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?
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