the damning report on Moray’s inter-agency services handling of child protection, the woman said she had heard nothing to re-assure her that things will change.

The mum, who cannot be named, has been involved with the child protection system in Moray since 2005 and said she has seen at first hand how bad the situation is. Her anger was mainly directed at Moray Council and the social work team, and she said that even her most recent experiences this month have proved to here they have still to learn from past mistakes.

“The multi-agency team can endanger the very lives they are supposed to protect and parents are treated with contempt. We are also trying to protect our children, but this council has never had any regard to what families are trying to tell them and they just try to railroad us.

“We pay their wages and they are not doing the job they should be doing. The rot is in the management and has crept all the way down – people should lose their jobs,” she said.

“They have learnt nothing from the past and there is no way there will be a quick fix. I don’t think they have the ability to take on board the seriousness of the situation and to change.”

The mum called for the multi-agency service, which includes NHS Grampian and Grampian Police, to bring in external help to overhaul its workings.

“They don’t seem to pay any attention to their own guidelines, the Data Protection Act or Human Rights legislation, and procedures are not followed. When you complain you are told to complain to each department individually and social work takes the lead, but everything is investigated internally and they are out to protect themselves,” she claimed.

“Child protection is such a closed subject. They tell us what to do and when to do it, and expect us not to question it.

“I agree with the First Minister, Alex Salmond, who was said it was appalling. I would like to see government intervention to sort it out. They need external help.”

She expressed sympathy with councillors and their anger at being kept in the dark about the serious of the situation and said that although at the end of the day they had to take responsibility and most force through change, they could not have been aware of the day-to-day failings.