Canal27ways

Category: children’s services

  • Never goin’ to smell the bran again…

    Never goin’ to smell the bran again…

    Sad to see Kellogg’s shut down its ovens for the last time. The last bake at Trafford Park seems to have taken place without ceremony.

    The big ‘K’ has been a visual marker on the skyline for as long as I can remember. Yet it’s the sounds and smells I’m most in tune with. I live within earshot of the Kellogg’s empty trailers bouncing over the humps at the warehouse and downwind of the malty scents blowing over our neighbourhood. I don’t think I’ve come to terms with the fact that its end is nigh.

    What comes next? I don’t think it’ll be residential. We’ll just have to see. Slightly worrying, but we’ll have to wait and see.

    Manchester United (Wharfside) Consultation

    Kellogg’s sits outside the consultation area, but not that far outside. Trafford is continuing its consultation on development of the eastern part of Trafford Park centred on the relocation of the Manchester United stadium and there’s some events planned for the next few weeks.

    Manchester United is renowned for the care and consideration it gives to its fans. Trafford is renowned for its integrity in consulting residents. What can go wrong?

    Coming Dates of consultation drop-ins

    Ruth Hannan from Gorgeous Gorse Hill has helpfully put together questions she wants answering from the Gorse Hill community point of view. These may trigger your own questions.

    I definitely would like to seek assurance that both new and existing permit schemes would be fully financed by Manchester United.

    Consultation Documents
    Ruth’s Response

    Continuing Fallout from Trafford’s Children’s Services Report

    The opposition parties in Trafford continue to use social media to exert pressure on Tom Ross and his Labour Group over the critical report.

    They’re being premature. The users of the service deserve an authoritative explanation of how the deterioration occurred before the blame is apportioned. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services seemed to suggest at Scrutiny that the data was being reported. Surely, this needs investigating and we need to understand the role of the Chief Executive.

    Labour has been understandably quiet. They’re in the firing line. However, they need to be held to their promise for:

    “independent review of why the deterioration in the front-door service was not identified and remedied sooner, including examination of what information was available to senior officers and elected members, what warnings were escalated, what assurance was provided and whether scrutiny arrangements were sufficiently robust.“

    I would have the thought that the conclusion of this report was the right moment to look at appropriate changes of personnel including the political.

    Coming up at Council

    The Sale Waterside PFI agreement is the subject of the next Council executive meeting on the 21st September. I would have thought this was quite an important issue for Sale Town Centre, given how important the canalside is to Sale. We’re probably going to be excluded from the tasty stuff as it’s likely the public will be excluded.

    Also on the coming Agenda:

    • A supplier for Trafford’s EV charging infrastructure
    • End to End Fostering Hub

    Total Ninja – Trafford Park

    Watersmeet Litterpick

    Trafford Lib Dem Campaign for Transparency over Potholes

    I’m not a Lib Dem but I think they make a good point about Trafford’s attitude to potholes. And there is clearly need for transparency.

    Their petition is here. Fix our roads – Trafford Liberal Democrats

    I’ve not signed it. I suspect it’s mainly for harvesting contacts but I would really like to if they used something like Change.org.

  • Extraordinary Council Meeting

    Extraordinary Council Meeting

    This was the meeting calling for resignations and self condemnation of pretty much everybody

    I previewed the meeting last week.

    The clash came to pass last night in the council chamber. Labour won. They had the votes.

    Most of the speakers were attacking Labour and a picture was painted of a Council Executive who were inward looking and lacking in curiosity.

    That narrative didn’t meet much challenge.

    My regret is that I’m still not actually sure how Trafford’s Executive were unaware that the issues highlighted in Ofsted’s opening paragraph had come about. I was hoping Children’s scrutiny the previous evening would have extracted something approaching a definitive answer. It would require some ‘first principle’ questioning.

    • How the ‘front door’ is monitored,
    • how failings would come to light,
    • how they are reported up the line

    All we have is the Ofsted verdict

    Since the previous inspection in 2022, when services in Trafford were judged as requires improvement to be good, leaders have been ineffective in recognising, prioritising and making improvements to some service shortfalls. Practice with children in care and for some care-experienced young people has improved, but there has been a serious deterioration in service areas, such as front door response.
    This has left some children at risk of harm.

    Leadership Culture

    I don’t think we’ll ever get a comprehensive answer to whether the culture set by Trafford’s political leadership played a part.

    The members of the Executive very much set themselves apart from the wider body of councillors. They don’t ask questions of wider councillors. They may have friendship groups to confide in, but it doesn’t seem to be a core value to be interested in the ward councillor’s perspective. This being the case, it hardly seems incongruous if there has been a lack of curiosity in terms of performance.

    There seems to be a culture of mutual comforting and reassurance amongst the cabinet. Consensus is reinforced. It would cause gross offense to demur.

    It is literally true that executive members challenging the consensus is now always in the past tense.

    This bias towards consensus permeates the council’s values

    I’ve never been a huge fan of Trafford’s ‘People Plan‘. Its EPIC Values have always seemed a little passively introverted to me, I’d like them to be more challenging, more focused on improvement.

    EPIC Values

    I almost think we hard-wired this failing into the culture. Still doesn’t explain everything, but I suggest that there are issues still to be solved beyond a simple change of personnel.

    The council meeting was interesting, we did get to hear the occasional line that set my alarms ringing;

    • “We’ve already dealt with”,
    • “Changes are in progress”,
    • “We’re going to be open, we don’t need to have a formal arrangement”

    We’ll have to see whether the Executive changes. I think one interesting consensus, certainly across the opposition parties, but I think into Labour backbenches was dissatisfaction with the scrutiny function. I hope that will be picked up.

    Link to Archived Video of the Proceedings on Youtube

    Overall, I think it was a worthwhile meeting. I don’t think resignations at this stage are a good idea, so I was happy with the way the votes went. It would be nice to think they take a broad view to some of the system failures that have taken place in my view, rather than the fault of a few individuals. And I’d really like the leaders to look in the mirror, have their behaviours contributed?