Haringey

Should I even write this?

I've been fretting about this post for a day or so now. This is a blog about PR Strategy and Crisis Comms looking at what's in the news and commenting on or analysing the strategy. And the big news story at the moment is the conviction of three people for causing the death of a child.

But how callous would you have to be to consider the public relations issues surrounding abuse and killing? What would you say? What could you say?

There is a PR issue too

The truth is that following the convictions journalists (and by extension all of us) want to know what happened, who is to blame and what can be done about it. The citizens of Haringey (the borough where the death occurred) have a special interest in learning about whether they are properly protected by the council, health service and police force. Ministers and civil servants want to kick what they perceive as a slothful and conservative local government sector across the country into implementing the recommendations of Lord Laming. 

Haringey's managers have to balance the wish to make sure that any individuals who made errors are disciplined and systems are improved with the fact that they need to ensure that individuals and teams feel able to continue their protection work.

So, right now, comms experts are making decisions and giving advice about how to deal with the matters in hand. It may seem distasteful but it is necessary and even desirable. 

Standing up

The Director of Childrens Services at Haringey, Sharon Shoesmith has been widely interviewed. Possibly confusingly she is referred to as chair of the Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board. She no doubt is. But hands up if you know what the Harningey Local Safeguarding Children Board is. Apparently it can be difficult to recruit Directors of Childrens Services and, following this, I think we can see why. Getting a senior figure front and centre at times like this can be harder than you might imagine and she should be respected for standing up and being counted.

The Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board undertook a review of the case, the executive summary of which was published yesterday (Tuesday 11 November). The news release issued by the Council is not, to my mind, especially clear and I have difficulty linking what the news release says the review concluded with my reading of the review. The executive summary itself is full of confusing terms and acronyms such as  "GOSH at North Middlesex University Hospital (NMUH): responsible for and managing paediatric staff at NMUH". It does not read like a document intended to be read and understood. It hampers understanding of the issues. It should not have been published in its current form.

Many hands make...

The review highlights a range of failings across a range of agencies but there does not seem to have been a co-ordinated attempt for (to use a piece of jargon) a multi-agency response. There is a terse news release on the Great Ormond Street Hospital web site (though not on the front page) which directs people to Haringey. The Met have a press release about the convictions but this does not seem to have reference to the press information issued by the Council.

It appears as if the agencies who are supposed to be working together to protect children in Haringey are not able to work together to explain clearly how a child died and how they will try to make sure it never happens again.

This could just be perception but what else is there?

There will be more journalist enquiries, more government probes, calls for more sackings but, depressingly, child protection work will still be needed. 

Partnership is the big thing in public service delivery but if partners can't work together on the things that we can see then how do we know they are working together on the things we can't see.