The local Senior Coroner points the finger at LBWF as details emerge about yet another safeguarding scandal
The tragic death of Tracey Turnell has been much covered in the media, and last week Senior East London Coroner Graeme Irving held an inquest to review the surrounding circumstances, which the Investigations Reporter of the East London and West Essex Guardian Series, Charles Thompson, diligently covered here
and this is the source for much of the following.
At the outset, Mr. Irvine called Ms. Turnell’s death ‘“horrifying”, and added ‘“It is a truly, truly appalling case”’.
But he also concluded that there had been ‘“significant missed opportunities”’ to ‘“safeguard this obviously vulnerable young woman”’, and accordingly cross-questioned John Binding, LBWF’s Strategic Safeguarding Lead, about the details.
One passage in this interchange is worth quoting at length:
‘Mr Binding said there had since [the death] been systemic improvements, but the coroner replied “Unless I’m getting something wrong, this wasn’t a case of the rules being wrong in 2022 and 2023. It was a problem that the staff weren’t following the rules.”
“I don’t think staff did follow what would be expected,” Mr Binding agreed.
“I very much appreciate that we live in a generation of looking at systemic factors, but sometimes there needs to be personal responsibility,” said Mr Irvine. “Has anybody been reprimanded? Has anybody been referred to their regulator, Social Work England?”
“Erm, no, that’s not happened – but I’m aware there’s been a series of individual, kind of, conversations,” said Mr Binding.
“I sit as a coroner and hear, on a day-to-day basis, about reflection, changes of procedure, changes of process – but unless and until somebody actually feels the flames at their feet about the consequences of their actions or inactions, not a great deal changes,” said Mr Irvine.
Mr Binding responded: “I’m very conscious of this having had a profound effect on adult social care. As you say, I think the circumstances are quite traumatic and I think people most definitely reflected upon it.”
“If people are habitually and regularly, it seems, dropping the ball in relation to their adult safeguarding duties – a vitally important role – surely there comes a time where people have to be brought to account for that,” said Mr Irvine. “Do you see?”
“I do see, absolutely,” said Mr Binding’.
Mr. Binding deserves a modicum of credit for his candour, and of course the usual caveats apply (these kind of cases are often complex, LBWF was not the only organisation to err, etc.).
But, that said, it is unarguable that Mr. Binding’s comments speak for themselves about the slipshod way that LBWF so often takes its responsibilities, and in particular handles gross failure.
LBWF now has a few weeks to respond to Mr. Irvine, with the Cabinet Member for Adults and Health, Cllr. Louise Mitchell, churning out the usual platitudes to the Daily Mail: ‘“The details at the centre of this tragic incident are extremely saddening. We owe it to Tracey and Joan [the former’s mother] to ensure the lessons of this case are learned and that we are doing everything within our power to prevent it happening again”’.
Inevitably, however, wider questions remain to be addressed.
In recent years, the number of staff in the Town Hall who earn between £50,000 and £200,000 plus has, inexplicably, grown substantially, in fact nearly trebling between 2018 and 2023 (the date of the last available figures).
And unsurprisingly, this expansion has cost many millions of pounds (see links).
But during the same period, in addition to the case discussed here, there have been several other serious local safeguarding failures (see links), and also warnings about LBWF social workers struggling with the number of referrals before them.
Is it farfetched to suggest that these two sets of facts are causally related?
