Wilt Potfolio

The Care Quality Commission (and Ofsted in relation to children) is the successor of the former Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) which itself succeeded the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) which became operational in 2002. Prior to that local authorities had internal supposedly ‘arms-length’ inspection teams.

Those local authority inspectors inspected mostly services to older people, and nurseries and children’s homes. Inspectors were then through 2001 – 2 selected to go to either the NCSC of Ofsted, the latter taking on responsibility for registering and inspecting nurseries.

The NCSC were left with a predominance of inspectors experienced mostly in services to older people or adults with disabilities and a much wider brief of now to inspect not only children’s homes but also fostering and adoption services. There was therefore a dearth of experienced child care inspectors – enter stage right Wilt, who undertook a 9 month part-time interim self-employed contract alongside his numerous other contracts around the UK. The NCSC were not as bad as some made them out to be, or at least not in Wilt’s experience. Then later they were reconfigured into the CSCI.

Wilt Portfolio

In fact it was in the very first few days of the commencement of operations of the NCSC in early 2002 that Calleja lodged her complaint about her then fostering agency as set out in the CSCI Internal Review Report http://regulatorwatch.co.uk/2009/11/csci-internal-review-report/ and in fact went on into the transfer of responsibility to the CSCI. And of course it has gone well into the current decade – given the most recent disturbing debacle by the CQC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13617196 one can guarantee that Mrs C will be fired up again and contacting the press and goodness know who else – except of course she will need to be very, very careful as she has already been arrested once for harassment and the CSCI Internal Review Report demolished her case of complaint and showed exactly her ability to spread malicious muck. Furthermore the GSCC, Information Commissioner and various police forces have dismissed her complaints too.

Wilt Portfolio

However the purpose of this article is to observe that the CQC have not exactly been a success – in fact a complete joke. Neither has Ofsted in the debacle over Baby P – Calleja got onto that bandwagon too – exactly come out unscathed. The NCSC and CSCI were not great but they were certainly not as bad as this lot.

We predict another reorganisation.

Wilt

OK, this is not good: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13329634 It is similarly reported in the Telegraph who first reported on it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8501369/Public-sector-pay-soaring-out-of-control.html

Wilt Portfolio

It is just unacceptable. And of course, who is to blame – fucking Gordon Brown. Grrrrr!

The Tory Government (sorry coalition) need to get this sorted, big time. It is outrageous that any local/central government (sick leave) and gold plated pension lacklustre officer can Lord it over the much hard working and accountable private sector worker – it is a joke not very funny.

Wilt Portfolio

The entire sector of local government should be on a commission only basis, i.e. not providing direct services and commissioning officers on a maximum salary of £20,000 per year, and a Chief Executive on £30,000 per year. The private and third sector (voluntary sector – otherwise private sector by another name) can then determine their own charging.

Wilt

Again Tim Loughton (Children’s Minister) is giving the Courts and adoption agencies a ‘heads up’ that they need to get their act together. Key to his concerns are:

Wilt Portfolio

“I think the courts are too process-driven. There are some cases where very clearly there is no way back to a child’s birth parents and the child is a strong candidate for adoption. Do we need to go through quite as many processes for that child as for another where it is not such a clear cut decision? I think we can use a more proportionate approach in many cases.”

Loughton gives his views in a claimed exclusive interview withy Community Care here: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/02/23/116332/minister-wants-ombudsman-for-contentious-adoptions.htm

He adds:

“Whenever I speak to adoption services and adoption panels they say their job is being made harder because of court processes and delays: in getting the hearing; in the fact that judges are always asking for that extra expert witness statement and so forth.

“Then I speak to judges and they say adoption panels are taking so long to process paperwork, hold meetings and bring cases back to court. There just seems to be a huge disconnect at the moment.”

Wilt Portfolio

All this is of course with a backdrop to issues of concern over trans-racial placements, or the lack of, due to political correctness among social workers, as reported in the Telegraph:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/8340410/Adoption-shake-up-new-guidelines-will-stop-social-engineering.html

And here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/8340280/Adoption-shake-up-the-five-key-points.html

Although it is claimed these are new issues, they are in fact very old, well ingrained and stale issues – there is absolutely nothing new in these assertions by Michael Gove, but he is right to reinforce earlier policy which negates the damaging and irresponsible attitudes of some social workers to hold onto a false and misleading concept of integration of children into families who must (at all costs) reflect a child’s ethnicity.

However, if he feels adoption services are better or at least equally delivered by Voluntary Adoption Agencies (VAA’s) then he must have second and third thoughts, we think.

In this article Community Care report: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/02/22/116318/government-urges-more-use-of-voluntary-adoption-agencies.htm that the Government urges more use of VAA’s. Do Gove and Loughton really think that will improve matters – some of the worst offenders of political correctness occupy posts in the voluntary sector.

Wilt Portfolio

And to add injury to insult, voluntary agencies (REMEMBER THE WORD VOLUNTARY) charge such massive fees as set out by BAAF (British Association for Adoption & Fostering) http://www.baaf.org.uk/ to the tune of £20,640 + £3,440 to cover a package of post-adoption services for each child placed. That is £24K per child, and more if it involves London based agencies. See the BAAF list of charges here: http://www.baaf.org.uk/webfm_send/2108

A VOLUNTARY ADOPTION AGENCY charging fees to a local authority? Is Wilt confused or do these people obtain grants and pay executives massive salaries, or what? These are not voluntary agencies but a private business masquerading as voluntary agencies – they have a mantra, as described by BAAF themselves as “Every Child Deserves a Family.”

Mmmmmmm, yes at a cost and profit to the voluntary agencies.

Not infrequently Wilt undertakes kinship or otherwise general assessments of prospective adopters and foster carers, at a fraction of the cost, normally within the region of £3500 – £4000.00.  How is then possible for voluntary agencies need to charge £24K?

So Mssrs Gove and Loughton – think on mates. Costs and political correctness? Who do you think runs the national adoption register? Well, it is of course BAAF who also set the national inter-agency fees for inter-agency placements.

Is there a conflict of interest here?

In Big Society Terms there needs to be a root and branch review of what is the distinction between so called VOLUNTARY agencies and effectively private business – and not just their tax breaks.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

This is a long article – but read on, as it is worthwhile we humbly submit. Above all it gives a two finger salute to those who attempt to curtail freedom of speech.

It has been a little while since we turned our attention to the subject of Calleja, that Elizabeth of Leamington Spa. After her arrest last year for suspected harassment Wilt et al reflected on her character.

Wilt Portfolio

She remains a regular visitor to Regulator Watch via her T-Mobile Android driven and Safari web browser on the tiny screen of her mobile phone – she appears to believe her activity by such media is undetectable or not permanently recorded both on her device and by the Regulator Watch “sniffer” programme to monitor access to the website. No such luck Elizabeth – your every click is recorded, by us and T-Mobile.

Whereas Elizabeth was not ultimately charged with any offence and released from bail, the arrest, we think, had a definite impact on her activity – Wilt has received reports that (due to bail conditions) she did not access the websites of those companies who brought the police complaint against her, for the full period of her three month bail. She has on a couple of occasion’s accessed one company (complainant) website post release from bail.

Probably for the second time ever, Calleja was on the back foot – it was she who was under scrutiny and despite her efforts to achieve the same it was not those who she complained about but in fact her who was arrested. The police were in fact rather annoyed that this “crying wolf” Calleja was an utter menace and distraction from the real and vital crimes that police forces try to address daily. This is not a dissimilar position adopted by the former CSCI (Commission for Social Care Inspection) who, were to their credit, the first to take on the task of dismantling the Calleja/Plaskitt mythology of “victimisation.”

Plaskitt is the former Labour MP for Warwick & Leamington Spa. You can find details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Plaskitt or upcoming http://www.jamesplaskitt.com/ – the latter is reserved and we can only assume the twat has something in mind. Perhaps photographs of dunes!?

James Plaskitt - Wikepedia

Police “forces” is used in the plural because it was not just West Mercia Police but also several other police forces that were in receipt of complaints – Calleja will and has made multiple complaints on the same “stale” issues to numerous agencies.

The list of agencies Calleja has complained to is far too numerous to mention (they run into the dozens) in her near 11 year campaign to, what she/Plaskitt term as an effort to clear her name, to attack the character of others – the classic “attack is the best defence” approach which she and idiot Plaskitt (now ex-MP) undertook in a rather underhand way.

Wilt Portfolio

Quite a number of agencies were initially taken in by this nun with a switchblade and took up her cause in the mistaken belief that Calleja, aided and abetted by former MP Plaskitt, was a victim of the big bad system. These were her high points. Some of it was captured in the CSCI Internal Review Report here: http://regulatorwatch.co.uk/2009/11/csci-internal-review-report/ and thereafter her demise was assured. Well done CSCI.

Come the general election in 2010 (when Plaskitt lost his Parliamentary seat) Calleja was on her own, most agencies had realised she was simply “vexatious“(including even the GSCC) and her reputation with the said dozens of agencies was in disarray.

After her arrest in 2010 she focused her switchblade, very nun like, on Regulator Watch which has, among other matters, reported the alternative and more truthful story of Calleja – she had begun the process by reporting her (false) woes to the press herself, aided and abetted by former MP Plaskitt in both the House of Commons and the press. She made herself public, her cause public and seriously discredited others very publicly – is it therefore a surprise that others defend themselves publicly via Regulator Watch?

Plaskitt it appears, as some describe him, been a “poodle” or “lap dog” of the woman, forever doing her bidding.  Calleja, otherwise known as Mrs Fax (given the volumes of data sent by fax to numerous bodies), became more and more isolated and considered by many agencies as suffering some kind of illness.

Why otherwise would she harass so many over so many years? Munchausen’s Syndrome was once proposed and remains a significant contender but Wilt et al have another theory, too.

The demise of Plaskitt (who lost his Parliamentary seat) was a significant loss to Calleja – the “poodle” no longer had a voice, safe within the protected confines of the lower House. He also needed to take a low profile due to his dodgy MP’s expenses, especially his £400 per month (no questions asked) food bill, among other claims on expenses. If only Wilt (and most of the world) had £400 per month for food, without receipts – world hunger would be solved, surely?

There is a considerable body of belief that Calleja “is just simply evil” – she was fully aware of the damage she did to the reputations of others and the distress that caused, but that explanation does not exclude the impressions of others who state that “Munchausen’s Syndrome” or indeed simple “Narcissism” also play a part in the makeup of this complex woman – this is the consequence of having psychiatrists, psychologists and religious people on the board of Regulator Watch.

Wikipedia

See an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder – if reading these you are looking into a mirror, do not blame Wilt, especially if your name is Elisabeth.

Being a pure “evil” person argument is a strong contender – Calleja was intent upon doing the maximum harm to her victims. This does not of course exclude simple mental health problems. “I want this agency de-registered” (or words to that effect) or this and that person de-registered from the GSCC suggests a vengeful and disproportionate attitude especially when it carries on a decade after her perceived abuse of her by others – abuse which all evidence indicates never really took place, although she did as a foster parent suffer some mild maladministration by a local authority (Northamptonshire – see the CSCI Internal Review Report).

Such efforts at revenge never stopped her after it was conclusively determined that the CSCI/GSCC/Police/Information Commissioner could find no grounded cause of complaint – she simply regarded those agencies as complicit in her “paranoid” view that there was a conspiracy, and thus she was even more embolden.

Wilt Portfolio

“Paranoid” is one thing, “Munchausen’s Syndrome” is another – that remains a virtual certainty. However how about Calleja being a Narcissist? Well, the combined thoughts of the experts seem to agree at least on this description of the nun with a switchblade – a term coined to describe Julie Andrews of The Sound of Music acting fame who was, it is suggested, “a bit of a bully.”

This assessed Narcissist – Elizabeth – fits every description of that mirror admiring Greek mythological figure. Indeed she would surpass the fame of that classical body that ultimately became a disgrace both in life and death. She does live in infamy and a warning to mankind in terms of “selfishness”, but Calleja will leave no legacy, other than the compensations awarded to her victims. And those compensations were rather generous!

Wilt

If Brick http://wallofbrick.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/monro-review-second-act/ believes that the Children Act 1989 was ever or is, as claimed, a “charter for children” then they are barking up the wrong wall.

The Act was a very effective charter for lawyers, Guardians and experts. Within a very short period of time court cases were taking up to two years to complete. I certainly share the concern that local authorities should not be allowed to practice unfettered but then neither should social workers be permitted to ignore policies nor Guardians think they know better than anyone else what constitutes best practice.

And it was nowhere near as bad as suggested by Brick pre the 1989 Act (implemented on 14^th October 1991) – Wilt remembers those days too.

The fact is, lawyers got to be very greedy, some Guardians (some with little clue or even less competence) loved and love playing the prima donna of the Court corridors and interfered in casework they sometimes could not understand (let alone practice) – experts instructed by the cartload were set loose and who in some instances actually told one very little or what was already known.

There was frequently no ‘added value’ to best outcomes for children and the poor social worker from the local authority was diminished to the wicked witch of all points of the compass. Playing with children’s lives in this way is dangerous and certainly not giving paramount concern to the welfare of the child.

Promoting justice and it being seen that justice is done does not need to look like this. Suggesting that money is no obstacle within the justice system is tantamount to contempt of the taxpayer.

I have a lot of time for Brick and the blog Wall (http://wallofbrick.wordpress.com/) – its author is well experienced and very eloquent on subjects Wilt feels strongly about. Occasionally the postings cause some great laughter and joy. However, the Act has not worked and it needs serious reforming and to suggest that it is all because Guardians are being fettered or that the Courts are being restricted because of budgets is pure folly. The fact is, Guardians have been too often a part of the problem – not the solution or silver bullet.

And how does Wilt know all this? Well he is an expert witness and has been for many a year; he too is a Guardian and had a former senior management role within social work for longer than he cares to remember – he is also a tribunal chairman in a related field. He has observed the effects of the Children Act therefore from many an angle and perspective. That does not necessarily make Wilt ‘right’ in his opinions but it certainly is not opinion based on lack of experience.

Of course social workers are experts – the fact that they represent the applicant in court proceedings does not diminish that status and are entitled to stand on an equal footing as any other expert, or Guardian – they are just another expert and not as some Guardians mistakenly believe some kind of ‘super’ social worker wearing their underwear over their tights.

When Wilt acts as a Guardian he is, as with other Guardians, frequently consulted by children’s social workers. Wilt has a ‘contract’ with social worker’s that is shaped broadly thus:

i)  You [social worker] are the expert until it is shown otherwise;

ii) I am happy to be consulted but I will not be your supervisor;

iii) I will not attempt to case manage the child’s case;

iv) We will treat each other with mutual respect and recognise and respect our different roles;

v) We are all duty bound to hold the needs of the child as paramount;

vi) As I consider you an expert, do not propose instructing another expert on matters that are perfectly within your competence/resources to complete yourself; we must minimise costs and delay;

vii) When completing your written assessment not only should you demonstrate competence but also fairness to avoid the appearance of bias;

viii) This Guardian does not wear his knickers over his tights or have any super human qualities – he too was once a social worker.

Generally, the above understanding leads to reasonably stress free relations. It sets the social workers mind at rest that the Guardian is not ‘off planet’ waiting to invade and sets them free to get on with what they do best – social work. It also creates opportunity for dialogue and debate, and if it comes to it, permission to disagree or arrive at differing views of settling (disposal) the matter at Court.

Unfortunately not all Guardians take that approach – they do wear their knickers over their tights and are simply social workers who not ‘hack it’ in frontline practice. Some others are just simply not of this world and yet others are the prima donna who love sitting around for hours on end in the Court at huge expense to the public purse but to the benefit of their own bulging purse.

It aint as simple as Brick might have you believe – but he/she is an expert too and can have an opinion, just like that fresh faced social worker from the local authority.

It is for certain there are some Dork social workers – you only need to look at the GSCC files to determine that. There are in proportional terms, take my word for it, far more Dork Guardians, lawyers and experts but they are far less scrutinised or evaluated.

Things really have to change – throwing money (we do not have) at the problem is not the answer.

Brick gets 9 out of ten for composition and language skills, 10 out of 10 for spelling but only 4 out of 10 for his/her reasoning and concluding the solution to the test. A good effort but s/he needs to try harder.

Wilt

Worcestershire social services were at one time among the best of places to work and the management and professionalism were highly regarded. So either Ofsted have got it wrong (which is always a distinct possibility) in this Community Care article http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/08/05/115045/progress-at-worcestershire-childrens-services-limited.htm or things are getting really bad.

It is true of other places that Wilt comes across on his travels. Previously highly regarded local authority social services are really struggling to the point of near collapse.

Of course budget stress, staffing levels and the surge in referrals following Baby P are all factors coming into play. Wilt is not convinced that it is always or necessarily common place that staffing compliments are too low, it is certainly not pay levels (social workers earn far more than Wilt ever did even when he was a team leader many moons ago) nor is it lack of commitment from individuals.

It is to do with staff vacancy levels, how teams are organised and because in part social work core services are run by local authorities – whether it could ever be fully achieved is open to debate, but both the private and voluntary (private by any other description) sectors need to take over via outsourcing. All local authorities should do is ‘commission’ services. That has begun to some extent in terms of setting up ‘looked after’ children’s team pilots – not a resounding success in Sandwell, but then it is Sandwell. What would you expect?

What is there to stop outsourcing things such as child protection? The private sector culture of reducing waste, focusing on achievable results, minimal bureaucracy, trying new ways of working and sensible employment practices gives them the edge over local authorities who are cumbersome and slow to change, for a variety of reasons.

For example, in the private sector if someone is not up to the job, they are either encouraged to leave or if not sacked – unlike their local authority counterpart who would first go of sick for six months on full pay, a further six months half-pay and could end up (at huge expense to the taxpayer) achieving early retirement or taken to tribunal for something or other and potentially end up paying out compensation (also at great expense to Wilt and others pockets).

We think we will drop a line to our man Eric Pickles (Communities Secretary)  and David (call me Dave) Cameron – the “big society thing” but in Wilt’s version with bells and whistles.

Wilt