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The City Council's Policy and Resources Committee considered the report on the Serious Case Review on the case of Brandon Muir, read the reports and my earlier views here.
I do not think the committee rose to the occasion on Monday evening. It is important that we recognise that a child aged 23 months died and that we should have ensured that we did everything we could to ensure that the people of Dundee have confidence in the child protection regime in Dundee. After the discussion on Monday evening I think it is important to take a step back and remember poor Brandon and reflect on whether any of us could have done anything else to protect him and are we doing everything we can for Dundee's children now.
I believe that the reports discussed last night should have been referred to the council's Scrutiny Committee where the report could have been examined in greater depth. The council has a duty to do all it can to reassure the people of Dundee that we are doing all we can to protect children part of that is examining in detail these reports and scrutinising them. A reasonable person watching us could easily say that if we refuse to scrutinise these reports 'then somebody, somewhere has got something to hide.' It would be a major mistake to allow this perception to go forth from the council chamber.
Seconding my colleague Kevin Keenan in his call for greater scrutiny I said, 'We must all take this report seriously and do all that we can ensure that children in Dundee receive protection. We must firstly state that the person most culpable in the Brandon Muir case is Robert Cunningham. We should also state that the issues here tonight are to do with procedures and with governance and not especially about the work at the coal face. Many staff are working very hard in very trying circumstances and they should be commended for their hard work. We need to ensure that we are Getting It Right For Every Child and that the council, in many cases the corporate parent, takes its responsibilities seriously. Yes, we need an action plan but we also need to spend some time trying to clarify what the original reports said and trying to understand how we got here. Only by spending some time looking at how we got here in the first place can we go some way to trying to learn the lessons of these reports.'
I do not think the committee rose to the occasion on Monday evening. It is important that we recognise that a child aged 23 months died and that we should have ensured that we did everything we could to ensure that the people of Dundee have confidence in the child protection regime in Dundee. After the discussion on Monday evening I think it is important to take a step back and remember poor Brandon and reflect on whether any of us could have done anything else to protect him and are we doing everything we can for Dundee's children now.
I believe that the reports discussed last night should have been referred to the council's Scrutiny Committee where the report could have been examined in greater depth. The council has a duty to do all it can to reassure the people of Dundee that we are doing all we can to protect children part of that is examining in detail these reports and scrutinising them. A reasonable person watching us could easily say that if we refuse to scrutinise these reports 'then somebody, somewhere has got something to hide.' It would be a major mistake to allow this perception to go forth from the council chamber.
Seconding my colleague Kevin Keenan in his call for greater scrutiny I said, 'We must all take this report seriously and do all that we can ensure that children in Dundee receive protection. We must firstly state that the person most culpable in the Brandon Muir case is Robert Cunningham. We should also state that the issues here tonight are to do with procedures and with governance and not especially about the work at the coal face. Many staff are working very hard in very trying circumstances and they should be commended for their hard work. We need to ensure that we are Getting It Right For Every Child and that the council, in many cases the corporate parent, takes its responsibilities seriously. Yes, we need an action plan but we also need to spend some time trying to clarify what the original reports said and trying to understand how we got here. Only by spending some time looking at how we got here in the first place can we go some way to trying to learn the lessons of these reports.'
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