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Edinburgh Inquiry briefings
Initial Briefing - Feb 1999See full report on City of Edinburgh Website Click here for UNISON evidence Report & Timescale The 66 page Summary Report was presented to the Council on 4 February 1999. It has 135 recommendations. The full 300+ report is to follow and will include 80 'Lessons' from the past. The Inquiry Team will lead a seminar on the report for councillors on 17 February, the report will then go to the Social Work Committee on 2 March and back to the full council on 4 March. Context Professor Marshall made it clear that the issue of protecting children was a corporate responsibility. If there was blame, it was corporate blame and that 'laying blame was too easy an answer' and a diversion from addressing how failures could be avoided in the future. The Council should explicitly acknowledge its corporate responsibility to children looked after by them (Recommendation 1) and publicly acknowledge that there are risks involved (Recommendation 2) Staff should feel supported in implementing decisions arising from risk assessments. This corporate responsibility was underlined by the recommendation that the cost of the Inquiry should come from the Council as a whole, rather than the Social Work Department. In her address to the Council, Professor Marshall said that a line should now be drawn under things and concentrate on implementing the recommendations. One of the recommendations is that there should be an annual review of implementation. Disciplinary Action The report says "...nothing we learned in the course of our inquiry would in our view merit disciplinary action against any current member of the City of Edinburgh's Social Work department staff. It would be a poor consequence for individual staff members who co-operated so fully and frankly with us, including reflection on whether or not they might have acted differently, if an interpretation were made that they should suffer penalties which arose directly from that co-operation". Criticism There is direct criticism of the police handling of a Dean House issue and of an APO giving a positive reference to McLennan without mentioning an investigation. There is general criticism of the way things had been handled in some cases but this is often set in the context of the process of the decision making, the absence of guidelines and the culture and knowledge at the time. It does however make it clear where things should have been handled differently at all levels and where action could and should have been taken. Other allegations The report mentions Chester Street and the fact that former residents contacted the inquiry to speak rebut allegations made and to comment highly on the care they received there. In relation to allegations of a 'cover up' in an anonymous letter, the report does not believe there was a deliberate cover-up but does say that some allegations against staff members should have been investigated. A summary of 16 recommendations has gone out to Social Work stewards.
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