Social work director ‘won’t be resigning’

DUNDEE’S DIRECTOR of social work Alan Baird said his staff have been exonerated by yesterday’s reports into the killing of Brandon Muir and that he will not resign from his post.

Although social workers were concerned enough about the toddler to schedule an urgent case conference, Mr Baird said the only person responsible for Brandon’s death was Robert Cunningham.

Brandon’s relatives have called for Mr Baird to stand down on several occasions.

Mr Baird—who became chairman of the Dundee children and young persons protection committee after the boy’s death —denied that yesterday’s reports into the tragedy were a whitewash.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I don’t think that with the information we had available we could have made any other decision,” he said.

“It is not a whitewash. It is very clear that we had two independent people with considerable experience and we made all of our staff available and all of our records were made available.

“We have complied fully with all the requests made to us.

“I am satisfied that the outcome of the reports reflect a fair and balanced view of the circumstances leading up to Brandon’s death.

“I won’t be resigning—this death could not have been predicted.”

Although the urgent case conference was scheduled for March 18— two days after Brandon was killed—it had been ordered three weeks earlier.

It came too late to save the 23-month-old but Mr Baird said child protection services had moved quickly once they had been alerted to Brandon’s situation by Heather Boyd’s parents.

“In fact staff responded very quickly,” he said. “I think the report makes it very clear that there were a number of actions taken.

“Robert Cunningham was involved with Brandon’s family for a very short period of time, so much so that it left little opportunity for the authorities to prevent the fatal assault on Brandon.”

But Mr Baird did say that all child protect- ion agencies shared responsibility for the failings to share information that the report did criticise.

When social workers, health workers and police met for the first time to discuss the case there was no talk of Cunningham or Boyd’s police history, Cunningham’s former partner’s claims about his abusive behaviour or even his threats towards a social worker, which resulted in the police being called.

Mr Baird also praised front-line social workers in Dundee and said they had been absolved of any blame by the report.

“Staff have had this responsibility for protecting children and every day they have continued to do that in very difficult circumstances since Brandon’s death,” he said.

In a prepared statement released earlier, Mr Baird said, “Although the SCR makes it very clear that there are ‘no wholesale changes required’ to the social work department’s child protection policies and procedures, we have agreed there are areas in which we need to tighten up.

“We have drawn from both reports a significant amount of information that we will use to do that.

“The reports acknowledge that significance can now be attached to events which at the time did not seem to be leading to the death of Brandon.

“Robert Cunningham was only involved with the family for less than three weeks but events escalated very quickly.

“During that time the response by various agencies was swift but I acknowledge that change needs to be made and I wish to give my total commitment to doing that.”

The report revealed his previous partner reported Cunningham to police twice for domestic violence in February last year.

Even though police should have arrested Cunningham if sufficient evidence was available—whether or not his partner wanted them to —an internal investigation found that by the time officers arrived Cunningham had left and the police did not trace, caution, interview or warn him, as the domestic abuse guidelines require them to do.

However, the report also states that the Tayside force now adopts a more “robust” approach to domestic violence.

Assistant Chief Constable Bill Harkins said, “We’ve made sure that every officer has had those guidelines reinforced.”

He added that the force will be running its anti-domestic violence campaign Operation Lynchpin again this year and urged anyone who is a victim of domestic abuse to contact the police.

Commissioner of child health at NHS Tayside Caroline Selkirk said an extensive improvement programme is in place to help support vulnerable children and families.

She added that records would now be kept electronically to help speed up the exchange of inform-ation and the organisation had appointed more community nurses and will be appointing nurses who specialise in child protection.