"A" Branch
A REPORT has made damning allegations against Islington council's management of its childcare services.
The report by Oxfordshire's Director of Social Services is an overview of 13 previous inquiries. Many of the allegations contained within it are not new, and relate to the peHer squeezing of social services into a decentralising neighbourhood structure resulted in lack of specialist management and lax scrutiny of child care issues.
During this period the NALGO branch repeatedly warned Hodge that the structure she had invented would not work. Her only response was that "professional issues" were of no concern for a trade union, and that it was entirely for councillors to decide how extremely critical report by the social services inspectorate in 1994, the council belatedly reorganised social services.
Some of the recommendations of the report are extremely worrying.
It is stated that over a period of twenty years, more than 32 staff have been guilty of some extremely serious allegations, including the sexual and psychological abuse of children in care.
It states "it cannot be a conorities or gay men.
It panders to popular prejudices by equating homosexuality to paedophilia and blames the council's equal opportunities policy for creating were afraid to discipline black and gay male staff.
All of this has led to a mas-. sive media attack on slington and its culture of "political correctness".
The response of the present council leadership is to The national relevance of amongst the staff at all banks these issues cannot be under- is at an all time high. estimated. The banks created statf asAs the national Labour sociations to try to stop the leadership continues to clothe spread of trade unionism itself in Tory policies, the To- amongst their workforce. ries and the press will become It is high time that the leadership of the staff assoincreasingly desperate to find ciations in Barclays, Lloyds issues on which they can go and Nat West responded on the attack. positively to the call from In this context, Labour's lo- BIFU for a single, united fical authority equal opportuninance trade union. ties policies are a sitting That would really give the target. Union members must employers something to be ready to defend them. worry about.
school cuts SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 85, June 10 1995, Page 5.